INCOMING

• Paul Bishop, Sand Against the Time.  A Calico Jack Walker mystery.  Walker is a retired cop now running a fishing boat, Thieftaker.  When a couple of hardcases charter Jack's boat, Jack's cop instinct flares up.  "It's a mistake for a cop to ignore his instincts.  The two were after Thieftaker, not marlin.  They got an inpromptu burial at sea instead, but they nearly took Calico Jack's son with them.  Now Jack, and his ex-partner Tina, are going to find out just who is stupid enough, or dangerous enough, to try to steal a cop's boat, and murder a cop's son."

My bride has far more sophisticated tastes than I do, which is why she was excited when I picked up William Manchaster's A World Lit Only by Fire:  The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance:  Portrait of an Age.  Kitty was looking for something to read after finishing a biography of Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy, the Marchioness of Hartington and the daughter of Joe and Rose and the sister of Joe, Jack, Bobby, Ted, Eunice. Pat, Jean, and Rosemary.

And then there's the graphic novels.  The distinguished and ever-erudite Richard Robinson was kind enough to send me some of the graphic novels culled from his collection:

• The Death of Superman by Various
• Monkeyman & O'Brien by Arthur Adams
• Nightwing/Huntress by Devin Grayson
• Nightwing:  Big Guns and Nightwing:  On the Razor's Edge by Chuck Dixon
• Planetary:  All Over the World and Other Stories by Warren Ellis
• Robin:  Unmasked by Bill Willingham
• Spider-Man:  The Official Comic Adaptation by Stan Lee and others
• Stormwatch:  Change or Die, Stormwatch:  Final Orbit, Stormwatch:  A Finer World, Stormwatch:  Force of Nature,and Stormwatch:  Lightning Strikes by Warren Ellis
• Superman:  For Tomorrow Volumes 1 and 2 by Brian Azzarello
• Superman:  Our Worlds at War Book One by Various
• Superman:  The Man of Steel Volume 1 by John Byrne
• Superman:  World Without a Superman by Various
• Teen Titans:  Beast Boys and Girls by Ben Raab and Geoff Johns
• The Tenth:  Abuse of Humanity and The Tenth:  The Black Embrace by Tony Daniel
• Way of the Rat, 1:  The Walls of Zhumar by Chuck Dixon
• World Without a Superman by Various
• X-Men:  The Dark Phoenix Saga by Chris Claremont and John Byrne
• X-Treme X-Men by Chris Claremont
• Young Justice:  A League of Their Own by Peter David and D. Curtis Johnson