Part memoir and part “this is how I work(or at least how I think I work),” this book is fascinating and, for someone who creates things, inspiring and useful. I’ll refer repeatedly to Ito’s explanations of how he develops his initial ideas. (The phrase in quotation marks above is a paraphrase, not a direct quote.)
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Writer and software engineer in the US Midwest. I enjoy poetry, horror, some f/sf, some mystery, some literary fiction (but not the kind where the main character is a professor and nothing happens).
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Uncanny by Junji Ito, Junji Ito, Jocelyne Allen
For the first time since his debut 35 years ago, horror master Junji Ito reveals exactly how he creates his …
caracabe started reading Supernatural Detectives 4 by Ella M. Scrymsour
caracabe started reading In the Black: In the Red by Gloria Vando

In the Black: In the Red by Gloria Vando, Anika Paris
In the Black: In the Red: Poems of Profit $ Loss (2025) is an illustrated anthology of poems about money: …
caracabe reviewed The Old Ambassador and Other Poems by Wayne Courtois
In The old Ambassador and Other Poems, Wayne Courtois gives the reader a sense of …
the universal in the specific
Lyrical and inventive, by turns (or sometimes simultaneously) witty, angry, and tender, these poems about living and aging and loving as a gay man in the US Midwest speak to everyone who has a body and feelings.
caracabe reviewed The Old Ambassador and Other Poems by Wayne Courtois
In The old Ambassador and Other Poems, Wayne Courtois gives the reader a sense of …
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caracabe finished reading The Old Ambassador and Other Poems by Wayne Courtois

Wayne Courtois: The Old Ambassador and Other Poems (Paperback, 2023, Spartan Press)
The Old Ambassador and Other Poems by Wayne Courtois
In The old Ambassador and Other Poems, Wayne Courtois gives the reader a sense of the queer experience in America …

Uncanny by Junji Ito, Junji Ito, Jocelyne Allen
For the first time since his debut 35 years ago, horror master Junji Ito reveals exactly how he creates his …
caracabe reviewed Other Olympians by Michael Waters
Trans rights are human rights, and trans stories are human stories
This thoughtful, sensitively written, and sensible book is especially important now, when people who don’t fit simplistic gender stereotypes are again being targeted and scapegoated. It’s a reminder that gender policing is Nazi ideology in practice.
caracabe finished reading Other Olympians by Michael Waters
caracabe started reading Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt

Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt
When a transphobic woman bombs Frankie’s workplace, she blows up Frankie’s life with it. As the media descends like vultures, …
caracabe reviewed The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monáe
Hopeful dystopian fiction
Unapologetically queer and hopeful fiction with urgent things to say, but not didactic. Janelle Monáe is an accomplished storyteller in the medium of the concept album. In this book, she collaborates with five fiction writers to create stories set in the dystopian world of her album Dirty Computer. Dystopian fiction is often a genre of resistance and hope, and that’s the case here. The authors recognize the messiness of human nature: even in communities of peace and mutual aid, characters find fear and hate and betrayal. But these stories challenge us to imagine the world that can be, if we create it. As Mx. Tangee says in the final story, “They don’t own the future.”
caracabe finished reading The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monáe

The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monáe, Yohanca Delgado, Eve L. Ewing
In The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, singer-songwriter, actor, fashion icon, activist, and worldwide superstar Janelle Monáe …
caracabe started reading The Old Ambassador and Other Poems by Wayne Courtois

Wayne Courtois: The Old Ambassador and Other Poems (Paperback, 2023, Spartan Press)
The Old Ambassador and Other Poems by Wayne Courtois
In The old Ambassador and Other Poems, Wayne Courtois gives the reader a sense of the queer experience in America …