Life of Pi - Yann Martel

Intense and interesting. Full of fun facts and quite a lot of humour, but ultimately very dark and quite shocking. I wasn't sure how it would fill 200 pages with one long, mostly uneventful, lifeboat journey, but it did. I was gripped throughout (I suppose it had a tiger as well). The main thing that impressed me was the feat of balancing the tone and fitting humour and optimism into this very dark story. Certainly recommended. Although it didn't make me believe in God as the blurb promised.

Batman: No Man's Land - Devin K. Grayson & Bob Gale

A great slice of Batman fun in which Gotham's population is reduced to a few stragglers who form clans and go around fighting each other and marking their territory with spray paint. As it turned out, a great follow-up to High Rise. The characters don't spend too much time waxing philosophical (or sociological) about their situation, and when they do it's well-written and interesting. And the Joker stabs someone in the neck with a fork.

High-Rise - J.G. Ballard

A dark sort of social experiment in novel form, written in an unsettlingly matter-of-fact style without much authorial comment at all. It's masterful the way it unfolds increasing levels of violence and depravity, moving imperceptibly through stages of regression until the high0rise residents are living as savages. There's a strain of humour in it too, which simultaneously stops it becoming too grim or po-faced but serves to make the really horrific bits all the more shocking. A very powerful book.

The Killing Joke - Alan Moore & Brian Bolland

Loved it. The Joker's origin story took me by surprise and worked very well as a window into his psyche without making him any less enigmatic or terrifying. Also loved the bit at the end where he acknowledges (in an obscure way) that what he's doing is wrong and for a moment shows regret, and then he makes a joke and Batman laughs at it. For a few panels they are brought together, not reconciled but not in conflict either. It's a gen of a book, short and sharp and confidently crafted.