Even MORE new books!

I'm stocked up for the New Year. The last shipment arrived yesterday--this time from Amazon. I've been trying for a year to find the rest of the fabulous Criminal series by Ed Brubaker (writer) and Sean Phillips (artist). I had volumes 1, 3, and 5, but my nearest comic shop (Ashland) never seemed to stock the rest of the set. So I simply ordered volumes 2 and 4 on-line. The stories are standalone but also overlap, and are told with multiple flash-forward-and-back sequences, but they never lose their grip on you. The colors by Val Staples are pitch-perfect and bring the whole thing to life. If you are looking for noir, look no further. Brubaker is a master storyteller and the illustrators capture the characters and action perfectly. I'm a big John Shirley fan, and ordered his latest--Bleak History--as well. Mr. Shirley is not an easy guy to pigeon-hole. Sure, most of his stuff is fantasy/horror/sci-fi, but that's like saying James Joyce wrote about Irish people. It's true, but useless. John Shirley writes brilliant fucking shit that will explode your brain. How about that?

What's on your book pile?