Books Read 2017

  1. The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism by Trevor Aaronson
  2. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Unknown, Simon Armitage (Translator)
  3. Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Volume 1 by John Barber
  4. Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Volume 2 by John Barber
  5. Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Volume 3 by John Barber
  6. Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Volume 4 by John Barber
  7. Transformers: Robots In Disguise Volume 5 by John Barber
  8. Transformers: Robots in Disguise Volume 6 by John Barber
  9. Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman by Harold Bloom
  10. The Black Elfstone (The Fall of Shannara, #1) by Terry Brooks
  11. Enter Naomi: SST, L.A. and All That... by Joe Carducci
  12. The Nonexistent Knight by Italo Calvino
  13. The Awakening and Selected Stories by Kate Chopin
  14. 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep by Jonathan Crary
  15. Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto by Jessa Crispin
  16. Captain Marvel (Marvel NOW!) #1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick
  17. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
  18. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
  19. Star Trek: Harlan Ellison's The City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Teleplay by Harlan Ellison
  20. The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition by Friedrich Engels
  21. Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings by Manny Farber
  22. Essays, Speeches & Public Letters by William Faulkner
  23. The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life by Tim Ferriss
  24. When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World by Leon Festinger
  25. Clinton in Haiti: The 1994 US Invasion of Haiti by Philippe Girard
  26. Burning Britain: The History of UK Punk 1980-1984 by Ian Glasper
  27. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  28. A Philosophy of Tragedy by Christopher Hamilton
  29. Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation by Blake J. Harris
  30. A People's History of the French Revolution by Eric Hazan
  31. Film After Film: (Or, What Became of 21st Century Cinema?) by J. Hoberman
  32. Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign by Michael K. Honey
  33. Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies by bell hooks
  34. An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen
  35. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
  36. Perpetual Peace and Other Essays by Immanuel Kant
  37. The Future is Queer: A Science Fiction Anthology by Richard Labonté
  38. Engaging the Past: Mass Culture and the Production of Historical Knowledge by Alison Landsberg
  39. The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and the Stories by Nella Larsen
  40. Wellsprings by Mario Vargas Llosa
  41. Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer
  42. My Damage: The Story of a Punk Rock Survivor by Keith Morris
  43. Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore by Albert Mudrian
  44. A Year at the Movies: One Man's Filmgoing Odyssey by Kevin Murphy
  45. Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right by Angela Nagle
  46. Employee of the Month and Other Big Deals by Mary Jo Pehl
  47. Visual Storytellling: An Illustrated Reader by Todd James Pierce
  48. Why Be Something That You're Not: Detroit Hardcore 1979-1985 by Tony Rettman
  49. Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson
  50. Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution by Heather Rogers
  51. Get In The Van: On The Road With Black Flag (Second Edition) by Henry Rollins
  52. American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath by Carl Rollyson
  53. Lazarus, Vol. 1: Family by Greg Rucka
  54. Der Mond: The Art of Neon Genesis Evangelion by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto
  55. Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat by J. Sakai
  56. A New Companion to Digital Humanities by Susan Schreibman
  57. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet
  58. Change Agent by Daniel Suarez
  59. Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings by Mark Twain
  60. Saga, Vol. 1 (Saga, #1) by Brian K. Vaughan
  61. Saga, Vol. 2 (Saga, #2) by Brian K. Vaughan
  62. A Brief History of Portable Literature by Enrique Vila-Matas
  63. Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas
  64. Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson
  65. Ms. Marvel, Vol. 2: Generation Why by G. Willow Wilson
  66. The History of the Renaissance World: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Conquest of Constantinople by Susan Wise Bauer
  67. How Fiction Works by James Wood
  68. No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving, No Spikes: An Oral History of the Legendary City Gardens by Amy Yates Wuelfing
  69. What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States by Dave Zirin

Weekly Reader

  • Simon Armitage discusses his new translation of Sir Gawain & The Green Knight over at The Guardian:

The poem is also a ghost story, a thriller, a romance, an adventure story and a morality tale. For want of a better word, it is also a myth, and like all great myths of the past its meanings seem to have adapted and evolved, proving itself eerily relevant 600 years later. As one example, certain aspects of Gawain’s situation seem oddly redolent of a more contemporary predicament, namely our complex and delicate relationship with the natural world. The Gawain poet had never heard of climate change and was not a prophet anticipating the onset of global warming. But medieval society lived hand in hand with nature, and nature was as much an enemy as a friend. It is not just for decoration that the poem includes passages relating to the turning of the seasons, or detailed accounts of the landscape, or graphic descriptions of our dealings with the animal kingdom. The knight who throws down the challenge at Camelot is both ghostly and real. Supernatural, yes, but also flesh and blood. He is something in the likeness of ourselves, and he is not purple or orange or blue with yellow stripes. Gawain must negotiate a deal with a man who wears the colours of the leaves and the fields. He must strike an honest bargain with this manifestation of nature, and his future depends on it.