Picking up where I left off last time, here are two more bookcases for your viewing pleasure. And, just to prove I’m not one of those guys who only reads comic books, you won’t find a single comic book on these shelves. (Though there are a few books in there that are about comics, and several art/illustration books—some of which feature art by guys and gals who work in comics. Deal with it!)
I’m particularly fond of these two because they have nice gewgaws and knick-knacks on the shelves. Classy, no? The right-hand one also, oddly enough, seems to house an apparent jellyfish (see upper right corner of photo). How the hell did that get there?
Here we have three of my favorite writers: Vladimir Nabokov, Franz Kafka, and Philip Roth. They are bookended by some of my favorite novels by writers whom I have yet to explore more fully (particularly Italo Calvino, whose If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler blew my mind).
Don DeLillo is the champion of this shelf, despite the presence of House of Leaves, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (which I’m reading right now at hubbabub’s urging, and for which I’ll be forever grateful to her), The Illuminatus! Trilogy, and The Collector—four of my favorite books. DeLillo outshines them all. White Noise is the Great American Novel as far as I’m concerned. I’d consider Underworld the Second Great American Novel if only it had a bit more plot and a bit less aimlessness. In any event, DeLillo is a God of Letters and kicks Pynchon’s ass (he said, realizing fully that three of Pynchon’s novels share this shelf prominently with DeLillo’s works).
More books I love shamelessly: Blue Angel had a disappointing ending, but was still an excellent commentary on contemporary sexual politics in a university setting. Paul Auster is without peer in his own corner of American letters, and John Fowles is definitely my favorite British writer. Kurt Vonnegut’s Timequake made me cry, and boy does it suck that Douglas Adams is dead and there will be no more Hitchhiker’s sequels!
Hm. Not much here to talk about. I love Katherine Neville’s The Eight, and I found that copy of Hearken unto the Voice in a cavernous used bookstore for a dollar, and it has this beautiful turn-of-the-century inscription on the first half title page. I’ve never read the book itself, though. Full of Secrets is a collection of essays about Twin Peaks, but unfortunately most of them are only so-so and tend not to explore the things about the show that I find so fascinating. Future Noir is a fantastic behind-the-scenes look at the making of Blade Runner and there are tons of great anecdotes contained therein, but I find the book depressing because I hate having the knowledge that the people who made such a beautiful, humane movie could hate each others’ guts so completely.
I am in love with my leatherbound slipcase editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I’ve never actually read all of The Lord of the Rings (I gave up after taking one entire summer vacation to slog through “The Fellowship of the Ring”) but so what? This book is beautiful! Look at it! (Actually, this photo doesn’t do it much justice.) The accompanying “leatherbound” books containing Shakespeare, Dickens, and Poe are not as nice, but they do the trick. When I was a kid Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, and Isaac Asimov (more on him later) were my three favorite authors. I just re-read Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” recently and it’s still as funny as I remember it being. E. E. Cummings was, always has been, and always will be my favorite poet. That hefty volume contains every last poem he ever wrote, and it is comforting to have.
This shelf has some great short story collections by some of my favorites: John Updike, Harlan Ellison, Truman Capote, T. C. Boyle, etc. The green guy is Chac-Mool, which I bought while on vacation in Chichen Itza several years ago. See? Cool knick-knacks.
Harold Bloom’s The Flight to Lucifer is a sequel to David Lindsay’s fantasy novel A Voyage to Arcturus, and remains Bloom’s only attempt at fiction. He disowned it shortly after it was published in 1979 and has not allowed it to be reprinted since. It is clearly a point of embarrassment for one of the greatest critical thinkers of our time, and for that reason alone I’m glad to have it because it proves that even the smartest among us can do things they later regret with vehemence—though, as with The Lord of the Rings, I’ve never actually read it.
I am gravely disappointed in this shelf’s asymmetry. As you may have guessed by now, I shelve books by size, not by alphabet. This particular shelving arrangement is a product of my recent rearrangement of the shelves based on the addition of a new bookcase where my VHS tapes used to live, and it will need to be fixed eventually. But enough about my OCD, this shelf contains—hey, I lied! There are some comics on this shelf! Just four, but still—they snuck through.... Anyway, this shelf contains art books by some of my favorite fantasy illustrators (Brom, Woodroffe, Parkinson), a book that Max would absolutely hate called Hippie, and the well-worn diaries of Anaïs Nin. Sometimes Nin is a bit too “I am the goddess of pure literature!” for my tastes, but she still knew how to write a great diary. Which is to say there’s lots of sex in it.
Bam! Art books. The book with the Japanese kanji near the left-hand side of the shelf was given to me as a gift by a Japanese colleague back when I worked for a comic book publisher. We were doing some business with a Japanese wholesaler and when I expressed admiration for this beautiful, $75 book at their booth, one of the girls who was manning the booth gave it to me. I felt guilty as hell but she refused to take it back or to let me pay for it. So every time I look at this book it reminds me to be careful around Japanese folks. Because they will give you anything you ask for.
So many great books on this shelf. Carlos Schwabe is my favorite Symbolist. Tex Avery is my favorite cartoonist. George Petty is my favorite pinup artist.... Mark Harrison is a great book jacket illustrator from the UK. I don’t think his work made it over to the States too much, which is a shame because he’s nearly as good as Michael Whelan (more on him later). Luis Royo is pretty awesome, but I get the sense he’s a bit crazy in the head. I could be wrong, though. His artistic reinterpretations of Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes in III Millennium are stunning. Judson Huss and Jacek Yerka are incredibly creative artists who have summoned some images that scare the hell out of me, which is pretty cool. Gustave Doré’s woodcut illustrations are beautiful, and Mucha’s pioneering Art Nouveau style makes him practically the artistic grandfather of every band poster artist of the ’60s and ’70s, as well as every comic book illustrator of the last 100 years. Adolf Wölfli is a folk artist who spent most of his time in an insane asylum. His work is crazy, too, but in the good sense.
Woo-wee! Another two bookcases down. Nine to go. Hang in there!
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