Once we realized that New Orleans isn’t that far from the Mississippi border and since we had a rental car the whole time, we decided to go if we could find something to do. You know, checking off another state and all that. I found Stennis Space Center (NASA-yowza!) and the Infinity Science Center, the latter giving free tours to the space center. We woke up early, hit District Donuts for breakfast, then headed over the border. The tour of…
Flights & Chimes & Mysterious Times follows Jack Foster, a young boy from Victorian London. He spends most of his time away at boarding school, readying taking over the family business from his father when the time comes. Consequently, he has a pretty cold and distant relationship with his parents and finds that Mrs. Pond, the woman who cares for Jack, is the most affectionate with him. One day, Lorcan Havelock, a magician/spiritualist, comes into his mother’s life to replace…
We had breakfast at Mister Gregory’s and it was A M A Z I N G. I had the Fierce Femme and it is tied as one of the best meals of the trip and possibly the best breakfast I have ever had. So simple, so filling. Will have pics with my “iPhone pics” post! We signed up for the hop-on hop-off bus tour and, despite the crazy rain, had a good time. We took it from just next to the St. Louis…
(source) The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences goes through quite a time when the Department of Imperial Inconveniences (“The Department”) is set on following orders to kill all of the Ministry agents. Our two main characters, Eliza Braun (Ministry Agent) and Wellington Books (Ministry Archivist), find themselves with their hands full exploring a relationship between each other, getting to the bottom of the Department’s new orders, and trying to solve a kidnapping of one of the Ministry Seven. The Ministry Seven…
We landed around 4pm on Saturday and after picking up our rental car we made our way to the house where we would be staying (rented through VRBO). It was dark by the time we were ready for dinner but braved the French Quarter anyway and landed at Vacherie. I ordered the NOLA Style BBQ Shimp and Grits and it was the worst meal of the whole trip. The shrimp was pretty spicy and the grits were completely tasteless. I…
Black Science is about a team who invents a device that transports people to other worlds. They claim they want access to any and all resources to treat illness, but in turn they will be exposed to even more contagions and face a risk of encountering enemies. Someone ends up sabotaging their device so they have no control when or where they go next. People keep dying while they try to figure it all out. Visually, this graphic novel was…
How does Gaiman package up an utterly complete story and present it so perfectly? Stardust is an intricately woven tale that weaves together many lives and paths in such a seamless way that either a mad man or a genius had to write it. Stardust primarily follows the journey of Tristran Thorn to retrieve a fallen star for a girl he is trying to win over. On the way away from and back to his home village of Wall, Tristran…
This is my first Neil Gaiman book! The Graveyard Book is about a boy, Nobody Owens, who is adopted by Mr. & Mrs. Owens (two ghosts) and raised by the other graveyard inhabitants collectively. His guardian, Silas, organizes his schooling and how much contact he can have with the outside/living world. Bod is hidden from the outside world because the man who killed his family is still looking for him. We see Bod grow up: he meets a little girl…
Shutter was one of the first graphic novels I really got into after reading Saga. Part of the draw for me is that some reviewers had compared it to Saga and called it a modern-day Indian Jones story. This story follows Kate Kristopher, a 27-year-old living in an alternate-reality New York City. She is well known for writing books about the adventures she used to have with her late father, Chris, and works as a photographer. I’m caught up with…
The learning curve for something completely and utterly new can be pretty steep. For instance… graphic novels. A friend encouraged me to read Saga Volume 1 while we were at Powells some time ago. Ehh…the cover looked weird (SHUT UP I KNOW) and I just wasn’t really into comics at that point. “I think you’ll really like it,” she said. I wasn’t disinterested so I put it on my mental “to read” list for later. It all started with three…