July Staff Picks

Myan­na says:

“I nev­er imag­ined I’d rec­om­mend a book about pirates, but … Ami­na Al-Sir­afi is a leg­end to all: cap­tain of the might­i­est ship, leader of the most dan­ger­ous and skilled crew, and the cen­ter of many leg­endary tales. How­ev­er, hav­ing sur­vived risky mis­sions, sor­cer­ers, and mul­ti­ple hus­bands (one of whom was an actu­al demon), she now wish­es to retire to a peace­ful life with her daugh­ter and the rest of their fam­i­ly. That is, until a for­mer crewmate’s moth­er comes demand­ing the res­cue of her grand­daugh­ter. Can Ami­na resist one last adven­ture, even if it means turn­ing down rich­es, trav­el, and see­ing her crew again? Chakraborty’s char­ac­ters are hard to resist and her world-build­ing will teach you so much about the medieval Islam­ic peri­od and its beliefs, cus­toms, and myths.”

Dan says:

“I was sur­prised to learn that there was a graph­ic nov­el adap­ta­tion of The Great Gats­by. (I don’t know why I felt that way – a Nin­ten­do-style game ​“based” on the nov­el was released in 2011). My ini­tial sur­prise imme­di­ate­ly became delight, how­ev­er, as I read the com­ic. Fred Ford­ham stays true to the orig­i­nal text, while artist Aya Mor­ton’s illus­tra­tions are behold­en to nei­ther of the major film adap­ta­tions; she encap­su­lates the lux­u­ry and lech­ery of the book, and the era, but with an eye for style that is unique­ly her own. The Great Gats­by is the most Amer­i­can piece of media ever pro­duced, grap­pling with notions of class, wealth, crime, and our inex­orable wran­gling with a past – both nation­al and per­son­al – that may nev­er have exist­ed just how we remem­ber it. Ford­ham and Mor­ton have pro­duced a fresh and refresh­ing ver­sion of this Amer­i­can clas­sic; check it out for the Fourth of July and rein­tro­duce your­self to this nation­al trea­sure, new­ly ren­dered. You’ll enjoy it more now than you did in high school.”

Mary says:

“If you had the choice, would you rather trav­el to out­er space, or to the deep­est depths of the ocean? Before read­ing this book, I would have said out­er space, but now I long for the hadal zone. Casey writes enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly about ship­wrecks (and the peo­ple who explore them), the his­to­ry of ear­ly ocean explor­ers, and all the strange, alien-like crea­tures of the deep sea that very few peo­ple ever get to expe­ri­ence. When I was read­ing this book on a fam­i­ly vaca­tion, I kept annoy­ing every­one with facts about under­wa­ter vol­ca­noes and bio­lu­mi­nes­cent jel­ly­fish that eject their ten­ta­cles at preda­tors. Casey also writes, har­row­ing­ly, about microplas­tics and pol­lu­tants found even at the bot­tom of the ocean and about deep-sea min­ing (a seri­ous envi­ron­men­tal con­cern). I rec­om­mend this for ocean lovers, and also for any­one who obses­sive­ly fol­lowed the Ocean­Gate sub­mersible dis­as­ter.”