The books housed on the following two cases may seem like we’ve reached the dregs of my collection (and with good reason), but in fact I have two more cases to go after this, and they’re a few of the best. So we’ll just have slog through these two as best we can. Ready?
Not the best photograph I’ve ever taken, but there you go. Not shown on the top of these two shelves is my entire collection of Heavy Metal magazines, circa 1977-1986. I need to figure out some way to store them, because they look kind of trashy just sitting there on the top shelf.
Perhaps the most random shelf on any of my bookcases. This one contains a few binders that contain some Linsner trading cards (NERD!), a (now defunct) catalog of my VHS videotapes (NERD!), and a fully cataloged list of my individual comic books (NERDOTRON 2000!). Also here is a draft of my college honors thesis (in the brown report cover), two Comic Albums that contain issues 1-50 of Love & Rockets, a few books given to me by my grandparents several years ago, the Turba Philosophorum, the novel Metropolis illustrated by Kaluta, and Chuck Jones’s biography. Finally, there’s my modest collection of old The Comics Journal issues, circa 1987-1991.
Ahh, nostalgia. This shelf, both front and back, could be considered a time capsule of my pre-Asimov childhood reading habits. (Ignoring the trade paperbacks to the left, that is, which are all from the last ten years. 2001 Nights is another Japanese comic book I can get behind 100 percent, I like Scott Morse’s first Soulwind book, and Gon is, well, almost entirely indescribable.)
In the center and vertically stacked are my Archie Comics Digests, which represent the only comic book reading I did as a kid. Then there was a gap of several years before I started reading comics again. I used to take these things with me on every trip my family took, and I would read them over and over again. It’s funny how a kid can be entertained by something ad nauseam. These days I barely read anything twice, let alone dozens of times. I suspect I know those old Archie stories better than anything else I’ve ever read.
Next to my Archies is my small collection of Little Big Books (or is that Big Little Books? I can’t remember). As you can see from the creases on the top one they, too, were well-read when I was a kid. Next to those is my Queen Amidala commemorative tin (shut up!), on top of which are my dad’s own childhood Better Little Books starring Red Ryder, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. As you can see, my dad’s taste in childhood reading was a bit more macho than my own. But I read them myself as a kid so I suppose I get some points for that.
As we reach the second substrata of my childhood reading habits, I am brought back 20 years to some of my favorites: My Side of the Mountain, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (that’s the one with the ripped-up binding—again, because I read it to death as a kid), Ghosts Who Went to School, The Secret of N.I.M.H., Superfudge, etc.
Next to that stack are my Choose Your Own Adventure books, my Dungeons & Dragons choose your own adventure books, a few other choose your own adventure knock-offs, an embarrassing number of Family Circus collections (did I ever find that comic strip funny?), and a few Mad Magazine collections.
Next to that are my Empire Strikes Back, Battlestar Galactica, and Hot Stuff comic book collections.
Then, on the far right, are my really old books. The top half are books that my mom and dad gave to me from their own childhoods. Then there are some Akiko novels—which are not from my childhood, but I wish they’d been around when I had been a kid—and some other notables (such as The Ghost on Saturday Night, Mystery in the Night Woods, etc.).
Did anyone else ever have a Me-Book? Mine is called My Birthday Land Adventure. This is how they worked: you (or your parents, or whoever) sent this company all this information about you, such as your name, when and where you were born, where you live, the name of your best friend, and so on, and they insert all these facts into a standard story (kind of like Mad-Libs), then type the story onto the pages of a book that has pre-printed pictures on them. As a kid I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I wonder if they still make these?
Finally, the I Hate Mathematics Book almost singlehandedly taught me math as a kid. I was having the hardest time with fractions in third grade, and then all of a sudden, this book turned me into a friggin’ math genius. Seriously. The clouds parted and math was never a problem again. I’ll always have a fond place in my heart for that book. It saved me from a life of pumping gas.
From childhood books to books that you should never show a child. Here’s my collection of comic books of a dubious nature. Milo Manara, Azpiri, R. Crumb, Little Annie Fanny, Omaha the Cat Dancer, and some other assorted stuff from Bodé, Richard Moore, Michael Manning, etc. It’s probably best not to dwell too much on this shelf. Um, LOOK! Star Trek blueprints! Wow!
Here’s my aforementioned second set of Tolkien books, all of which I’ve never read (with the exception of The Hobbitt and Fellowship of the Ring). I enjoyed Rick Moody’s Garden State, Tim O’Brien’s Going after Cacciato, Richard Powers’s Galatea 2.2, and Arthur Miller’s After the Fall (a semi-autobiographical/semi-fictional play about many things, including the author’s marriage to Marilyn Monroe).
There’s a reason why most of these books are behind the front row. I don’t have a lot to say about any of these. I’m lookin’, I’m lookin’.... Nope, nothing to say.
If you want to check out a comics anthology that really tests your stamina when it comes to reading something totally off the wall, then Blab is for you. I’d been really looking forward to Red Rocket 7 when it came out, what with Mike Allred calling it his love letter to American music. But it was ultimately a let-down. Trashman Lives! is classic underground comics by Spain. This probably belongs on the shelf with Crumb, but there wasn’t any more room. My little sister got me the Calvin et Hobbes collection (which is in French) while on a class trip to France. Sky Doll is a gorgeous graphic novel that is entirely in French as well, and since I don’t speak even a bit of French I have no idea what the story is about. But I love turning the pages and marveling at the artwork.
Here we have a bunch of random Writer’s Digest magazines, some guitar tablature books, the GRE in English prep book, and a bunch of screenplays. To the right of that stack is all that remains of my once majestic LP and 45s vinyl collection. Note the (rather dusty) copy of Prince’s 1999 on top. I don’t have a turntable anymore, but I want to get one because the main reason why I still have most of these albums is because I never bought replacements for them on CD.
Next to those are various sketchbooks and a few notebooks that contain notes on books I’ve read for the last 11 years, including the infamous “Marilyn Notebook” that Julie found early in our relationship and deemed “really weird.” Thanks, Sweetie.
On the end are my high school yearbooks. In which you would see one or two pictures of Mark with a mullet (his senior year). Too bad for you, additional photos are not included on this page. Go Panthers!
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