Building Stories

The latest opus from Chris Ware is a celebration of print, of books as objects and of the experimental form of graphic novels. Building Stories arrives in a box, not unlike a board game, and inside you'll find 14 separate booklets, strips, posters and art that comprise this wonderful graphic novel. It is stunning to look at. The artwork is intricate and delicate. The mixture of panels and text intertwine and interweave in a myriad of ways. You can read the books in any order. You can absorb it vignette or short story or strip at a time. This is your reading experience, your Choose Your Own Adventure style piece of art.

The comics, occasionally narrated by the building itself, concerns three apartments and what occurs in them. One is a 30-year-old woman who, despite her every effort, feels like she is going to end up alone. Another is a couple who, for all intents and purposes, seem happy, but within the confines of their flat, can't bear to be around each other. And the landlady, a brilliantly wistful character, a kooky old lady who never married, who has lived an interesting, sprawling life, despite her gruff exterior.

The book concerns itself with loneliness and with the delicate suffocation of apartment-block living. The trials of modern life, from the digitalisation of our lives to the impossibility of finding a good partner in your thirties, when all the best have been snapped up, all get thoroughly dissected in this magnificent magnum opus, this piece of art. Books like this only come around rarely, and when they do, they deserve all of your attention.