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

Books Read 2021

  • Green Arrow: A Celebration of 75 Years

  • Culture and Anarchy by Matthew Arnold

  • Palestine: A Socialist Introduction by Sumaya Awad

  • Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America by Russ Baker

  • Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

  • Small Magic: Short Fiction, 1977-2020 by Terry Brooks

  • The Last Druid by Terry Brooks

  • I Remember Death By Its Proximity to What I Love by Mahogany L. Browne

  • Star Trek: Alien Spotlight by John Byrne

  • The Watcher and Other Stories by Italo Calvino

  • Into The War by Italo Calvino

  • The Road To San Giovanni by Italo Calvino

  • Marcovaldo by Italo Calvino

  • Under The Jaguar Sun by Italo Calvino

  • If I Were Another by Mahmoud Darwish

  • Echo Tree: The Collected Short Fiction of Henry Dumas by Henry Dumas

  • Knees of a Natural Man: The Selected Poetry of Henry Dumas by Henry Dumas

  • Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd

  • Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice by Jesse Hagopian

  • Ibsen's Selected Plays by Henrik Ibsen

  • They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie Jones-Rogers

  • We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (Abolitionist Papers) by Mariame Kaba

  • Transformers: The Manga Volume Three by Masumi Kaneda

  • Eternals: The Complete Collection by Jack Kirby

  • The Battle For Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists by Naomi Klein

  • Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin

  • Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language by Seth Lerer

  • Legends of Localization: The Legend of Zelda by Clyde Mandelin

  • Transformers: All Hail Megatron Volume 1 by Shane McCarthy

  • Transformers: All Hail Megatron Volume 2 by Shane McCarthy

  • Transformers Historia by Chris MxFeely

  • Thick: And Other Essays by Tressiue McMillan Cottom

  • The Wrestling Observer Yearbook '93: The Year of Major Beginnings and Major Endings (Wrestling Observer Newsletter) by Dave Meltzer

  • The Wrestling Observer Yearbook '97: The Last Time WWF Was Number Two by Dave Meltzer

  • The Major Works by John Milton

  • Strong In The Rain: Selected Poems by Kenji Miyazawa

  • Milky Way Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa

  • Night On The Galactic Railroad and Other Stories by Kenji Miyazawa

  • Night On The Milky Way Train by Kenji Miyazawa

  • Once and Forever: The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa by Kenji Miyazawa

  • Growing Up with Manos: The Hands of Fate: How I was the Child Star of the Worst Movie Ever Made and Lived to Tell the Story by Jackey Newman

  • Only the Ball Was White: A History of Legendary Black Players and All-Black Professional Teams by Robert Peterson

  • River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey by Sister Helen Prejean

  • Straight Edge: A Clear-Headed Hardcore Punk History by Tony Rettman

  • Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing by Stuart Schrader

  • The Monsters and the Critics: And Other Essays. J.R.R. Tolkien

  • Star Trek: Way Point by Dayton Ward

  • Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism by Jillian York

  • Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary

  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

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

Books Read In 2012

  1. Being A Green Mother by Piers Anthony
  2. The Tent by Margaret Atwood
  3. New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
  4. Racing The Beam: The Atari Video Computer System by Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort
  5. Amulet by Roberto Bolano
  6. Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
  7. The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
  8. The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
  9. The Mind of Italo Calvino by Dan Cavallaro
  10. The Cambridge Companion to Kate Chopin
  11. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
  12. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
  13. Crossed by Ally Condie
  14. Noir by Robert Coover
  15. Down & Out In The Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
  16. The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow by Cory Doctorow
  17. The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities by Frank Donoghue
  18. Football The First Hundred Years The Untold Story by Adrian Harvey
  19. My Mother Was A Computer: Digital Subjects & Literary Texts by N. Katherine Hayles
  20. The Map & The Territory by Michel Houllebecq
  21. Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives by Jeff Howard
  22. Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
  23. Fifty Shades Darker by E. L. James
  24. Fifty Shades Freed by E. L. James
  25. Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James
  26. The Life & Morals of Jesus of Nazareth by Thomas Jefferson
  27. Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu
  28. Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
  29. The Lost Books of The Odyssey by Zachary Mason
  30. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make us Better and How they Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal
  31. Batman The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
  32. Batman Year One by Frank Miller
  33. Those Guys Have All The Fun: Inside The World of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales
  34. Paradise Lost by John Milton
  35. Batman-The Killing Joke by Alan Moore
  36. V For Vendetta by Alan Moore
  37. The Watchmen by Alan Moore
  38. Speak Memory by Vladimir Nabakov
  39. King Lear by William Shakespeare
  40. Authors In Context: Virginia Woolf by Michael Whitworth
  41. The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer
  42. The Quran (Sher Ali Holy translation)
  43. Sir Gawain & The Green Knight
  44. The Tel Quel Reader

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.