Three Favorite Books, as requested by our student worker

One of our student workers in our library is making a display for August of staff picks. She asked each of us to list three favorite books. I turned in my selections recently, and I decided to make a blog post as well here. In addition, I decided to use the prompt to make my first ever YouTube video (link to video). I've thinking about expanding my "brand" into vlogging, so this is as good a time as any. I've been an active blogger for years now, but vlogging is new to me. As with blogging, I will just be learning as I go. We'll see how it goes. 

Anyways, here are my three favorite books at this time. Books are not listed in any particular order: 

My three favorite books

• Batman: The Long Halloween.  Graphic novel. Batman faces the challenge of a serial killer who kills during major holidays starting with Halloween. The killings go on for a full year, and they involve mob figures. Soon mobsters are worried about the killer they’ve dubbed Holiday and about what has become “the long Halloween.” This is a story from Batman’s early days where he strikes a deal with Commissioner Gordon and Harvey Dent to bring down the mob, but Harvey may have dark secrets of his own as well. This is one of my favorite Batman stories, and I try to reread it every year in October, close to Halloween. Reading this is one of the ways I get ready for Halloween and the fall season.
  
• Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude). Many consider this to be Garcia Marquez’s masterpiece. The novel chronicles 100 years of the Buendia family in the fictional town of Macondo in Colombia. Magic realism, fiction, history, beauty, the bizarre, so on blend into a complex and engrossing novel. This is my all-time favorite novel, which I read in Spanish. I’ve had read this many times, and I make it a point to reread it every four or five years or so. Basically when I feel it is time to go back to Macondo I grab the book and start reading. The copy in the photograph was my mother’s personal copy, which she gave me before I went off to college as a young lad. It’s a simple paperback edition published by Argos Vergara in 1980. She bought from a local book club, and I do have the original receipt inside the book. It’s a bit tattered, but it is one of the very few belongings I have of my mother after she passed on. For me, this novel is a universal work, and I think more people should be reading it. Every time I reread it I discover something new.
  
• Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium. Choosing the third book for this prompt was not easy as I had a few options. I finally decided to go with this. This omnibus edition collects the first three novels in the Ciaphas Cain series in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Cain is a regimental commissar (political officer). He is respected by peers, space marines, government officials, and he is a hero to many. So says the imperial propaganda. However, as he would have you believe, he just wants an easy life far away from the front lines. However, it seems the Emperor has other plans for him as he is constantly put in dangerous situations where he has to use all his combat skills, his guile, and ingenuity to save the day. Problem is he saves the day, people think he is a hero, and now he has to keep that reputation. Unlike other science fiction works where similar heroes are cowards, Cain is actually quite brave and a very skilled warrior as well as a pretty pragmatic man. He is described as a skilled swordsman for instance. His issue, and one I can relate to at times, is he just wants an easy life, like say being a teacher in a schola for commissars (i.e. a military academy). The novels combine military science fiction action with some good humor and amusing times. This is one of those things I read just for the fun and pleasure. This Ciaphas Cain volume introduced me to the character as well as to the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
  

On a side note, I thought I had written reviews of these, but upon checking the blog files, turns out I did not. I may then write short reviews of them down the road for the blog.