Notes from a bibliophile

I've never read Margaret Atwood until now. However, she's one of those authors that anyone who considers themselves well-read should probably read. Most people start with probably her best-known novel, The Handmaid's Tale, and to be honest, that's where I planned to start, whenever I got around to it. But then I saw that Netflix was making this novel into a miniseries and that it was about a true crime. Sold! Set in the 1800's, Alias Grace covers a lot of ground. Grace Marks and her family emigrate from Ireland because her father is a drunken reprobate who's worn out his welcome on his wife's relatives. They buy the entire (huge) family passage to Canada to start over. During the trip, Grace's poor, long-suffering mother dies. Grace has just become the woman of the household, and must take care of her younger siblings and evade her father's wrath, and she's not even in her teens. After reaching Canada, her father settles into his old ways, even...

If ever there was a tale that required graphic novel treatment, it's this one, and the art is incredibly well done. The story of the 47 Ronin is apparently an ancient tale, almost folklore, in that there are apparently various tellings throughout Japan. Back when Japan was a shogunate, Lord Asano was wrongly (at least in this telling of the story) accused of dishonoring a court official and was sentenced to commit seppuku. Because he was given a death sentence, all his land, his home, his belongings, and his retainers were to be handed over to the emperor. This did not sit well with his retainers, especially his head counselor Oishi, who had warned him about holding his temper. They know they must depart from the house and become ronin, leaderless samurai, but they refuse to allow this affront to their master stand. Of all his hundreds of retainers, 47 of them stand with Oishi and vow to get revenge, no matter how long it takes. And it takes a long time. During the years they w...