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Millions contributor Garth takes a “Second Glance” at Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai in the most recent installment of Open Letters Monthly. The Last Samurai landed on Garth’s “Year in Reading” list last year.

Jeff Bryant and Trevor Jackson are back again this year with their terrific Underrated Writers series. They’ve asked a number of bloggers to nominate writers they feel are not getting the recognition the deserve. From the introduction:The results, as with last year, are delightful, in the most literal sense of the word. We have writers from almost every continent, poets from the past, essayists who are concerned for the future, and novelists desperate to understand the now.I participated last year, but was unable to join in this year. However, two Millions contributors took part. Garth selected Vasily Aksyonov (I read Generations of Winter on Garth’s recommendation almost two years ago and was blown away by it). Garth also selected Patrick Chamoiseau and Jay Cantor.Andrew, meanwhile, nominated a pair of Candian writers, Trevor Cole and Kenneth J. Harvey, with his premise being that all too often writers from north of the border get short shrift down here.

While most kids were playing with G.I. Joes or Barbies, we at The Millions were more likely to have our nose in a book. Finally, there are molded plastic figurines for us too, though its not clear whether they are fully posable or offer kung-fu grip action. We’ll take what we can get. Who among us wouldn’t enjoy staging our own literary roundtables with the likes of Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, and Charles Dickens? Those who prefer their literary action heroes to be more macrocephalic, might prefer the Edgar Allen Poe bobblehead (pictured here).For those with less of a literary bias, there are actually quite a few of these “historical figures” on offer, from Marie Antoinette to Harry Houdini to Carl Jung.