What manga are you reading now?

A Christmas Carol (illustrated by PJ Lynch) - A lovely story that was a pleasure to revisit, I've read it once before many years ago but unsure if that version was slightly to moderately abridged, this is the full text and it's as touching and resonantly relevant as ever. I heccin' CRIED when Tiny Tim died in the Christmas yet to come bit, I knew he was gonna survive when Scrooge turns over a new leaf at the end but it still made me feel so much for him and Bob Cratchit. This has made me really curious about the audiobooks of one or two Dickens novels I have in my Audible library, and the illustrations do a very good job of complimenting the text and helping bring the story to life :)

Daytime Shooting Star Volume 1 - A beautiful, slightly dreamlike first volume, I definitely want to see where this series goes :)
 
Jonathan Swift's Gulliver, retold by Martin Jenkins with illustrations by Chris Riddell - Before reading this, the version I knew best was the excellent live-action TV miniseries from 1996 starring Ted Danson as Gulliver, I have not read the original Gulliver's Travels by Swift. I enjoyed this very much overall, though some of the satire isn't so on point tbh (like the bit about how health problems would be rare if it weren't for our eating and drinking habits, which is really a pretty ableist and ignorant thing to believe.) I have other criticisms as well on that score, but at the same time it is an imaginative, engrossing story, and the illustrations are cool though not enchanting in the way that Riddell's Little Prince was. And don't get me wrong some of the satire is really well thought out... just not all of it. Also I felt a bit sad about how underwritten Gulliver's wife is here as a character compared with the TV miniseries version. But this was def worth reading and some intriguing food for thought on civilisation and it's discontents :)
 
Now I why people say shirow has gone of the deep end he's been making hentai for a some time now he's last manga he did was Pandora in the Crimson Shell I wonder what triggered such a change in direction?
 
The Jan Pienkowski-illustrated Fairy Tale Library - Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Puss-in-Boots, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White - This is a lovely little set of beautifully illustrated smol hardcover books retelling well known fairytales, and I really enjoyed all of them, lovely mix of black and white and colour with silhouettes illustrations that reminded me of Lotte Reiniger's stunning The Adventures of Prince Achmed :)
 
RadFemHedonist said:
The Jan Pienkowski-illustrated Fairy Tale Library - Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Puss-in-Boots, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White -
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Love Jan Pienkowski's illustrations (we have this and other lovely collections). Do you know his illustrations for the Joan Aiken stories: The Kingdom Under the Sea and A Necklace of Raindrops? A truly magical collaboration.
 
Sarah said:
Love Jan Pienkowski's illustrations (we have this and other lovely collections). Do you know his illustrations for the Joan Aiken stories: The Kingdom Under the Sea and A Necklace of Raindrops? A truly magical collaboration.
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I came across them while researching his fairy tales and A Thousand Nights and One Night, but I couldn't find them in hardcover for reasonable prices, they did look lovely though :)
 
Sarah said:
Love Jan Pienkowski's illustrations (we have this and other lovely collections). Do you know his illustrations for the Joan Aiken stories: The Kingdom Under the Sea and A Necklace of Raindrops? A truly magical collaboration.
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RadFemHedonist said:
I came across them while researching his fairy tales and A Thousand Nights and One Night, but I couldn't find them in hardcover for reasonable prices, they did look lovely though :)
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Having looked again, it appears The Kingdom Under the Sea is quite hard to find in hardcover, but I managed to purchase a secondhand copy from Oxfam for less than £25 including postage, and A Necklace of Raindrops appears to still be widely available in hardcover, so I'll wait on that one at least until either The Kingdom Under the Sea has arrived and I've read it, or I get more monies to spend on books :)
 
RadFemHedonist said:
Having looked again, it appears The Kingdom Under the Sea is quite hard to find in hardcover, but I managed to purchase a secondhand copy from Oxfam for less than £25 including postage
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That's good book- tracking skills; respect! :) I'm sure you won't regret this purchase. It would be really good, though, if the publishers could do a reprint or a new edition, especially as it's not that long since his death (2022).
 
Sarah said:
That's good book- tracking skills; respect! :) I'm sure you won't regret this purchase. It would be really good, though, if the publishers could do a reprint or a new edition, especially as it's not that long since his death (2022).
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I was unaware that Pienkowski had passed away, and quite recently too - I hope he lived to a ripe old age, and at least take some solace in that he appears to have done what he loved with his life :) The secondhand Oxfam copy is without dust jacket but looks to be in pretty good condition apart from that, and thankyou for the compliment on my book-tracking skills, I'm generally not bad at that sort of thing, and know about looking up ISBNs and the like though in this case I just searched for the book's name and the word hardcover or hardback :)
 
Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest ch 153

Hajimete no Gal ch 178

How Not to Summon a Demon Lord ch 102.1-102.2

Karakai Jouzu no (Moto) Takagi-san ch 303-304

Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World ch 80-82

Tales of Wedding Ring's ch 80-81

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime ch 115

The Honor Student's Secret Job ch 39

Tsugumomo ch 164
 
Monologue Woven for You vol 1
Another Yuri manga. The mangaka has a new story coming out soon and I had already bought this one (3 volumes), so I thought I'd check it out.
Haruka loves the theatre, or she did! Now some 4ish years later (as far as I can gather she quit in the first year of High School) she's in her second year at university having completely locked away her previous love of the theatre when she meets Nao, a first year, who's crazy about it! Turns out Haruka was a massive inspiration for Nao, but both of them keep quiet about it least it spoil their relationship!
The art is rather nice and they're full colour too.
 
Monologue Woven for You vol 2
Whilst the relationship continues to be sweet the mystery of what happened in the past only gets hinted at a few times. Hopefully it will be revealed in the last volume and be worth the wait.
 
Monologue Woven for You vol 3 (complete)
Pretty good ending, although the reason why Haruka quit theatre was pretty dumb and her reaction to finding out that Nao knew she had been an actor was very melodramatic, although it wasn't through Nao telling her, but accidentally finding a cast list from the play Nao saw, so I suppose that would be a bit of a shock.
Overall the relationship was very sweet though.
7/10
 
The Kingdom Under the Sea (Joan Aiken, Jan Pienkowski, Hardback) - Ooh this was absolutely lovely! Stunning illustrations - I'm not the biggest fan of black and white and tend to prefer colour but Pienkowski is a masterful silhouette artist and I adored the pictures in this book (there are also a few lovely illustrations with colour behind the silhouettes) - and Joan Aiken's retellings of Eastern European fairytales are lyrical and poetic, striking just the right balance between making the stories seem a bit less... uhh... overly patriarchal? But without simplistic bowdlerisation. For anyone who is curious this is the older edition from 1971 published by Jonathan Cape rather than the 2011 Random House reprint :) Thankyou so much to @Sarah for your recommendation, was well worth every penny and the time spent! :)
 
@RadFemHedonist : I'm so glad your copy arrived safely and that you love the book; it's long been a favourite in our family and it seems a perfect marriage of author and illustrator! 😌 (And good, I think, to have discovered a 1971 edition - I think my sister must have ours as I can only find the paperback.)
 
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