2020 has been tough on everyone, a lot of us have lost our outlets and opportunities to socialise. Some of that is slowly coming back and I think there’ll be more appreciation of those situations once we have a bit more freedom. I’m not the most social person, I’m awful at making plans and committing […]
Category: Close Encounters Book Club

A Feast For Crows – George R R Martin
As mentioned in my Asterix post, Book Club is on hiatus at the moment until things begin to look brighter here in the UK and it’s safer to meet as a group and socialise again. That being said, I’m still actually playing catch up from February when things were tough for me personally (I still […]

Asterix in Britain – René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo
When Close Encounters posted on the Books With Pictures Facebook group page that we were going to be reading an Asterix book, I’m not going to lie, I had two thoughts, the first was “but isn’t that a kids book”, then it was “wow, I’ve not read one of those since Year 8” and it […]

Handmaids Tale
A few months ago I picked up a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale from a charity shop, it cost me 50p, it went on the bookshelf with the intent to read it “one day”, that day came sooner than expected when during our previous meet to discuss A Storm of Swords 2: Blood and Gold, […]

We3 – Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely
This month’s Books WITH Pictures pick was We3 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely through Vertigo. It’s a book I’ll honestly admit I’ve never even heard of so my expectations going in were all over the place, especially as I flicked through it on the bus home before I sat down to read through it […]

A Storm of Swords 2: Blood and Gold – George R R Martin
Somehow, over a busy and stressful Christmas period, I managed to read the second part of George R R Martin’s A Storm of Swords. I came away from the first part feeling deflated, I liked the “ending” with all the stuff surrounding Bran and Jon, though the two didn’t meet, Jon seemed to feel something […]
I Am Legend – Richard Matheson
Novembers “Books Without Pictures” book was I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. I originally read this book years ago, not long before the Will Smith movie, so its been I’ve enjoyed going back to it, particularly as I’d somehow managed to blur the lines between some of the events of the book and the film, […]

Akira Volume 1 – Katsuhiro Otomo
Way back in July I wrote about the reasons I was glad that the Hollywood movie of Akira had been put on hold (though it’s still in the works), this time out I’m taking a direct look at volume 1 of Katsuhiro Otomo’s manga as its the book we’ve discussed in “Books with Pictures” this […]

A Storm of Swords 1: Steel and Snow – George R R Martin
It’s that time of the month again, first Wednesday of the month means Book Club update and we’re back to the A Game of Thrones series. This month I’ve been reading A Storm of Swords 1: Steel and Snow, which is actually the first part of the much bigger original release of A Storm of […]

V for Vendetta – Alan Moore, David Lloyd
Once a month for the past few months I’ve been attending a book club at my local comic book store, it’s called “Books Without Pictures” and has focused on novels, now they’ve started up another club, called “Books With Pictures” we’re we read a comic book/graphic novel/whatever you want to call them. Our first meeting […]