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I just wanted to briefly share a couple of really wonderful books I read recently. In keeping with my unofficial rules these books are illustrated ( I try to only "review"books with pictures ) . They are also very different. Varjak Paw is a young adult novel all about cats. It's a quest story and is told with a wonderful economy and eloquence. I bought it for thew pictures but was delighted to find the story was great too. Varjak Paw is written by S F Said and illustrated by Dave McKean. A glance at Mr. McKean's work-especially his pen and ink work-will tell you what a profound impact he has had on me. He did an amazing comic series in the 90's called Cages but I think his children's book stuff is his best work. He also illustrated The Graveyard book, which i talked about in a previous post. I highly recommend this book.
Next is Enrico Casarosa's comic book story The Venice Chronicles, which is like a sketch log/story about visiting the country of his birth with his girlfriend. Enrico is an amazing artist and animator and is the founder of the international SketchCrawl. And is also one of the wonderful people responsible for the Totoro Forest Project. This book is just beautiful. The story is simple and engaging but for me the highlight is the paintings of Venice accompanied by childhood memories.I could't put the book down, I was transported to distant Venice. For anyone who's been to Venice it will recall what an incredible place it is to you. Really magical.