Shooflypie

While I've been a fan of Spider-Man ever since I was a little kid and watched his adventures on The Electric Company , I've never managed to read Amazing Spider-Man on a regular basis, though I did read Ultimate Spider-Man for a while when it first came out. Earlier this year I grabbed the hardcover collecting the "Spider-Island" storyline but haven't gotten around to it yet. Now that I'm reading comics on my iPad via Comixology I thought I would go back to the start of Dan Slott's stint as the main writer on the title and catch up on the last couple of years. #648 ushers in the Slott era, which is called "Big Time" on the cover (a moniker that extends for quite a few issues as well), and also brings Humberto Ramos on pencils. This issue does a great job cluing new readers in on what Spidey has been up to - he's part of the Avengers and dating someone new (Carlie) - as well as what is happening in his world - for instance, J. Jonah Jame...

I've been thinking a bit lately about how many books I will never get to read. That's not a new idea, of course, but it's one that makes me sad from time to time. A good way to combat the feeling is to start reading a book and have it be one that I really like. Here are two such books I read recently... I'd heard some buzz about Daniel O'Malley's The Rook before the end of the year, enough to request it at the library. It's a book about a secret government organization in Britain called the Checquy that is responsible for fighting off supernatural menaces and the like (there's also an American Checquy). We learn about this world through the eyes of Myfanwy Thomas, who is also learning about this world. The thing is that Myfanwy isn't exactly Myfanwy. Myfanwy Thomas is a Rook in the Checquy, a position of great importance and power. The Myfanwy we meet at the beginning of the book has the body of Myfanwy but is a completely new personality. The ori...