Each week in Bookends, two writers take on questions about the world of books. This week, all 10 columnists look back at 2013 and answer: What was the most interesting literary development — welcome or lamentable — of the year?
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I’ve been fascinated by the use of graphic novels and comic biographies to introduce important episodes in modern American social justice movements. These books almost certainly find readers who may be unfamiliar with — or might otherwise be uninterested in — some of the most influential activists of the 20th century. Two recent favorites: “March: Book 1,” a collaboration between Representative John Lewis of Georgia, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell, about Lewis’s lifelong work on civil rights; and Peter Bagge’s “Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story,” which translates Sanger’s colorful life and vital work on behalf of women’s reproductive rights into a dynamic, relatively upbeat biography.
