My favorite thing is monsters

BLIND SPOT, by Teju Cole. (Random House, $40.) This lyrical essay in photographs paired with texts explores the mysteries of the ordinary. Cole's questioning, tentative habit of mind, suspending judgment while hoping for the brief miracle of insight, is a form of what used to be called humanism. MY FAVORITE THING IS MONSTERS, by Emil Ferris. (Fantagraphics, paper, $39.99.) In this graphic novel, drawn entirely on blue-lined notebook paper, a monster-loving 10-year-old in 1960s Chicago tries to make sense of a neighbor's death, her mother's decline from cancer, and her crush on another girl. The story is punctuated by drawings of the covers of the horror magazines she loves. CHEMISTRY, by Weike Wang. (Knopf, $24.95.) A Chinese-American graduate student struggles to find her place in the world, arguing with her parents about whether she can give up her Ph.D. and wondering whether to marry her boyfriend. Wang's debut novel is both honest and funny. CATTLE KINGDOM: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West, by Christopher Knowlton. (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $29.) The 20-year grand era of cowboys and cattle barons is a story of boom and bust. Knowlton's deftnarrative is filled with sharp observations about cowboys and fortune-hunters. THEFT BY FINDING: Diaries (1977-2002), by David Sedaris. (Little, Brown, $28.) Over 25 years, these diaries mutate from a stress vent, to limbering-up exercises for the kind of writing Sedaris is going to do, to rough drafts. His developing voice - graceful, whining, hilarious - is the lifeline that pulls him through. TOWN IS BY THE SEA, by Joanne Schwartz. Illustrated by Sydney Smith. (Groundwood/House of Anansi, $19.95; ages 5 to 9.) This evocation of daily life in a picturesque, run-down seaside town in the 1950s stirs timeless, elemental emotions. The ocean light is contrasted with the coal mine far below, where a boy's father works and where he is destined (and resigned) to follow. OTIS REDDING: An Unfinished Life, by Jonathan Gould. (Crown Archetype, $30.) It's hard to write about Redding; he died at 26 and no one has anything nasty to say about him. Gould relies on interviews with his surviving family members and exhaustive research into his early years as a performer to tell his story. THE COMPLETE STORIES, by Leonora Carrington. Translated by Kathrine Talbot and Anthony Kerrigan. (Dorothy, paper, $16.) The Surrealist painter and fabulist wrote 25 fantastical and droll stories in English, Spanish and French. COCKFOSTERS: Stories, by Helen Simpson. (Knopf, $23.95.) Nine tales offer memorable characters, comic timing, originality, economy, poignancy and heart. Although they are entertaining, the mortality and the passage of time is an underlying theme. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books

*Starred Review* Before the publication of this startling, late-career debut, sixtysomething Ferris apparently worked as an illustrator and toy sculptor in her hometown, Chicago, for a variety of clients, including McDonald's. But she deftly counters any whiff of commercialism by laying out this graphic novel, set in the late sixties, on a stack of modest blue-lined, three-hole notebook paper, which not only achieves instant intimacy with readers, but also showcases in relief the high level of drawing chops, effort, and sheer audacity Ferris brings to the project. Ten-year-old Karen Reyes a fan of horror magazines who loves drawing covers from Ghastly, Dread, Spectral, and Horrific (Hell Wenches of the Inferno) lives with her mother and older brother in an apartment on Chicago's North Side. Their upstairs neighbor Anka Silverberg has been found shot dead in her apartment, but front and back doors were locked from the inside, and the gun was missing, all of which sends young Karen ferreting out the truth herself. This makes for a fine locked-room mystery, but, more wondrously, Ferris summons the array of influences that inspire and comfort our heroine, from her North Side environs to several iconic Art Institute paintings (Ferris brilliantly reanimates these); to her artistic brother, who lovingly, patiently teaches her basic drawing techniques; to her sweet, unconventional mother, who is dying from cancer, much to Karen's terror and sadness. A triumph that will make it that much harder for readers to wait for part two, scheduled for August 2018 publication.--Moores, Alan Copyright 2018 Booklist

Karen loves monsters, comic books, and her tattooed, art-loving big brother, Deeze. She hates her mom's cancer diagnosis, the cool kids at school, and being a little girl Chicago in the 1960s. She wants to be a monster, but when the upstairs neighbor, a Holocaust survivor left haunted and unstable by her experiences, dies under suspicious circumstances, Karen decides to become a detective. This stunningly ambitious and assured graphic novel, the creator's first, slides gracefully between past and present, reality and imagination, and the shifting kingdom of children and the hard-concrete world of adults. Ferris's writing, full of wordplay, elisions, and unpredictable revelations, suggests the cockeyed genius of Lynda Barry, comics' most fearless chronicler of childhood. But her art, presented on lined notebook paper in the form of Karen's own ballpoint-and-pencil sketches (though surely no real 10-year-old could draw this beautifully), is entirely her own. This is a book that surprises at every turn. It's about the power of art, the nature of monsters, the way secrets keep unfolding, and everything else Karen's investigations can uncover. It's the best graphic novel to come along in recent memory. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.