Philadelphia Weekly

After you finish hyperventilating over the coming adaptation of what Entertainment Weekly calls the Citizen Kane of graphic novels--that'd be The Watchmen--buy Book Two of Jason Lutes' much-more-cinematic Berlin, about the Weimer Republic (you know, the glamour, the decadence, the intellectuals). ... Rutu Modan, the Israeli author of Exit Wounds, about a mystery behind a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, has Jamitli and Other Stories. It'll introduce fans of Wounds to her shorter pieces, including more about suicide bombings and serial killings. She's a blast. ... I guess I'm obliged to tell you Chris Ware has a new one out: Acme Novelty Library #19, including more from the sad, weird life of Rusty Brown. ... Gabrielle Bell reminds me of Adrian Tomine: Her stories are hipsterish and relatable. Cecil and Jordan in New York includes a piece about a girl-chair, which is so weird it's being turned into a film by Michel Gondry who directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. ... James Sturm--founder of the only college-level comics academy in the U.S.--has America coming out, a multi- layered look at the way the country evolved until the Depression. Sturm and co-author Rich Tommaso just won the Eisner Award (the comics Oscar) for Best Reality-Based Work for Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, which is also great ... If you have no idea what I'm talking about with all this comics stuff, get the new Drawn and Quarterly Showcase, which offers a nice panorama of graphic storytelling. ... Fantagraphics is bringing out a new Love and Rockets--what fans of the Hernandez Bros. have been waiting for. (If you don't know who they are, imagine if the Coen brothers were Latino instead of Jewish and made comic books instead of movies.) Jaimie Hernandez starts things fresh with a superheroine-gone-wrong tale of Penny Century, Maggie's old pal. Fifty pages of one story, hombre. ... Another family affair comes courtesy Deitch's Pictorama. Long story short: If you like R. Crumb and/or Joe Sacco in terms of style, and Michael Chabon for storytelling, you'll probably like Kim Deitch. ... If you're looking for a more traditional superhero, try October's Bat-Manga, collected by Chip Kidd. It's Japanese manga from the '60s but with Batman and Robin as the heroes. Long-lost and reportedly beautiful. ... Maus man Art Spiegelman has Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@*! coming out in October. Publishers Weekly calls it "a deeply personal self-exploration." ... Shooting War by Anthony Lapp� and Dan Goldman comes out in paperback next month. It's about a blogger who goes to Iraq to get the real story of the war--in 2011. (Good bet, guys, that we'll still be there.) Newsweek called it "a graphic novel that manages to stick a red-hot skewer into the war on terror."

Politics

If you're interested in this section at all, I've gotta assume you've been reading The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 by Bob Woodward. How many times can this man depress us? This is the fourth book he's written about Bush's administration and some say this is the most damning. ... For more good news, try John R. MacArthur's You Can't Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Politics in America. MacArthur is publisher and president of Harper's magazine, so he should know just how rarely people pay attention to important things. (When's the last time you read Harper's? And no, I don't just mean the Index.) ... Pissed off? Read Jason Del Gandio's Rhetoric for Radicals: A Handbook for Twenty-First Century Activists. Del Gandio lives in Philly, so we'll hit him up for some advance copies; the book doesn't come out till November, by which time it might be too late. ... Democracy Now's poor Amy Goodman, who got arrested at the RNC for absolutely no reason, has a new audiobook, The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them. Goodman doesn't have the most scintillating delivery, but what she's got to say is absolutely explosive. ... Of course, the must-read of the political season is Barack Obama's Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise, which is a collection of speeches by Barack Obama. The cover also touts the forward, which is by Barack Obama. I think he sewed the books together as well ... Did you like White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son by Tim Wise? Now Wise has Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male. I wonder if he's lonely; he lives in Tennessee. ... Soft Skull wins first prize for longest subtitle for its 15th-anniversary edition of William Upski Wimsatt's No More Prisons: On Urban Life, Homeschooling, Hip-Hop Leadership, the Cool Rich Kids Movement, Hitchhiking as Community Organizing, and Why Philanthropy Is the Greatest Art Form of the 21st Century! It's a classic. ... Before you read that, get Lost in the Supermarket: An Indie Rock Cookbook. The authors live in Vermont, so this might be indie rock with Birkenstocks. The press for the book says it "reclaims the kitchen for the hip crowd," which I guess is a political act. Get back in there, kids, and fight the oven.

Poetry

Even if you don't like poetry, you know Sylvia Plath. Black Sparrow Press has a new Collected Poems coming out, edited and with an introduction by her husband Ted Hughes. Apparently there's no end to the Plath legacy. ... Love your dog? Shelter by Carey Salerno is a book of poems about an animal shelter. Salerno has two things poets need to succeed (or to feel miserable that people aren't paying her more): an MFA and a Pushcart Prize nom. Her poems about Rottweilers behind bars are heartbreaking. ... W.S. Merwin has a new volume out, The Shadow of Sirius. This is No. 50-something from the most lettered man of verse. And the poems are still good! ... Less eminently, but not too much, Lucille Clifton also has a new book out. Clifton had two books nominated for a Pulitzer in the same year and was the first African-American woman to receive the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, which is a biggie. In Voices Clifton writes from the point of view of the man on the Cream of Wheat box: "Sometimes at night/ We stroll the market aisles/ Ben and Jemima and me ... " Don't you want to know more about their journey? I do ... Poet Tennessee Reed, daughter of Ishmael Reed, has written a memoir about having learning disabilities. Normally, I wouldn't recommend a memoir I haven't read, but Reed's book Spell Alburquerque is supposedly about overcoming racism and institutional authority. Yes! Let's do it! ... Don't forget to read Time & Materials, Robert Haas' book of poetry that won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award. ... Andrei Codrescu, a New Orleans journalist who used to do a lot of reporting for NPR in his amazing Slavic accent, has a new book/CD out, Jealous Witness, from Coffee House Press. It's his poetry with music by the New Orleans Klezmer AllStars. It's very weird, actually.