Book Binge of President's Day Weekend results

Ahhh.  I had to do too many other grown up things for this to be a real book binge, but I did spend significant chunks of time chasing the sunlight across my floor while reading.  I cleared off a shelf of to-reads.  It was nice.  My hands have been a wreck all week, but consequences are unavoidable.  I suppose retirement is when you don't have any more grown up things on your to do list that keep stealing your time away from reading . . .

Read

• Black Jack 1-3 by Osamu Tezuka: A-ma-zing.  I am slowly collecting this series, but I hadn't started reading it, frankly, because I was afraid it would gross me out.  I read Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, but I guess I worried about medical grossiosity.  Unnecessary.  Thank goodness for cartoony art style.  I have now realized why they say Tezuka is a master.  This short form has so many restrictions, and it doesn't matter at all.  Wow.
• Bride's Story 1-2 by Kaoru Mori: So. Beautiful.  Life in central Asia in the 19th century.  So much attention to detail that it will blow your mind.  This could not have worked as well as a simple novel.  Oddly, it reminded me a bit of Suzanne Fisher Staples' Shabanu and Haveli.  It felt like that kind of immersion in another culture, but, unlike Staples' work, which often reads like a worst case scenario handbook, Mori's is mostly about the positive, daily joys and chores of life.
• The Cage of Zeus by Sayuri Ueda: A bit ham-handed at first, but it still manages to provoke thought.
• The Crown Conspiracy by Michael J. Sullivan: Good fun that reminds me a bit of some of David Eddings character-centric fantasy works where everybody kind of slowly grow on you, and you hope they don't all die in the end.
• Itazura no Kiss 1: I don't know why I like this story; it starts out ridiculous, and I would hate the main character in real life.  What can I say?  I'm hooked and sad that the author died before completing the story.  There are a lot of volumes to read before the story ends, though, and I'm looking forward to it.
• Kekkaishi 30:  Oh, adrenalin and politics.
• Library Wars 7:  Libraries, freedom, politics.  Loving it.
• MW by Osamu Tezuka:  I was warned that this was dark.  So bleak. 
• Natsume's Book of Friends 11:  Sad times.  Seeing a character's painful childhood painted in the colors of wistful.
• Strawberry Marshmallow 4: Silly and ridiculous, goofy and fun.
• Twin Spica 9-11:  Good thing I was on the bike when the incident of Sudden Unexpected Character Death occurred because I would have fallen off the stair climber.  Not allowed at the end of a volume!  It really SUCD!  Thank goodness the next volume was waiting for me at home on the other side of 8 hours, or this might have been a fatal blow for me.
• Two Flowers for the Dragon 1-6: One unpublished volume would finish out the series.  I really don't know who she'll choose, but this was a pretty amazing and fun ride anyway.  And it's the only manga I've ever read where the author points out that polyamory would solve the love triangle problems.

Made progress in

• Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller
• The Masque and the Dagger by Benjamin Truant
• The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon

So much more to read . . .