When will the madness end? How many books does one person need? If your name is Julie, the answer is “Oh, I don’t know, about five or six, maybe.” If your name is Mark, your reply to that is: “Are you insane? One must have millions of books! Enough to fill a warehouse! Enough so that, ultimately, one room in your house is designated ‘the library’ and has a balcony that circumnavigates the walls of the room’s second floor, not unlike Professor Henry Higgins’s library in My Fair Lady!” To which Julie replies with a sigh, “You’re hopeless.”
The above picture gives me vertigo a little bit. These bookcases don’t appear so tippy in real life, but for some reason this photo has distorted them to the point where they look like something Dr. Seuss might’ve drawn. Anyway, notable in this photo (which won’t be seen in the close-ups) is one of the first watercolors my mom painted. For as beautiful as it is, she’s gotten even more talented since then. Also notable in the foreground is the top of my ugly rocking chair, which I inherited as part of a furniture set (that includes the desk seen at the leftmost edge of the photo) from my grandmother. If I had the inclination to get the chair a new pad it wouldn’t be nearly as ugly, but I haven’t quite gotten around to it, what with all the books that need perennial rearranging. Finally, you’ll note that part of my DVD collection is visible (on the top and fourth shelves of the center bookcase, as well as on the top of the righthand bookcase), but that’s a whole other diary entry.
An angry Smurf (whose name is Angry Smurf, duh) guards all 28 volumes of Koike and Kojima’s Lone Wolf and Cub, a staggering masterwork of Japanese comics (note, volumes 10-28 are behind the first row of books). Remember how I said Akira was cool but kind of bizarre and sleepy in parts? Well, Lone Wolf and Cub is none of those things. “Cool” doesn’t even begin to describe it. Epic, riveting, stunning, etc. You are not allowed to say “I don’t really like Manga” until you’ve read Lone Wolf and Cub. If you don’t like it (and I’m sorry, but that’s just not possible), then you can say you don’t like Manga. Heck, I say I don’t like Manga all the time. But I always add three exceptions: LWaC, Akira, and Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind (see below).
Also on this shelf is Brian Ralph’s lyrical (and wordless) Cave-In, a bunch of Jim Mahfood mini-comics, and Jordan Crane’s sweet little story called The Last Lonely Saturday (also in mini-comic form).
More Jim Mahfood (whose Stupid Comics crack me up); a great travelogue by Craig “Blankets” Thompson called Carnet de Voyage, which I recommend highly to anyone who liked Blankets; the aforementioned Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, which is a great sci-fi/environmental tale from the guy who brought us such weird-ass movies as My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away; all the Small Press Expo anthologies, the proceeds of which benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund; Ghost in the Shell 2, which is definitely one of the reasons to not like Manga (though the art is beyond beautiful); long-time Archie artist and Josie and the Pussycats creator Dan DeCarlo’s naughty side in The Pin-up Art of Dan DeCarlo; and Jessica Abel’s La Perdida, which I mentioned back here.
Some nonfiction favorites, particularly Vonnegut’s Fates Worse than Death, Dillard’s The Writing Life, Bryson’s The Mother Tongue, and Huxley’s The Doors of Perception/Heaven and Hell. Crumb’s collected letters are fun because he tended to draw doodles in the margins, and the letters seem to present a man much different from the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural. Dreiser’s A Hoosier Holiday is on my shelf strictly because there’s a chapter in which Dreiser and his friend pass through my hometown of Bloomington, Indiana, where Dreiser went to college (at Indiana University). It’s cool to read about your hometown from the perspective of someone who lived there a century before you did. Next to that are all three of Isaac Asimov’s autobiographies, and they are probably the most entertaining and funniest autobiographies I’ve ever read. The man was totally arrogant and convinced of his own greatness, but for someone as intelligent, successful, prolific, dry-witted, and compassionate as he was (he preceded Kurt Vonnegut as the Honorary President of the American Humanist Association), can you really blame him?
Have I mentioned that I’m obsessed with Marilyn Monroe? Well, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.... To the far left is the very first book about Marilyn Monroe that I ever bought. I found it in the half-price section of a small bookstore off the town square in my hometown when I was 15. It’s a great reference book. Next to that are three biographies I haven’t read yet and then a “fictional biography” signed by Joyce Carol Oates when I met her a few months ago. Weatherby’s Conversations with Marilyn is a unique narrative made up of a short series of sit-down interviews the author conducted with Marilyn shortly before she died. American Monroe and McCann’s book are two scholarly approaches to Marilyn’s life and her impact on the world. Both are extremely dry but more informative than the average “popular” biography. The slim volume titled Marilyn Monroe: Photographs 1945-1962 contains the obvious, as well as an extended narrative by Truman Capote. Don’t ask my why Nabokov’s autobiography and biography share this shelf with Marilyn. I don’t have an answer for you.
A behind-the-scenes look at the original Star Trek series that is just as depressing as that book on Blade Runner, because it confirms all the rumors you’ve heard about the cast and crew of Star Trek hating each other and just generally acting petty. But a guilty pleasure nonetheless. My brother gave me that book. Two Winona biographies/photo collections bought back when I loved Winona nearly as much as Marilyn Monroe. Can’t wait to see A Scanner Darkly when it comes out. Saucerful of Secrets is another guilty pleasure, dishing all the dirt on the catfights between Roger Waters and, well, everyone else associated with Pink Floyd. The Sasha Cohen biography was, as I mentioned before, a gift from my beautiful, loving, and very understanding girlfriend, Julie. Bless her! And despite what anyone may have told you, Growing Up Brady is fucking hilarious. If you loved The Brady Bunch then you have to read this book!
More coffee table books, many of which would cause you to mistake me for a gay man if you didn’t know otherwise. But, to the perpetual sorrow of gay men everywhere, I am not. Anyway, here we have some Frank Lloyd Wright books, a few books about music/drug/hippie culture of the ’60s and ’70s, a few Old School “I love Hollywood!” photo books, another Winona book (see? I loved her!), and seven more Marilyn Monroe photo collections.
Fiction on the top, nonfiction on the bottom....
Notable on the top: Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, the precursor to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (my favorite novel of all time). Speaking of which, there are some more George Orwell novels, he being one of my favorites as a kid along with Poe, Wilde, and Asimov. I didn’t really like Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. It would be one thing if he only looked down on the assholes in French culture, but he looked down on everyone. Basically, he had a superiority complex through the entire book, which made me want to punch him. But he’s dead. So I couldn’t.
Raymond Carver’s Cathedral is one of the most depressing books I’ve read. No wonder he killed himself! (heh) It’s good, though. I didn’t like The Last Temptation of Christ, though I’m prepared to believe that it was the translation that bored me, and not the book itself. In any event, I couldn’t figure out what all the hoopla was about when Scorsese’s movie came out. Those Christians will protest anything. A Clockwork Orange, awesome. ‘Nuff said. Well, okay—I’ll say more: the language in this book is unlike anything else I’ve ever encountered. Brilliant. I even made my own Nadsat glossary so that I could keep up with the book on subsequent read-throughs. Aren’t I a genius?
Tibor Fischer’s The Thought Gang is one of the funniest books I’ve read, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a laugh. Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys is magnifique—I don’t care what you say, Max! You wanna fight? Just kidding. Kissing in Manhattan is another one of my favorite books. And Alan Moore’s The Voice of the Fire proves that he doesn’t need pictures to tell a mindblowing story.
Notable on the bottom: Ploesti was written by one of my grandfather’s good friends, and my grandfather gave this book to me the last time I visited him. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is the funniest nonfiction book I’ve ever read. David Foster Wallace may not know how to end a novel (or even edit one), but he sure knows how to write an article! And....those two are the only truly notable titles on that second shelf. Hm.
More Marilyn books? Good lord, man! Get a hobby! The most meaningful one here is the Christie’s catalog of Marilyn’s personal effects, which were auctioned off and aired on the AMC channel several years back. I taped the auction while I was watching it, and I have to say it’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen on TV. To watch those physical representations of a film legend scatter to the wind was heartbreaking. Who knows where all those dresses, shooting scripts, shoes, pieces of furniture, etc., ended up.... Two other important books are the ones by James Haspiel, a guy who, as a teenager, hung out with Marilyn when she was living in New York City for a brief time in the late ’50s. He is a lucky bastard, and his books are pretty interesting.
I love the Doors, but Jim Morrison is a terrible poet. Or at least he was a terrible poet when he wasn’t writing songs. I have both volumes of his poetry sitting on this shelf and I don’t think I could turn to a single page that isn’t full of crap. Sorry, Jim. Gurdjieff’s book Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson is a little difficult to get through, but I think it’s worthwhile. Lots of other people think it’s bullshit. You’ll have to form your own opinion. And then there are the Harry Potter books. What could I possibly say about those that you don’t already know?
Most notable here is the book Julie made for me (front and center). Just looking at it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! The Tao of Pooh is perhaps the most important book I’ve read in my life. If that makes me sound trite or gullible, so be it. But have you ever read a book that described you to yourself in such a way that it felt like someone had just hit you over the head with a Revelation Wand? That’s what The Tao of Pooh did for me. Hence the rest of the books in its immediate vicinity. My mom gave me The Tao of Pooh for Christmas one year, and I don’t think she has ever realized just how important it has been to me. I should probably tell her.
Also on this shelf are some Western philosophy books, but I tend to find Western thought a little fuzzy once I get past the basics of Kant. Thus, Kant and Emerson are about the extent of my Western philosophy collection. Oh, and the Bible, which I got for Easter one year and have never actually read. I am a heathen.
FYI, I have no idea what book is missing from this shelf. Spooky, huh?
The presence of The Ayn Rand Lexicon on this shelf should in no way indicate to you that I am an Objectivist. On the contrary, I consider Rand’s criticisms of Kant, Hume, Plato, and other philosophers to be a bit wacky, but Rand is nonetheless an interesting character to me. In terms of her fiction I have only slogged through The Fountainhead and what I took away from it, chiefly, was this: Ayn Rand had absolutely no sense of humor whatsoever.
My Encyclopedia of Card Tricks is a leftover from my childhood days when I had a big interest in magic. These days I can’t remember a single trick I learned from that book, but there were a few good ones. The two chess books were bought shortly after I read Neville’s The Eight and Nabokov’s The Defense in short succession, but I’ve never actually learned how to play chess. (By which I mean that I know how the pieces move, but I don’t know any of the strategy.)
Then we have all my inspirational how-to section. I’m not a big believer in how-to books, but I can’t get enough of writing books. I don’t care if the person who wrote a “how to write” book has published nothing but the book about how to write—I’ll read it. Because they really do inspire me to get on with my writing, and for that reason they’re worth my time. Thanks to Robert McKee and Syd Field I have finished a screenplay based on Matthew Lewis’s The Monk (see bookcase 5, first shelf), and started another original screenplay. They will never get turned into movies, but they sure have been fun to write.
My very tiny reference section. Really, just four of these books are truly useful to me. First is The Encyclopedia of Literature, which has entries on everything from Abu Tammam to Philip K. Dick and transcendentalism to “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” This is the kind of book that I can pull off the shelf to look up just one entry, and two hours later I’ll realize that I’m still flipping through it.
Asimov’s Chronology of the World is probably the best one-volume history of the world in print, and I’m not just saying that because I have a soft spot for Isaac Asimov. His entries (broken down by era and by country/region) are concise, deeply informative, and at time pretty funny. What can I say? The man was a total badass.
The Writer’s Handbook 1996 is a decade out of date at this point, but it’s still a good resource for how to get published. Granted, I haven’t actually been published, but it sure seems like it would be helpful....
Finally, the Comic Values Annual 2001, though also out-of-date, is handy to have lying around whenever I want to look up an old comic book. I don’t know why I don’t have a copy of Overstreet’s Price Guide, as that is the industry favorite. I used to have one back in the mid-’80s, but it’s long gone.
Here’s the shelf that’s all about movies (and a few TV shows). Videohound’s Golden Movie Retriever 2005 is a lot like The Encyclopedia of Literature in that I can get lost in it pretty easily. The Internet Movie Database has replaced it for quick lookups, but the IMDB can’t replace the Videohound when it comes to concise, level-headed reviews. I give this book four bones! (That’s a lame joke you’ll only understand if you have your own copy of the Videohound.)
Yes, I am a Star Trek nerd. This is a simple fact of my existence, like the fact that I’m from the Midwest. There’s nothing I can do to change it, so I embrace it. Yay, Star Trek!
Also on this shelf are four illustrated screenplays for Ghostbusters, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Blade Runner, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Four awesome movies, and you’re not allowed to argue with me. They’re awesome, I tell you!
Danny Peary is my all-time favorite movie critic. The three Cult Movies books provide long essays on 200 cult movies such as Daughters of Darkness, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, A Boy and His Dog, The Warriors (“Can u dig it, hubbabub?”), Reefer Madness, The Wickerman, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc. Unlike most other film critics (such as Pauline Kael, David Denby, or—ugh—Leonard Maltin) I pretty much agree with everything Danny Peary wrote about these movies. (For example, yes, Zardoz was a stupid movie because who in his right mind would want everlasting life in such a boring, sterile environment? And yes, Plan 9 from Outer Space is a horrible, horrible movie, but at least Ed Wood instilled it with a message he felt passionately about, which is something you can’t say about 100 percent of Hollywood’s bloated summer blockbusters. So just because the acting is better in, say, X-Men United than in Plan 9 from Outer Space, does that make Plan 9 from Outer Space a worse film? The answer, obviously, is no.) And he provides a lot of great behind-the-scenes info on these films as well. So what I’m saying is that these three books are my three favorite books about movies.
I don’t know why Kurt Cobain’s Journals is on this shelf.
Rebel scum alert: Star Wars roleplaying game books in sight! Note, The Making of Episode 1 book was bought before the movie came out in theaters and I realized that George Lucas had ruined my childhood memories.
More art books, including my absolute favorite sci-fi illustrator: Michael Whelan. He’s a big part of the reason why I loved Isaac Asimov’s books so much as a kid. I would stare at Whelan’s cover to Asimov’s Foundation’s Edge for hours at a time. And that’s just partly hyperbole. It was the first Whelan cover I saw, and I was hooked from then on. Now he’s rich enough that he doesn’t actually take cover commissions anymore, which is too bad. But some of the coolest sci-fi covers of all time are between the covers of these two art books. Even cooler, the slipcased edition of The Art of Michael Whelan has a frontispiece that Whelan hand-colored.
Edward Hopper, George Tooker, and Tamara Lempicka are my three favorite “fine” artists (if one should even make that distinction). Then I have some more cult movie books, a sourcebook about Alan Moore’s Miracleman, and some books on animated cartoons, as well as two how-to books on cartooning. I bet lap has a copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, don’t you lap? Because everyone who read comics in the ’70s and ’80s had a copy of this book. It was practically issued to you as you walked in the door to your first comic book shop. Ahh, those were the days....
Jeez, this will probably go down in history as the longest entry in the diary. Or close to it, anyway. If you made it this far, congratulations! As a reward, the ultimate answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is 42.
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