10.
Title: Inside the Victorian Home
Author: Judith Flanders
Pages: 416
Genre: History
Medium: paperback
Acquisition:
Date Completed: January 16, 2012
Rating: ***

Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England is a popular (as opposed to academic) text that attempts to use the structure of a typical Victorian household to describe various elements of nineteenth-century British life. The organizational pattern is only marginally successful, as Flanders frequently moves beyond the confines of each chapter to provide broader observations.

But organization is not the only complaint I have with the text. While reading of subjects with which I am extensively familiar (such as corsetry, as a single example of many) I frequently found myself disagreeing with Flanders's interpretations and presentations. Interestingly, I found that the same sources of research that would lead me to disagree with Flanders are also to be found on her list of secondary sources. Such discrepancies were often minor, but ultimately tainted my reading of the text as I considered the validity of the information related to subjects with which I'm less familiar.

11.
Title: Understanding Comics
Author: Scott McCloud
Pages: 215
Genre: Nonfiction Graphic Novel
Medium: paperback
Acquisition: mentioned by a colleague
Date Completed: January 17, 2012
Rating: **1/2

The premise of Understanding Comics appealed to me when a colleague first described McCloud's work: a history of comics and graphic novels told as a graphic novel. Fantastic! Unfortunately, the execution was not what I had hoped for.

Understanding Comics is less a history of the evolution of comics, and more an attempt to find a place for comics in the fields of literature and art history. Far-reaching and often grasping, McCloud presents a malleable definition of "comic" in his attempt to legitimize the genre and find a critical space for the work. As a new fan interested in the genre, I found the text awkward and obtuse.