Books & More for Santa Cruz Readers...
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"Discretion is not the better part of biography."
— Lytton Strachey
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Graphic Novels 
Graphic Novels
American Born Chinese
by Yang, Gene Luen
YA GN FICTION YAN
Indie graphic novelist Gene Yang's intelligent and emotionally challenging American Born Chinese is made up of three individual plotlines: the determined efforts of the Chinese folk hero Monkey King to shed his humble roots and be revered as a god; the struggles faced by Jin Wang, a lonely Asian American middle school student who would do anything to fit in with his white classmates; and the sitcom plight of Danny, an All-American teen so shamed by his Chinese cousin Chin-Kee (a purposefully painful ethnic stereotype) that he is forced to change schools.
Asterios Polyp
by Mazzucchelli, David
GN FICTION MAZ
Asterios Polyp, its arrogant, prickly protagonist, is an award-winning architect who's never built an actual building, and a pedant in the midst of a spiritual crisis. After the structure of his own life falls apart, he runs away to try to rebuild it into something new.
BB Wolf and the Three LP's
by Arnold, J.D.
GN FICTION ARN
B.B.'s life seemed simple: farmer and family man by day, blues musician by night, and a drinker of fine spirits at any hour. But his fragile world comes crashing down when the LPs decide to take his land by any means possible. When all is lost, B.B. lashes out, setting into motion acts of revenge that only a big bad wolf could unleash. Set in the Mississippi Delta of the 1920s, B.B. Wolf & the 3 LP's is a classic story of racism, murder, revenge, and music, all wrapped up in the clever re-telling of a timeless fairy tale.
Blankets
by Thompson, Craig
GN FICTION THO
Wrapped in the landscape of a blustery Wisconsin winter, Blankets explores the sibling rivalry of two brothers growing up in the isolated country, and the budding romance of two coming-of-age lovers. Blankets is a tale of security and discovery, of playfulness and tragedy, of a fall from grace and the origins of faith.
The Complete Persepolis
by Satrapi, Marjane
GN NONFICTION
Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up.
Daytripper
by Ba, Gabriel
GN FICTION BA
Daytripper follows the life of one man, Bras de Olivias Dominguez. Every chapter features an important period in Bras' life in exotic Brazil, and each story ends the same way: with his death. And then, the following story starts up at a different point in his life, oblivious to his death in the previous issue -- and then also ends with him dying again. In every chapter, Bras dies at different moments in his life, as the story follows him through his entire existence -- one filled with possibilities of happiness and sorrow, good and bad, love and loneliness.
Fun home : a family tragicomic
by Bechdel, Alison
GN NONFICTION
In this groundbreaking, bestselling graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father. In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, written with controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion, and heartbreaking detail.
Habibi
by Thompson, Craig
GN FICTION THO
Sprawling across an epic landscape of deserts, harems, and modern industrial clutter, Habibi tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance, and by the love that grows between them. We follow them as their lives unfold together and apart; as they struggle to make a place for themselves in a world (not unlike our own) fueled by fear, lust, and greed; and as they discover the extraordinary depth -- and frailty -- of their connection.
Maus I : a survivor's tale : my father bleeds history
by Spiegelman, Art
GN NONFICTION SPI
A story of a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe and his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to terms with his father's story and history itself.
Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths
by Mizuki, Shigeru
GN FICTION MIZ
Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths is Shigeru Mizuki's first book to be translated into English and is a semiautobiographical account of the desperate final weeks of a Japanese infantry unit at the end of WorldWar II. The soldiers are told that they must go into battle and die for the honor of their country, with certain execution facing them if they return alive. Mizuki was a soldier himself (he was severely injured and lost an arm) and uses his experiences to convey the devastating consequences and moral depravity of the war.
The Photographer: Into War-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders
by Guibert, Emmanuel
GN NONFICTION GUI
In 1986, Afghanistan was torn apart by a war with the Soviet Union. This graphic novel/photo-journal is a record of one reporter's arduous and dangerous journey through Afghanistan, accompanying the Doctors Without Borders.
Pride of Baghdad
by Vaughan, Brian K.
GN FICTION VAU
In the spring of 2003, a pride of lions escaped from the Baghdad Zoo during an American bombing raid. Lost and confused, hungry but finally free, the four lions roamed the decimated streets of Baghdad in a desperate struggle for their lives. In documenting the plight of the lions, Pride of Baghdad raises questions about the true meaning of liberation - can it be given, or is it earned only through self-determination and sacrifice? And in the end, is it truly better to die free than to live life in captivity?
Stitches : a memoir
by Small, David
GN NONFICTION SMA
Depicting this coming-of-age story with dazzling, kaleidoscopic images that turn nightmare into fairy tale, Small tells us of his journey from sickly child to cancer patient, to the troubled teen whose risky decision to run away from home at sixteen -- with nothing more than the dream of becoming an artist -- will resonate as the ultimate survival statement.
Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey
by Tran, G. B.
GN NONFICTION TRA
A memoir in graphic novel format about the author's experiences as the son of Vietnamese immigrants who fled to America during the fall of Saigon describes how he learned his tragic ancestral history and the impact of the Vietnam War on his family while visiting their homeland years later.
Watchmen
by Moore, Alan
GN FICTION MOO
This stunning graphic novel chronicles the fall from grace of a group of superheroes plagued by all too human failings. The concept of the super hero is dissected and inverted as strangely realistic characters are stalked by an unknown assassin.
Graphic Novels - Series
Chew
Series Title: Chew
by Layman, John
GN FICTION LAY
Tony Chu is a detective with a secret. A weird secret. Tony Chu is Cibopathic, which means he gets psychic impressions from whatever he eats. It also means he's a hell of a detective, as long as he doesn't mind nibbling on the corpse of a murder victim to figure out whodunit, and why. He's been brought on by the Special Crimes Division of the FDA, the most powerful law enforcement agency on the planet, to investigate their strangest, sickest, and most bizarre cases.
The Color of Earth
Series Title: Story of life on the golden fields
by Kim, Dong Hwa
GN FICTION KIM
The first in a trilogy. Ehwa grows up helping her widowed mother run the local tavern, watching as their customers -- both neighbors and strangers -- look down on her mother for her single lifestyle. Their social status isolates Ehwa and her mother from the rest of the people in their quiet country village. But as she gets older and sees her mother fall in love again, Ehwa slowly begins to open up to the possibility of love in her life.
Fables
Series Title: Fables
by Willingham, Bill
GN FICTION WIL
The Fables are characters from fairy tales and folklore who have been forced out of their Homelands by The Adversary who has conquered the realm. The Fables have traveled to our world and formed a clandestine community in New York City known as Fabletown. Fables who are unable to blend in with human society (such as monsters and anthropomorphic animals) live at the Farm in upstate New York.
Ooku: The Inner Chambers
Series Title: Ooku: The Inner Chambers
by Yoshinaga, Fumi
GN FICTION YOS
In Edo period Japan, a strange new disease called the Red Pox has begun to prey on the country's men. Within eighty years of the first outbreak, the male population has fallen by seventy-five percent. Women have taken on all the roles traditionally granted to men, even that of the Shogun. The men, precious providers of life, are carefully protected. And the most beautiful of the men are sent to serve in the Shogun's Inner Chamber.
The Walking Dead
Series Title: Walking Dead
by Kirkman, Robert
GN FICTION KIR
An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. Rick Grimes finds himself one of the few survivors in this terrifying future. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family, he must now sort through all the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally begin living.
Y: The Last Man
Series Title: Y: The Last Man
by Vaughan, Brian K.
GN FICTION VAU
This is the saga of Yorick Brown--the only human survivor of a planet-wide plague that instantly kills every mammal possessing a Y chromosome. Accompanied by a mysterious government agent, a brilliant young geneticist and his pet monkey, Ampersand, Yorick travels the world in search of his lost love and the answer to why he's the last man on earth.
