- Lizard in a Zoot Suit by Marco Finnegan
- Samurai Cat in the Real World by Mark E. Rogers
- Jack Vance’s The Face (Demon Princes, Book 4)
- Jack Vance’s The Book of Dreams (Demon Princes, Book 5)
- Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 1, by Various Artists
- Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 2, by Various Artists
- Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping by Matthew Salesses and The Anti-Racist Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez
- Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 3, by Various Artists
- Wanderhome, by Jay Dragon
- Elements of Fiction, by Walter Mosley
- Hidden Folk, by Eleanor Arnason
- The Wages of Whiteness (Revised Edition) by David R. Roediger
- The Katurran Odyssey by David Michael Wieger, illustrated by Terryl Whitlatch
- Dragons (Time Life Enchanted World)
- May We Borrow Your Husband? and Other Comedies of the Sexual Life by Graham Greene
- Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada by Anna Brownell Jameson
- The Cursed Chateau by James Maliszewski, illustrated by Jez Gordon
- Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—And How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari
- Dinotopia: A Land Apart From Time by James Gurney
- Mouse Guard: Baldwin the Brave And Other Tales by David Petersen… and a song!
- Mouse Guard: The Owlhen Caregiver and Other Tales by David Petersen
- Thieves’ World edited by Robert Lynn Asprin
- My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
- Fish F*ckers by Kelvin Green
- Saga Volume 1 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- Scourge of the Scornlords: Meatlandia Book III by Ahimsa Kerp and Wind Lothamer
- Love is the Law by Nick Mamatas
- Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating by Jane Goodall
- The Graveyard Book Graphic Novel by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell
- Sirenswail by Dave Mitchell
- Roman Britain by David Shotter
- Saga, Volume 2 by Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- Menace Under Marswood by Sterling Lanier
- The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui
- Muse Sick: a music manifesto in fifty-nine notes by Ian Brennan
- Backwoods Witchcraft: Conjure& Folk Magic From Appalachia by Jake Richards
- Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel by Milorad Pavić, translated by Christina Pribićević-Zorić
- Modern Jazz Voicings: Arranging for Small and Medium Ensembles by Ted Pease and Ken Pullig
- Mammoths of the Great Plains by Eleanor Arnason
- The Home Brewer’s Guide to Vintage Beer by Ron Pattison
- The Planetbreaker’s Son by Nick Mamatas
- The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems by Michael Ondaatje
- Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
- The Sword of Samurai Cat by Mark E. Rogers
- Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson
- Vermilion by Molly Tanzer
- The Punch Line by Zzarchov Kowolski
- Embassytown by China Miéville
- Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson
- Gyo (Deluxe Edition) by Junji Ito
- Saga, Vols. 2–3, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur
- Smashed and Tomie by Junji Ito
- Uzumaki by Junji Ito
- The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu
- Dissolving Classroom by Junji Ito
As with other posts in this series, these #booksread2022 posts get published with some lag. I’m trying to be more punctual, though, and this one’s very recent.
Cursed Bunny is a collection of nightmares: curses gone infectious, an impossible pregnancy, a real estate horror, a fantasy set in a mythic desert, a few ghost stories with surprising twists. I was delighted to find a copy just sitting there on the shelf at one of our local libraries, crying out to be read.
I can understand why people have made comparisons to Angela Carter (despite my being only slightly familiar with Carter’s work): there’s something about many of these stories that feels strongly aligned with the older, creepy sort of mood and pacing of traditional fairytales, and Chung’s relentless plunging into the dark waters of the unconscious only heightens this feeling. Hans Christian Andersen also came to mind, especially when I began the collection, not for the stories most people know but for the darker and odder ones. (For example, the first story in Cursed Bunny, “The Head,” immediately called to mind both Andersen’s “The Shadow” and Ursula K. Le Guin’s interpretation of the Andersen story in “The Child and the Shadow” (collected in Language of the Night, but you may be able to read the essay over on Google Books).
Many of the stories are set in modern South Korea or feature modern South Korean characters, but a few are set in imaginary lands or in the past. It’s also a very self-consciously feminist work, which is to say that it explicitly explores many of the horrors of gender in modern South Korea, often focusing on the kinds of dilemmas and frustrations faced by women who for whatever reason are dealing with pressures and stresses for which their earlier social experiences have not prepared them—which, it sometimes seems, includes a lot of things that are open secrets, hidden from the young but on full display for anyone willing to open their eyes and see.
As for the translation, my impression is that it’s mostly quite good; what I mean specifically is that it mostly gets out of the way of the story, and supports understanding for a wide range of readers. (There are really just a few spots where I’m unconvinced about a translation decision, and most of them didn’t jolt me out of the text very much.) In any case, I enjoyed the collection and think it’s very much worth checking out!