Category: Doreen

Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business by Arvind Ethan David, Ilias Kyriazis & Cris Peter

Quick aside before we get to the meat of the book itself: being one of the few Malaysian American book critics in the industry sometimes makes it extra hilarious when I read claims like Arvind Ethan David’s in his opening dedication, where he says that elc International School is Malaysia’s “preeminent private school”. Insert me …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/12/raymond-chandlers-trouble-is-my-business-by-arvind-ethan-david-ilias-kyriazis-cris-peter/

Friends In Nature by Marina Ruiz

subtitled Discover Earth’s Amazing Ecosystems. And oh what a lovely and surprisingly topical look this is at not only the ways that plants and animals form mutually beneficial ecosystems in nature, but also how integral they all are to human life! A lot of science books talk about humans almost as if we’re separate from …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/11/friends-in-nature-by-marina-ruiz/

An Interview with Wendy Gee, Author of Fleet Landing

Hello, dear readers! It’s been a while since we’ve published an interview with an author, so I’m super pleased to share with you a brief Q&A conducted with debut novelist Wendy Gee! As a volunteer at the Charleston Fire Department, Ms Gee had a front row seat to the hustle and intrigue common in firefighters’ …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/10/an-interview-with-wendy-gee-author-of-fleet-landing/

Redcoat, Volume 1: Einstein & The Immortal by Geoff Johns & Bryan Hitch

With a tagline like “Immortal. Mercenary. Kind of a tool” this is the kind of book that is usually pure catnip to me. Tho I have to admit that by the fourth or fifth issue opener of “My name is Simon. Simon Pure. Though I’m anything BUT”, I was ready to cheerfully strangle someone, character, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/09/redcoat-volume-1-einstein-the-immortal-by-geoff-johns-bryan-hitch/

Tantalizing Tales — June 2025 — Part One

Hello, dear readers! I hope you’re having a Happy Pride Month, even as we in America watch our politicians regress in a myriad of appalling ways. Luckily, there is plenty of good reading to keep us company and comforted — if not outright inspired — starting with Elena Malisova & Katerina Silvanova’s swoony, star-crossed gay …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/06/tantalizing-tales-june-2025-part-one/

Fishflies by Jeff Lemire

w a terrific guest chapter by Shawn Kuruneru that really exemplifies the benefit of having someone else come in and contribute their entirely different style to your already well-told story. Three boys are walking to the convenience store one night during fishfly season, when the titular insects rise in swarms off of the nearby lakes …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/05/fishflies-by-jeff-lemire/

Madame Sosostris And The Festival For The Brokenhearted by Ben Okri

Do you believe that books come to you when it’s the right time for them? That doesn’t mean that you’re going to read them and immediately connect: and there’s a lot to be said for coming to books like Catcher In The Rye and the more dire works of Anne McCaffrey as an adult, when …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/04/madame-sosostris-and-the-festival-for-the-brokenhearted-by-ben-okri/

A Dumb Birds Field Guide To The Worst Birds Ever by Matt Kracht

Lol, that really is the entire title, which should prepare you for the irreverent humor within the pages of this bird guide, written from the point of view of someone who (hilariously) loathes birds. Matt Kracht has been writing about birds for quite a while: while he might really hate them, he certainly knows his …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/02/a-dumb-birds-field-guide-to-the-worst-birds-ever-by-matt-kracht/

Cousins In The Time Of Magic by Emma Otheguy

with delightful illustrations by Poly Bernatene. Bear with me while I tell you an anecdote here. I used to work in some decently nice restaurants, and at one of them had a manager of Mexican descent who loathed Cinco de Mayo. According to him, it’s a holiday made up by American beer companies that no …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/05/30/cousins-in-the-time-of-magic-by-emma-otheguy/

Allegro by Ariel Dorfman

Friends and readers, what a glorious thing it is to have music in the world! Whether you appreciate it for itself, or for the ways in which it can bring you closer to divinity — as Johann Sebastian Bach, among so many others, believed — music is a gift that connects the interior world ineffably …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/05/29/allegro-by-ariel-dorfman/