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Dauber has assembled a history of comics in the United States that is as thorough as a pop history book can be expected to be. The presentation can be a bit colourless at times, and there were moments when the inclusion of certain topics felt unnecessarily late in the text, but overall it held together impressively.

This slice of life novel is a series of connected relationship stories connected by the framing of a playground hippo installation with rumoured magic properties. It's a charming, sweet experience.

Munroe has perfected the serious, scientific take on absurd questions and here he delivers another superb batch of his mashup of humour and physics.

The core of this book is a simple coming-of-age story with the message "the grass isn't always greener on the other side" that is given some life and character through magic realism and urban fantasy, but there's not much more than that simplicity to be found here. The characters can be odd and sometimes endearing, but there's too little to hold onto beyond that.

I first read Le Guin's version of the Tao Te Ching years ago and it was a formative text for me. Revisiting it today with a better understanding of her approaches and philosophy allowed me to appreciate it much more. She kept the text simple and direct, and it's easy to take in the meaning without attempts at needlessly flowery language.