Aug 27 2026

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

The Odyssey translated by Emily WilsonEven writing down the title of this post enrages me, because this entire experience has been an exercise in pedantry that makes me get all Ben Affleck exclaiming “Fictional characters!” in Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back. We at The Frumious Consortium don’t usually credit translators in post titles, but in this case it feels very necessary, as Emily Wilson’s choices are stamped all over the work. Which is fine, great even! But given the source materials and publishing conventions and the recent controversies, writing the title this way feels like referring to Ultimate Spider-Man as “Spider-Man by Stan Lee, translated by Brian Michael Bendis.” I freely acknowledge that that might be an iykyk reference but I am sick to the teeth of this book and this drama, yet feel obligated to write about it and hopefully, after today and my subsequent newsletter, never treat it as the main subject of a piece again.

Yes, this grumpy ass attitude is going to permeate the rest of this review, sns. I think I would be more inclined to generosity if Ms Wilson had displayed a similar munificence of spirit in addressing the recent Christopher Nolan movie that also adapted this ancient story. I guess this is going to be both a review of her translation of this book as well as the film that she’s so bizarrely tied herself to, via her vituperative yet media-illiterate criticism of it. Feel free to bail on this review at any time, dear reader, or check out Doug’s far less annoyed perspective.

Anyway, here’s a lot of back story as to where I’m coming from with my review. I’ve been obsessed with Greek mythology since I was probably about eight years old, if not earlier: coincidentally the same age as Ms Wilson’s own discovery of the canon. Along with superheroes (which you know I will continue to reference in this review,) they were my favorite thing to read about. As a child, I read about both A Lot, and continue to read about each probably more than the average adult does nowadays.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/08/27/the-odyssey-by-homer-translated-by-emily-wilson/

Aug 26 2026

We Are Pan by Andre R. Frattino & Yasmín Flores Montañez

with vibrant colors by Fabi Marques.

For the longest time, I thought this was a graphic novel for Middle Grade readers, likely due to its cover. It is very much a Young Adult+ story tho, revolving as it does around five young people who are sent away from Cuba to evade Fidel Castro’s regime. Operation Peter/Pedro Pan was a perhaps not all that well-thought-out, real life mission to airlift kids to “safety” out of Cuba, led by the undoubtedly well-intended Catholic priest Father Bryan Walsh.

The five kids at the heart of this book all come from different situations. Rosa, the eldest, waits tables at a cafe while her parents eagerly welcome Castro’s attempts to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Eugenio dreams of studying art in Prague with his love Tomas, while his younger brother Joaquin seethes for reasons never fully explained. Wilfredo, the youngest, wants to be a musician just like his dad. And Antonia, whose voice carries the main narrative, is the pampered daughter of a lawyer who very much disapproves of Castro and passes that disdain on to his child.

We Are Pan does the best job it can to describe what it felt like to live in Cuba right before Batista fled, through Castro’s takeover and into the years beyond, as the liberation forces turned into an oppressive regime of its own. The kids all have differing experiences before they get on those planes, but most of them are sent by families scared of losing them to what they see as worse fates at the hands of the new government. Arriving in the United States is disorienting, as the kids are mostly split up while waiting for the rest of their families to make it over. The scenes with the kids doing their best to adjust and survive in the US were the most touching, for me.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/08/26/we-are-pan-by-andre-r-frattino-yasmin-flores-montanez/

Aug 25 2026

Fall Harvest Mini Coloring Book by Gaynor Carradice

It has been a draining year, y’all. There have been so many high points (Arsenal winning the league! My babies starting another year of school!) but also so many low points (my mysterious ongoing health issues, creeping fascism, and now the death of actual angel Dolly Parton included.) I’ve had to let so many things, primarily artistic, fall by the wayside. So far this year I’ve done a grand total of two art classes, when I used to do them almost weekly.

So when the lovely publicist at Adams Media (hi, Cindy!) offered me this title, I jumped at the chance! Something small and low pressure like this seemed like the perfect way to ease myself back into a regular creative practice. And now that I’ve had the chance to try it out, dear reader, I can assure you that this has been absolutely therapeutic in allowing me to enjoy making art once more.

The book itself fits the Cute ‘n’ Cozy name of the series perfectly. At about four inches square, it’s compact and easy to throw into an art kit. The forty-five black and white line illustrations inside feature both bold patterns and more intricate designs, all revolving around the theme of autumn and the harvest. Gaynor Carradice has drawn some lovely little scenes here, featuring the charming anthropomorphic animals that she’s especially good at.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/08/25/fall-harvest-mini-coloring-book-by-gaynor-carradice/

Aug 24 2026

Swing! by James Yang

With US Open fever getting underway, what better time to look at a delightfully retro kids’ book about tennis star Arthur Ashe — namesake of the main arena at the world’s largest tennis stadium — and the very personal effect he had on at least one family in the 1970s.

Our unnamed protagonist loves tennis and especially Arthur Ashe, who has a one-handed backhand just like her dad does. She and her dad love both playing and watching tennis together. But sometimes, our heroine has a bad day on the court, and her brain starts bouncing up and down like a tennis ball that she can’t get under control. And sometimes she has a bad day at school, with her schoolmate Timmy bugging her — the only Asian person there — for attention in increasingly irritating ways.

When Dad suggests that they take a break during a particularly frustrating passage of tennis, our heroine asks if she can get glasses like Arthur Ashe too. As they try on several pairs at the store, Dad tells her about all the ways in which Arthur Ashe is a hero, both on and off the court. Soon, she’s reconsidering her approach to both tennis and Timmy, and discovering the power of both courtesy and self-control.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/08/24/swing-by-james-yang/

Aug 22 2026

A Parish Chronicle by Halldór Laxness

I picked up A Parish Chronicle because I had never read anything by Halldór Laxness, and this looked short enough to be a low-investment place to start. Mission accomplished, then, for the publisher Vintage Classics, who issued the book as part of their “Brief Encounters” series, which they flag as “Short books. Timeless stories.” Other authors in the series include Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen, J.G. Ballard, Roberto Bolaño, Mikhail Bulgakov and Italo Calvino, and that’s just from the first three letters of the alphabet. The works chosen for these authors are also not the obvious ones, by and large. It’s nice to be in the target audience: people who might like to take a flyer on a big literary name without committing to one of the major works. Joyce but not Ulysses; Toni Morrison but not Beloved (though that one is fewer than 400 pages); Melville but not Moby-Dick. Thus with Laxness, I didn’t have to dive in at the deep end with 500+ pages of Independent People; I could sample the 112 page of A Parish Chronicle.

A Parish Chronicle by Halldór Laxness

The parish in question is Mosfell, which Laxness portrays as an out of the way place in western Iceland, somewhat on the way from Reykjavik to the northern coast. It may have been such in the mid-1800s when the bulk of A Parish Chronicle takes place, but in fact it is all of 12 kilometers east of the capital. Travellers occasionally pass through, bringing news of weather and sheep from other places, those two topics being the main items of interest in and around Mosfell. The locality was the site of the burial mound belonging to Egill Skallagrímsson, a saga poet. When Christianity came to the country, his remains were exhumed and brought to a church. Whether his bones — reputed to be inhumanly large — are still located somewhere in or near the church is difficult to say.

If you look at Mosfell now, you would think that the church had been there on the hill, its steeple silhouetted against the clouds, since ancient times. This, however, is not the case. Again and again this church disappeared from the hill. Over and over, it was thoroughly erased from the pages of history and omitted from the laws of God and man, failed to appear in written documents, was neglected in oral tradition. (p. 2)

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/08/22/a-parish-chronicle-by-halldor-laxness/

Aug 21 2026

Tantalizing Tales — August 2026 — Part Three

This was a weird day to start the English Premier League season, but Arsenal are top of the league, y’all! My internal calendar is all messed up now, lol. But we have some great books for you this week, including an upcoming thriller (also) set in London and written by one of my favorite podcasters — which is saying a lot because I have a really hard time concentrating on podcasts!

Jonathan Sims of The Magnus Archives is back to terrify readers with his latest novel, The Burn Line. London is suffering through the hottest summer on record when five travelers on the Tube are trapped deep underground one morning. These five people unwittingly become witnesses to something so profoundly disturbing that when they manage to return to their ordinary lives, they can’t remember exactly what it was they saw. All they know is that it was monstrous… and hungry.

But ordinary life isn’t as comfortably normal as they’d been used to. Each of them keeps losing time, and friends abruptly go missing. Something, it seems, is stalking them from the shadows. The five will have to reunite in order to figure out what’s happening to them and its connection to what they saw that day on the train, before something horrific can emerge from below to swallow the whole world.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/08/21/tantalizing-tales-august-2026-part-three/

Aug 20 2026

Mister Magic: The Graphic Novel by Kiersten White

adapted for the format by Scott Peterson, and illustrated by wife and husband duo Veronica and Andy Fish.

Y’all, when I tell you that I ugly cried my way through the end of this graphic novel, I super mean it. I had to sit back on the couch and take several deep breaths in order to fully recover from that ending. And I’ll be the first to tell you that it isn’t a perfect book — I still have lots of Questions! — but it is an astonishingly moving graphic novel adaptation that talks about some really important subjects, including what we owe not only to our children but to all children.

The premise is this: thirty-ish years ago, there was a kid’s TV show called Mister Magic. Countless kids would tune in to watch the magical adventures of six youngsters, none older than ten, who were known as the Circle Of Friends. The child actors enjoyed colorful, imaginative adventures under the benevolent eye of the title character, who taught them how to be good children.

But an on-set accident abruptly shut down production of the show. With seemingly no footage surviving, the show became almost an urban legend, even as numerous fans swore that they’d watched it religiously. A new podcast, however, claims not only to have brought the cast members back together for interviews but that a new iteration of the show is finally on the horizon.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/08/20/mister-magic-the-graphic-novel-by-kiersten-white/

Aug 19 2026

America’s Founding Myths by Christy Mihaly & Marta Sevilla

subtitled …And What REALLY Happened.

Forgive me for saying this in an incredibly brainrotted manner, but I highkenuinely feel that this book should be in every library accessible to American children. Preferably in physical format, for even as an adult, I did not have an easy time navigating the digital version. Regardless, this slender volume is so smart and informative, and vivid in its illustrations and design, that it definitely deserves to be widely available to young readers.

In this book, Christy Mihaly tackles some common myths about the United States of America’s early days. From the idea that the original colonists settled on uninhabited lands to the misconception that the unamended Constitution affirmed that all people should have basic equal rights, Ms Mihaly quietly dismantles all sorts of common fallacies about the USA’s beginnings. Not only does she present the multifaceted truth, she also examines how some of these fables came to be, whether it’s John Smith lying about his relationship to the far more famous Pocahontas for clout or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow taking a lot of poetic license when depicting Paul Revere’s ride (tho admittedly for far more high-minded reasons.) A lot of these untruths aren’t malicious, but the more widespread they become, the more likely their listeners are to believe tales of romance and heroism that are far removed from what actually happened. People love stories and we love mythologies, and many of us especially love black and white, hero vs villain narratives. Ms Mihaly gently corrects the record while acknowledging that her carefully researched and presented book might make a lot of readers uncomfortable in its commitment to the far less romantic truth.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/08/19/americas-founding-myths-by-christy-mihaly-marta-sevilla/

Aug 18 2026

Flame Con 2026!

On Sunday, I went to Flame Con! An annual convention in New York City, Flame Con is run by Geeks OUT, a nonprofit “dedicated to making the fan community more fun, inclusive and safe for geeks who are queer.”

With the focus on LGBTQ+ creators and fans, the fandoms range from anime to videogames, to podcasts, to ttrpgs, to a huge comics contingent, and prose books as well. I look forward to going every year. Each year of the con, Sunday is Youth Day, when anyone under 21 years old gets in free. This year I brought along my own kid and a friend of hers, and we all had a terrific time.

Emily's photo shows choral singers with the back of some audience members in the foreground

TRANScend performs at Flame Con 2026

After checking in and doing a quick orientation lap with the adolescents (where is the Quiet Lounge? Where are the bathrooms? What is the plan if you get separated?) I was thrilled to attend a performance by TRANScend, New York City’s trans and gender-nonconforming choir.

They performed a wide range of music, including a choral piece set to a Walt Whitman poem, a Casino pop song in Mandarin, the video game classic “Still Alive” from Portal, and closed with “The Parting Glass.” I was excited to see them in person because I have been following them on social media for a long time, and I hadn’t realized their members also arranged some of the pieces and played instruments for others. They are multitalented.

As usual, my interest is mostly in books, so after that performance I was paying attention to the library presence, the book signings, and the panel “Queering the Hero,” with luminaries from the superhero comics world.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/08/18/flame-con-2026/

Aug 17 2026

Little Monsters by Máire Roche

Honestly, stick any Little Women retelling in front of me and I’m gonna read it. Ofc, it helps that this one has a super interesting modern twist too. Some of the changes from the original had me wondering whether this really needed to be tacked onto the LW framework but overall this was a compelling story about sisterhood, emotional health and the burden of responsibility, with cryptids thrown in for good measure!

The four original March sisters are still here but in this story they’re foster children being looked after by the sensible but two-job-juggling foster mom they call Marmee. Meg is fourteen and terrified of being split up from her sisters, who need her not only because they’re young girls in an often uncaring foster system but because they all have weird, monstrous traits that could get them all shunned or worse. Meg herself has claws and teeth that pop out at the most inopportune moments, usually in times of stress or heightened emotion. Which, given that she’s a teenager who’s taken on the burden of looking after three younger kids and who up till now has been doing whatever she can to please a rotating case of foster parents, is unfortunately often.

When Meg starts waking up covered in dirt with her claws and teeth out, whether in bed or in the forest outside of her Salem, Massachusetts home, she begins to worry. She’s always known she’s a sleepwalker, but could she now be doing much worse without being aware of it? Her anxieties worsen when she hears about the rumors of nearby attacks on livestock and property damage by some weird, strange beast that the townsfolk are becoming more and more determined to capture.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/08/17/little-monsters-by-maire-roche/