I am a sucker for short stories, with my ever-dwindling attention span, and I’m also a bigger sucker for Neil Gaiman for his wild and imaginative stories. So for me, another short story book is a perfect summer read.Like most other short story books by any author, you get a mixed bag of good and not-so-good stories, but the positive side of things is that you can always skip the ones you do not like. With M is for Magic, unfortunately, I did skip many stories – many were already included in previous collections I have read, and others did not trigger my interest.However, there...

A warm summer afternoon in Damascus demands no less than losing oneself to the pages of a book. I stretched out on the balcony, amidst a light breeze and under the golden glow of the sun, to read The Angel’s Game, the new masterpiece by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, author of Shadow of the Wind, a book that held me captive to its timeless tale a few years back. The sound of car horns and traffic gradually faded away as I was absorbed into the world of David Martín, a writer amidst the turbulent and gothic 1920′s Barcelona, the mysterious circumstances, his house, and the sinister and...

Ten Word Summary: A sexually abused kid stuggles to survive and find forgiveness. Wow. The only time I felt breathless while reading a book was when I read The Life of Pi, which I still consider to be one of the best books of the century. Though this time I was not short on breath from the suspence, but rather from the heartache as I read word after word. It’s definitely not a summer read, then. The story is an autobiography, about David’s sexually abused childhood by his mother – a raging alcoholic – and physical abuse from his stepfather. The story starts...

Ten Word Summary: The megalomaniac title says it all – this ain’t for you. There is a reason why comedy shows are short and varied: Jokes wear thin. Imagine instead of attending a comedy show, you’re given the script and you’re expected to comprehend, appreciate, and laugh at it. It doesn’t work, unfortunately, most of the time. Sure, the book has its moments, and the approach is fun and intuitive. But just like a fresh paint of coat that makes the room brighter (or in a book’s case, different), sooner than later the paint’s gonna stink and...

Ten Word Summary: An empathetic story of love, faith and their ultimate loss. First, I have to get this thing out of the way: If you’re the person who flips open a book, find it’s full of pictures, and shove it away, you need to give this book a chance. This is not a superhero comic. This is a mature graphic novel, deep in symbology, but mostly, deeply emotional. Blankets is a graphic novel that tells the timeless tale of the first love, and not any love for that matter – the author’s/illustrator’s own first love. The story is a highly charged personal...