Books Read 2023

Graphic Novels

A lot of rereads because I picked up print copies…

  • Superman: A Celebration of 75 Years

    Lois Lane: A Celebration of 75 Years

  • Wonder Woman: A Celebration of 75 Years

  • The Love and Rockets Companion: 30 Years

  • Alias Omnibus by Brian Michael Bendis

  • Batman Adventures: Mad Love Deluxe Edition by Paul Dini

  • Transformers : Evolutions - Hearts of Steel by Chuck Dixon

  • Batman: The Brave & the Bold: The Bronze Age Vol. 1 by Bob Haney

  • Love and Rockets: The Covers by Gilbert Hernández

  • Penny Century by Jaime Hernández

  • Maggie the Mechanic by Jaime Hernández

  • Esperanza: A Love and Rockets Book by Jaime Hernández

  • Tonta by Jaime Hernández

  • Angels And Magpies by Jaime Hernández

  • Perla la Loca by Jaime Hernández

  • The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. by Jaime Hernández

  • Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? The Deluxe Edition by Alan Moore

  • Transformers: Lost Light, Vol. 1 by James Roberts,

  • Marvel Masterworks: the X-men 3 by Roy Thomas

  • Marvel Masterworks: the X-men 4 by Roy Thomas

Gaming

  • Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games by Matt Barton

  • Boss Fight Books #28 Final Fantasy VI by Sebastian Deken

  • Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: Castlevania by Kurt Kalata

  • The Secret History of Mac Gaming by Richard Moss

  • The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal by Laine Nooney

  • Super Nes Works Volume I: 1991 by Jeremy Parish

  • NES Works Volume III: 1987 by Jeremy Parish

  • 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to A.I. Dungeon by Aaron A. Reed

Fiction

Again, some rereads because I picked up print copies…

  • The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

  • Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

  • Sweeney Astray by Seamus Heaney

  • The Midnight Verdict: Translations from the Irish of Brian Merriman and from the Metamorphoses of Ovid by Seamus Heaney

  • The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables Robert Henryson, Seamus Heaney (Translator)

  • The Translations of Seamus Heaney

  • The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

  • The Call of Cthulhu and Other Dark Tales by H.P. Lovecraft

  • A Doll's House and Other Plays (Penguin) by Henrik Ibsen

  • Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

  • The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson

Non-Fiction

  • The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams: The Complete, Uncensored, and Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek

  • Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire (edited by Jehad Abusalim)

  • The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction: 1948–1985 by James Baldwin

  • Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights by Omar Barghouti

  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Norton Critical Edition (translated by Marie Borroff)

  • Confronting Authority: Reflections of an Ardent Protester by Derrick A. Bell

  • Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? by Judith Butler

  • Life Against Dementia: Essays, Reviews, Interviews 1975-2011 by Joe Carducci

  • Abolition. Feminism. Now. (Edited by Angela Y. Davis)

  • Cinema 1: The Movement-Image by Gilles Deleuze

  • Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball by Luke Epplin

  • Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle by Silvia Federici

  • Silence is No Reaction: Forty Years of Subhumans by Ian Glasper

  • Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone by Sarah Jaffe

  • Superheroes, Movies, and the State: How the U.S. Government Shapes Cinematic Universes by Tricia Jenkins

  • Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages by Dan Jones

  • The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones

  • Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future without Policing & Prisons (edited by Colin Kaepernick)

  • Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies (edited by Colin Kaepernick)

  • Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution by Neil Lanctot

  • The Ninety-Five Theses and Other Writings by Martin Luther

  • Knowledge Socialism: The Rise of Peer Production: Collegiality, Collaboration, and Collective Intelligence (edited by Michael A. Peters)

  • Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World by James E. Lindsay

  • Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Premilla Nadasen

  • Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew by John Oller

  • Revelations of Divine Love (Penguin) by Julian of Norwich

  • Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 12-1565 by Walter Simons

  • Making It So: A Memoir by Patrick Stewart

  • The Hours Have Lost Their Clock: The Politics of Nostalgia by Grafton Tanner

  • Wages for Housework: A History of an International Feminist Movement, 1972-77 by Louise Toupin

  • As Serious As Your Life: Black Music and the Free Jazz Revolution, 1957–1977 by Val Wilmer

  • A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and A Vindication of the Rights of Men (Oxford) by Mary Wollstonecraft

Worth Reading September 2022

Weekly Reader

Retail work has often been the proverbial trope in television shows to illustrate women seeking independence or something to “shake up their routine” beyond things like childcare, cooking, and cleaning. But the closure of stores amid the pandemic is not just a matter of communities losing jobs. It’s also women losing opportunities to have a chance at independence, economic freedom, increasing their earning potential, and supporting themselves and their families.

On Sept. 28, 2017, in Texas, the A's were playing their first road series after Maxwell had begun kneeling. The sniper jokes felt too real to be funny, and soon Maxwell began interpreting them another way: In the event of an attack on him, his teammates were telling him nobody would have his back. By this point, it hadn't been lost on him that none of his Black teammates or other Black players in the league had joined in the protest or even offered robust verbal protection. He was alone. "It is much easier being Black when there are other Black people around you," Maxwell says. "There was no one. People are saying what they should have done. They're saying it now, but no one was saying anything then."

Whatever else you want to say about police officers, they know — whether they articulate it neatly or not — that we are asking them to step into a breach left by our bad policies. The creation of more-just systems won’t guarantee the prevention of atrocities. But the status quo in cities, created by white liberals, invites brutal policing.

Racist Red Sox

please, please, please, PLEASE, stop with talking about the Boston “curse.” You know the one about how the Red Sox have been cursed from winning a World Series because they traded Babe Ruth? Sure it’s a funny thing to put on a T-shirt, but it’s tired and, worse, glosses over the real reason the Red Sox haven’t won a World Series title since Woodrow Wilson was president: for much of the 20th Century, the Boston Red Sox were one of the most racist organizations in all of professional sports. They had an opportunity to sign Jackie Robinson but passed. They then had a chance to sign Willie Mays and passed, saying the game’s greatest all-around player wasn’t their type of player. In fact, the Red Sox were the last team to integrate their roster, grudgingly doing so in 1959, two years after Jackie Robinson retired. The end of it? Hardly. Between 1976, when free agency started in baseball, and 1992, the Red Sox signed no African-American free agents. Instead, for most of those years, they have cast their lot with big, slow white guys who could only score by hitting home runs. Curse? Karma.

Blogged via Hip Hop Music