Mr. Burke's Reading List

Funny Shorts 5 More Comic Plays by John McDonnell (2024) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) My first book of 2024 but not really. It is a collecting on one-act plays, or scenes, really, that one can use in theater classes. I'll use the Good Reads description because I read this nearly a month ago and I've already forgotten much about it: In this collection you’ll find Dracula getting an image makeover, pigeons discussing their artistic methods, sibling rivalry among witches, an assassin who writes poetry, a verbal shootout in a senior center, Lucifer getting dumped by his girlfriend, a first date with an alien, and much more. These funny skits are perfect for community theater, schools, senior productions – anywhere audiences want to be entertained. Some were amusing, some were harder to get through. Not much to sa

The Shadow Glass by Josh Winning (2022) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) This was a pandemic book club pick. It received a mixed but mostly positive reviews. For fans of the Dark Crystal or Labyrinth (I've seen the first, not the second), imagine a similar film that was created by a one-time director named Bob Corman that defined a generation and spawned a lot of ancillary material. This is the world of the movie The Shadow Glass, which created a word known as "Iri", pronounced "eerie". Jack is the son of Bob, who recently passed away. Jack was estranged from his father, and now in financial straits, he looks to sell off some of his father's things. He winds up encountering creatures from Iri in his father's attic, which seek the Shadow Glass. Bad times have come to Iri and they have unti

Superman in the Fifties (2021) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) Last summer, I was in my local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library , and while there, I picked up 3 graphic novels. I read part of this one, and then put the pile on the side. I've been renewing them every three weeks since then. Of the three, this was the one that it took the longest to read. Back in the fifties, the artwork in comics was much simpler but there was a lot more text to read. The pictures are interesting enough, but nothing is visually stunning. And, of coure, the story lines are about 70 years old. The funny thing about this was the number of other rockets that landed on Earth and how many of those came from Krypton. There were three villains, not the Phantom Zone villains, who were imprisoned in a rocket. There was Krypto and Supergirl.

Superman '78 (2022) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) Last summer, I was in my local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library , and while there, I picked up 3 graphic novels. I read part of this one, and then put the pile on the side. I've been renewing them every three weeks since then. Superman 78 is a vit of an anomaly. Batman 66 holds a place in the hearts of many in a generation who grew up with reruns of the classic series day after day. At the same time, many of those same people, or their older siblings, grew up with the Adventures of Superman from a decade earlier. While people have fond memories of Christopher Reeve as Superman, there were only four movies to work with, the last time being a little different from the first two, and the mythology isn't quite the same as the comic book. Granted, some of th

Power Girl: Power Trip (2014) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) Last summer, I was in my local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library , and while there, I picked up 3 graphic novels. I read part of this one, and then put the pile on the side. I've been renewing them every three weeks since then. I finally spent a couple hours getting through the rest of Power Girl so I could return the book already. Power Girl has an odd history. For anyone past the half-century mark in their life's journey, they will recall that Power Girl was the Earth-2 Supergirl analogue, back when there was an Earth-2. Then in the mid-80s, DC Comics decided to "simplify" something that many of their fans didn't find all that complicated. (Yes, there were some contradictions that could've been cleared up by Fiat, but that&#

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (2022) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) This was a pandemic book club pick. It received a mixed but mostly positive reviews. I watched the series while I was waiting for the book to become available at the library. I think I'm glad that I did it in that order. For one thing, it preparted me for the intelligent dog that was abandoned from the military. For another, had I read the book first, I might've been bothered by some of the changes made for the book, including an entire subplot that was created for the show. Elizabeth Zott is a chemist except that she doesn't have her PhD because of an incident in school. She stabbed the mentor who tried sexually assaulted her and then wouldn't apologize for hurting him. She works as an asistant at the only place that would hire

Stake and Eggs by Laura Childs (2012) [No Image, Audiobook] (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) This is the fourth book in the Cackleberry Club series. For some reason, it was not avaible in ebook form at any of the three library systems in NYC. It was not available in book form in either Brooklyn or Manhattan. (I don't have a Queens branch near me.) And it was only available as an audiobook from the New York Public Library system through the SimplyE app, but not the Libby app. It was a total accident that I found it. I'd been searching Libby, but when I searched the libaries' website catalogues, I finally found it. SimplyE is an app that hast been on my iPad for quite a while. I don't remember downloading it and I can't say that I've ever used it. Maybe it was the app I used when I downloaded comic bo

The Zoo of Intelligent Animals by D.A. Holdsworth (2021) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) This may be the first "Did Not Finish" book that I've listed. It's certainly the first that I labeled "DNF". Usually, I decide at about 10% if it's worth continuing, and sometimes I ask again at 20%. Other times, I know in the first few pages. Unless I promised to give feedback, I've learned to cut my losses rather than suffer through -- and likely avoid reading anything in the process. (Games, videos, whatever.) I stuck with this book until I was almost halfway through. Things were finally starting to happen ... and I found myself totally uninterested. And if you're going to start with a trope like an alien zoo filled with humans, you need to make it a lot more interesting a lot sooner. And I mi

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (2022) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) This was a book club choice, but it got 0 votes, which is surprising because I thought I'd voted for it. It was the first one available for the library. I read it, without the audiobook. I get the feeling that the audio might've been difficult to listen to, both storywise and the way it was told. Jennette appears to have OCD but she is diagnosed as Mormon. That attempt at humor as about on par with the tone of the book. Her mother dreamed of being a star and wanting that for her daughter. Jennette has older siblings, but she is the one that got pushed into acting. And she always did everything her mother wanted because she loved her mother and her mother loved her and wanted the best for her. Or so she believed to be the case at the

Raising Caine by Charels Gannon (2015) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) This is the third book in the "Cainverse", which started with Fire With Fire> and Trial By Fire , and in fact follows immediately after the events of Trial By Fire where we meet the representative of the Slaasriithi (a big reveal for book 2). While the Consolidated Terran Republic is near the Arat Kur homeworld, a K’tor ship arrives. We learn more about the K’tor, which takes some of the mystery out of them, and their own representative states the same thing. This causes the Slaasriithi to move up their scheduled trip home because they fear K'tor treachery. As a result, Caine finds himself en route to the current Slaasriithi homeworld. At the same time, there is a renegade bunch of K'tor who have been, basically, disgraced in the e

Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro (2022) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) This was a pandemic book club pick. It received a mixed reviews. A car accident and its subsequent coverup affect the lives of a family of four -- and likely the family of the deceased -- as well as a family that doesn't even move into the neighborhood for years. The book opens talking about all the possible future of Misty Zimmerman should see survive this night. I thought we'd see some of this. We did not. The girl who dies is pretty much an afterthought except for when (some characters believe) she extends her influence from the beyond, enamating from the tree under which she died. The book then jumps to the 21st century. And then back to 1999, and 2010, and all over the place. I was curious if this book would work better as a linear narrati