Our Holiday Gift Guides are here to help you find the perfect page-turner for every bookworm on your list this year!
This collection shows off the diversity and scope of the modern graphic novel, including works of journalism, biography and history, science and philosophy, and the welcome, triumphant return of the romance comic.
Lore Olympus, Volume Five
Rachel Smythe
Inklore
A stylish and contemporary reimagining of one of the best-known stories in Greek mythology. It is Persephone’s birthday, and she receives the ultimate gift: Hades confesses his desire for her, leading to their first kiss. But that doesn’t necessarily make things easier for the goddess of spring, who is still in over her head in gossip-driven Olympus. Persephone feels intense guilt over the official breakup between Hades and Minthe, she is struggling to find her footing in her fast-paced job, and — worst of all — the shades of her past are slowly coming to light. After an unexpected encounter with Apollo, Persephone flees into the depths of the Underworld. Concerned for her safety and determined to find her, Hades must team up with Artemis, Eros, and Hera, but they’re working against a ticking clock. Zeus knows about the bloody secret in Persephone’s past, and now the furious king of the gods will stop at nothing to bring her to justice
Diaries of War: Two Visual Accounts from Ukraine and Russia
Nora Krug
Ten Speed Graphic
Immediately following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Nora Krug connected with two anonymous subjects—“K.,” a Ukrainian journalist, and “D.,” a Russian artist—and began what would become a year of correspondence. Diaries of War transforms Krug’s weekly communications with K. and D. into an intimate, illustrated epistolary format. With millions of Ukrainians displaced, injured, or killed as a result of the conflict, Krug provides a personal look at the sorrowful effects of war on an individual level—such as loss of resources, emotional and existential distress, displacement and disconnection.
I Must Be Dreaming
Roz Chast
Bloomsbury Publishing
Ancient Greeks, modern seers, Freud, Jung, neurologists, poets, artists, shamans—humanity has never ceased trying to decipher one of the strangest unexplained phenomena we all experience: dreaming. Now, in her new book, Roz Chast illustrates her own dream world, a place that is sometimes creepy but always hilarious, accompanied by an illustrated tour through “Dream-Theory Land” guided by insights from poets, philosophers, and psychoanalysts alike. Illuminating, surprising, funny, and often profound, I Must Be Dreaming explores Roz Chast’s newest subject of fascination—and promises to make it yours, too.
Roaming
Jillian Tamaki, Mariko Tamaki
Drawn and Quarterly
Over the course of a much-anticipated trip to New York, an unexpected fling blossoms between casual acquaintances and throws a long-term friendship off-balance. Emotional tensions vibrate wildly against the resplendently illustrated backdrop of the city, capturing a spontaneous queer romance in all of its fledgling glory. Slick attention to the details of a bustling, intimidating metropolis are softened with a palette of muted pastels, as though seen through the eyes of first-time travelers. The awe, wonder, and occasional stumble along the way come to life with stunning accuracy. Roaming is the third collaboration from the critically acclaimed team behind Skim and Governor General’s Literary Award winner This One Summer. Moody, atmospheric, and teeming with life, the magic of this comics duo leaks through the pages with lush and exquisite pen work. The Tamakis’ singular, elegant vision of an urban paradise slowly revealing its imperfections to the tune of its visitors’ rhythms is a masterpiece—a future classic for generations to come.
Roaming
Jillian Tamaki, Mariko Tamaki
Drawn and Quarterly
When Edel was nine, Fidel Castro announced his surprising decision to let 125,000 traitors of the revolution, or “worms,” leave the country. The faltering economy and Edel’s family’s vocal discomfort with government surveillance had made their daily lives on a farm outside Havana precarious, and they secretly planned to leave. But before that happened, a dozen soldiers confiscated their home and property and imprisoned them in a detention center near the port of Mariel, where they were held with dissidents and criminals before being marched to a flotilla that miraculously deposited them, overnight, in Florida. Through vivid, stirring art, Worm tells a story of a boyhood in the midst of the Cold War, a family’s displacement in exile, and their tenacious longing for those they left behind. It also recounts the coming-of-age of an artist and activist, who, witnessing American’s turn from democracy to extremism, struggles to differentiate his adoptive country from the dictatorship he fled. Confronting questions of patriotism and the liminal nature of belonging, Edel Rodriguez ultimately celebrates the immigrants, maligned and overlooked, who guard and invigorate American freedom.
