Posts related to novels, non-fiction books, comic books, graphic novels, zines and other print-based publications.
It’s nearly summer, which means it’s high time for me to be putting together my 2017 Summer Reading List. Last summer I read 16 books, 1 novella, and 8 graphic novels. This year I’m looking to do that one better by reading 17 books and 8 graphic novels.
That’s a hell of of a stretch, but with my summer vacations and monthly camping trips with the Boy Scouts, I’m thinking I’ll have the time I need.
I’m in the midst of my spring reading doldrums. Between work, Cub Scouts, and baseball, most of my free time is accounted for. If I’m honest, when I do have free time I’m more likely to spend it catching up on episodes of Legion or The Flash than I am picking up one of the … Read more
It’s a more than a little strange to be writing about the last of my Summer 2016 reading list in Winter 2017, but damn it, I told myself I was going to write this column and I’m not letting myself off the hook. As I wrote in updates to my “Summer Reading List 2016” column, … Read more
One of my family’s long-standing traditions is spending time at our friends’ cabin on Butler Island on Lake Champlain. It’s rustic in the extreme (though less so than the early years) with minimal power, an outhouse, and (thankfully) no Internet. It’s a great opportunity to hang out with the family, hike, swim, and read a … Read more
The Marvel comic book multiverse collapsed in upon itself in Summer 2015. As the various worlds ended, a new one was forged by its all-powerful god, Doctor Doom. This new world — Battleworld — drove a summer’s worth of of spin-off stories as Marvel cancelled every one of their regular books and replaced them with … Read more
Why do I have a summer reading list? Two big reasons: 1) because I need time for myself, to be alone with the book, the plot, and the mental scenery I’m constructing and 2) because it gives me a project that I’m completely in control of. It wasn’t always this way. Reading used to be a … Read more
I’m a creature of habit, and I know it. I love my pork roll, egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast, my Mets baseball, and X-Men comic books. In the summer months, this manifested as kicking back with a new Lost Fleet novel by Jack Campbell, an Expanse book by James S. A. Corey, and a … Read more
I have a bad habit of saving all of my heavy reading for the summer. Don’t get me wrong — I love my summer reading list, but my brain’s happier when I keep reading throughout the year. Starting around Thanksgiving and continuing through to early March, I aimed to do exactly that. I put together a short (well, short for me) reading list.
Summer is long over, and the end of the year is looming large. Fortunately I can look back on a summer and know — despite all the long work days — that I read a hell of a lot of books.
I ended up reading all but one of the novels on my summer reading list, while adding several additional tomes. I planned to read 12 books and five graphic novels. I succeeded in reading 15 books and nine graphic novels.
It’s been largely a comic-book-free summer in Easton, Pa. thanks to Marvel’s Secret Wars. The publisher canceled all of their existing comic book titles in favor of new crossover Secret Wars books that revisited classic storylines (Civil War, Inferno, etc.) while creating a “battle world” for superhero smackdowns. I read none of it. Instead I … Read more