Book Review: Adventures in Japan: A Literary Journey in the Footsteps of a Victorian Lady

Wow, sorry for not posting yesterday guys, I had a good sized headache all afternoon and evening yesterday and couldn't think straight enough to write up a review (and I don't have a buffer right now although I'm working on that). Fair warning, this happens semi-regularly and, while I have written reviews before with a headache, they're usually not very good so I try not to.

Anyway, it's a book! Sometimes I like to wander through travel section at my library and pull out all the coffee table books with pictures from other countries and stare at those for a few hours and other times I'll pick up a travelogue or two and spend a few hours staring at words describing a foreign culture. This one was the later which caught my eye because of it's slender size and the quote on the front of the book, "only the strong should travel in northern Japan." Not being very familiar with the north of Japan I was curious why the speaker said that and hoped that the book would explain and to an extent it did.

Adventures in Japan: A Literary Journey in the Footsteps of a Victorian Lady by Evelyn Kaye

 It's a nice touch to have the cover of a book be a collage since the book does cover the author's journey to many different places in Japan, not just one place that could be summed up in one image.

Summary: The biographer of Isabella Bird, a lady from Victorian England with a passion for travel, decides to follow in Bird's footsteps and visit the same places she did in Japan.

The Good: Most of the things that I read about Japan are either related to anime/manga or to Tokyo so it was interesting to read a book that covered a much different topic. Although the book is over ten years old, the way that Kaye describes the countryside and the places she visits, some of them unchanged from when Bird saw them, makes it sound as if this is a part of Japan that hasn't changed much over the decades and it's a very different image from the tech-savvy Japan that the west usually envisions.

The Bad: At times it seems that Kaye isn't sure of how much of Bird's travels to put into her story and the transitions between the sections feel a bit sloppy. She gets much better at balancing out the two stories as the book goes on but the beginning of the book is a bit weak. She also adds in too many unnecessary details at points (some hotel tvs in Japan are change operated, interesting! A cashier at a store gave her change back, boring!) and again, this problem occurs more towards the beginning of the book and everything is flowing much more smoothly at the end.

So, an interesting read but in some respects a very light read and I don't feel the urge to add this book to my collection. As a quick note for next week, I'll be posting my next review on Monday, not Sunday. I'm planning on that being a review of the first half of the latest Doctor Who season and, since I'm only getting around to seeing episode 7 on Saturday and I like to give myself at least a day between finishing a work and then reviewing it, I'm going to push back all the reviews just one day next week. See you then!

Comic Review: French Milk

Well, I had HOPED that this would be a review of the rest of the Akira manga but someone else at my school went around and snatched up all the books with a week left to go in school so I wasn't able to get to the last two books. It's a bit odd that those books were checked in all year and that someone checked out books five and six while they still had a request on book four (which I had out), I'm calling it a conspiracy until further notice.

SO, I grabbed this book at my local library simply because it had the same color cover as The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam which seemed like a good reason to pick it up. Plus I like travelogues so travelogue+comics=my kind of reading!

French Milk by Lucy Knisley

Summary: To celebrate her mother's 50th birthday, almost 22 year old Lucy and her mother decide to rent an apartment in Paris for five weeks and just take in the sights and experiences of the city.

The Good: The story flows better with pictures than if it had been all words and the entries have dates so it's easy to track their progress on the trip. It's a light read and a quick one as well (I think I read it in about a day, not that graphic novels that horribly long to read to start with) and it's not badly written at all. It's just a bit, fluffy.

The Bad: In the end, the book feels a bit shallow. Lucy complains a great deal about being stressed (understandable to an extent), not sleeping well, and missing her boyfriend a lot (but shouldn't she have expected that one?). All of that combined over the whole book made it hard to keep sympathizing with her, it makes you wonder why she even went along to Paris in the first place. Also, part of the fun of a travelogue is finding about neat little places that guidebooks don't mention and really getting a feel for the place through the writer's experience. That didn't really happen here, Lucy and her mother visit just the normal tourist destinations in Paris and it didn't feel like they or the reader learned anything new about the place during their trip.

The Art: There are a few photographs scattered throughout the book but by and large the book is told through hand drawn pictures/hand written accompanying text.  The art isn't particularly detailed, it's actually rather simple looking art, but it moves the story along and stays consistent. 

So, starting off the summer vacation with a dud, not a very encouraging thought now that I think about it but, since I've nearly gone through the libraries collection of graphic novels anyway, I'm not sure how many comics I'll be reviewing this summer anyway. Guess I'll just have to get creative as to where I'm getting my reading material then....