Nori by Rumi Hara
A DULCET DEBUT CAPTURING A TOUCHING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SPIRITED NORI AND HER GRANDMA
Ignatz nominated and MoCCA Arts Festival Award-winning cartoonist Rumi Hara invites you to visit her magical world. Nori (short for Noriko) is a spirited three-year-old girl who lives with her parents and grandmother in the suburbs of Osaka during the 1980s. While both parents work full-time, her grandmother is Nori’s caregiver and companion—forever following after Nori as the three year old dashes off on fantastical adventures.
One day Nori runs off to be met by an army of bats—the symbol of happiness. Soon after, she is at school chasing a missing rabbit while performing as a moon in the school play, touching on the myth of the Moon Rabbit. A ditch by the side of the road opens a world of kids, crawfish, and beetles, not to mention the golden frog and albino salamander. That night, her grandma takes to the Bon Odori festival to dance with her ancestors. When Nori wins a trip to Hawaii, she finds herself swimming with a sea turtle, though she doesn’t know how to swim.
In mesmerizing short stories of black and white artwork with alternating spot color, Hara draws on East Asian folklore and Japanese culture to create an enchanting milieu that Nori tries to make sense of, wrestling between the reality of what she sees and the legends her grandma shares with her.
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Second Hand Love by Yamada Murasaki
Softcover, 228 pages, black and white. Measures 6.1 x 8.4 inches.
In the end, we’re all the same…we just want to be smothered like babies against another human’s beating heart
Through a cracked door, heartsick Emi hears a playful growl. Cautiously, she lets her lover in—a wolf of a man wielding a bouquet of roses. His shoulders must have been four inches wider than mine. As I stood behind him, I fantasized about the broadness of his chest and the thickness of his neck…and about becoming his mistress once again.
And so their story goes. For a young woman interested in love without the hassle of a traditional relationship, an affair with someone else’s spoiled husband is just what she ordered—until it’s time to move on.
Then there’s Yuko: with even less time for married men’s shenanigans, she turns her attention to her aging father and the guilt of adultery that has gnawed at his heart for years. Her mother is long dead, yet her memory is enshrined for eternity in their—both father’s and daughter’s—mirrored indiscretions.
Drawn soon after the critically-acclaimed Talk to My Back, the two stories in Second Hand Love mark the triumphant return of Yamada Murasaki, one of literary manga’s most respected feminist voices. Translated by noted historian Ryan Holmberg, this edition includes an interview with the artist from the height of her career in 1985, where her wit and wisdom are on shimmering display.
Shiver: Junji Ito Story Collection
400 pages, 8.25 x 5.75 inches. Hardcover Graphic Novel Collection.
A must have for horror lovers and manga fans, this collection of 9 chilling, nightmare-inducing tales by Junji Ito will entice any reader.
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