If my Google-fu were better I’d be snarky and repost what things people said about Air America at its launch a year ago. I find it funny how many times Air America’s naysayers have moved the goalposts to maintain their predictions of dooooooom.

I’ve been an off-and-on Air America listener since day one. I remember trying to listen to Al Franken’s debut, getting quickly frustrated with the overloaded real audio stream and madly trying to Google an alternative feed. I remember my initial annoyance with Randi Rhodes’ style. I remember the mess with Multicultural Broadcasting and arguing with a message board poster claiming that the company was lacking in funds because ‘people just don’t want to hear it’… even though the incident happened before any audience estimates had been made. I remember buying a portable AM radio in anticipation of KABL becoming KQKE, the Bay Area affiliate and listening at my desk when Randi’s kicked off the new format.

It’s been an interesting year to watch, watching the programming evolve, seeing the fanbase jell and following the noise about the company. Over time, Randi Rhodes and her emphasis on primary sources, changed how I look at current events. I like how she specifies her sources and encourages her audience to check out those same sources and come to their own conclusions. For me, the best part of her show comes when a caller has a new talking point and she does the research to debunk it quickly. Sure, she’s loud and argumentative but I can take those qualities with the ones I enjoy.

Unfortunately, my favorite show turned out to be the network’s first cancellation. Unfiltered was an interesting show, it had a focus on under-covered news and co-host Rachel Maddow was able to moderate some very informative interviews.

Nowadays, I mostly listen to shows archived in mp3 format on my iPod and I’ll stream at work (though listening to Randi Rhodes at my desk requires constant volume adjustment).

Happy anniversary, AAR and thanks for some of the thought-provoking moments in the past year.

Well, I made a trip to Comix Experience today since my regular shop, which is not-so-great in the service department but gets a marvelous convenient location score, has missed putting a lot of issues into my pull box or just sold out of shelf copies of stuff I became curious of later (the shopping list: Authority #5, Birds of Prey #79, X-Men #165, everything Seven Soldiers, Young Avengers #1 and 2 and any manga Sabrinas I didn’t have… I found everything except Sabrina, BoP and X-Men).

Since I was there, I grabbed a copy of Countdown to… well, I can’t complete that title without making it into one of those really, really obvious parodies.

Overall, I was impressed. Tho that’s a "I was expecting a 3 out of 10 and got a 6… it’s twice as good as I expected!" sort of impressed. It didn’t have the gratuitous exposition of Identity Crisis #1 or the over-the-top melodramatics (characterization was on the shrill side), every chapter didn’t feel like an incomplete teaser story to get me to buy another product (though one scene did feel shoehorned into the plot).

As for the events within. Meh. Yadda yadda, big change… yadda, yadda, evil now… yadda, yadda, someone’s dead. None of it’s terribly surprising because, as usual, the publisher doesn’t give up something that’ll hurt. Sure, DC and Marvel have moved on to killing off established characters, but they’re rarely characters that are currently driving some kind of sales. The patterns fairly clear and there’s little shock.

So nothing in the story really makes me want to read more. I am tempted by Day of Vengeance, if only because I have a weakness for magic heroes and it sounds like I will see a fabulous, pointy, green hat. I’m still deciding about Villains United. The high concept sounds cool — Gail Simone handles a Secret Society of Super Villains for the 21st century. Not much else about the title really compels me, however. Maybe that purchase will depend on my enjoyment of Day of Vengeance and the blogosphere reaction.

Foind via Trash Heap:

- Bold those you have read
- Italicize those you started, but didn’t finish
- Add three books after the last one

001. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
002. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
003. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
004. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
005. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
006. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
007. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
008. 1984, George Orwell
009. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
010. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
011. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
012. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
013. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
014. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
015. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
016. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
017. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
018. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
019. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
020. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
021. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
022. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone, JK Rowling
023. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
024. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
025. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
026. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
027. Middlemarch, George Eliot
028. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
029. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
030. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
031. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
032. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
033. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
034. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
035. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
036. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
037. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
038. Persuasion, Jane Austen
039. Dune, Frank Herbert
040. Emma, Jane Austen
041. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
042. Watership Down, Richard Adams
043. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
044. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
045. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
046. Animal Farm, George Orwell
047. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
048. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
049. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
050. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
051. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
052. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
053. The Stand, Stephen King
054. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
055. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
056. The BFG, Roald Dahl
057. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
058. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
059. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
060. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
061. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
062. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
063. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
064. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
065. Mort, Terry Pratchett
066. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
067. The Magus, John Fowles
068. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
069. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
070. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
071. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
072. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
073. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
074. Matilda, Roald Dahl
075. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
076. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
077. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
078. Ulysses, James Joyce
079. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
080. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
081. The Twits, Roald Dahl
082. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
083. Holes, Louis Sachar
084. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
085. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
086. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
087. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
088. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
089. Magician, Raymond E Feist
090. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
091. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
092. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
093. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
094. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
095. Katherine, Anya Seton
096. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
097. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
098. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
099. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue
Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise
Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George’s Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O’Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon
Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winter’s Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen
Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael
Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald
Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Rraft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Black Bird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O’Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt Bleh.
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,
E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Jester
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen God’s Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setter’s Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookman’s Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magic’s Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic’s Promise, Mercedes Lacky
294. Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace.
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison.
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving.
302. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lion’s Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Lilith’s Brood), Octavia Butler (Dawn,
Adulthood Rites, Imago)
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood
Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel,
Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert
Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magic’s Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O’Neill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Divine Comedy, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L’Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moor’s Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique
Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
350. Time for bed by David Baddiel
351. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Buold
352. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
353. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
354. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
355. Jhereg by Steven Brust
356. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
360. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
361. Neuromancer, William Gibson
362. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
363. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
364. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
365. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
366. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
367. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
368. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
369. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
370. The God Boy, Ian Cross
371. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, Laurie R. King
372. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
373. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
374. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K. Dick
375. Assassin’s Apprentice, Robin Hobb
376. number9dream, David Mitchell
377. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
378. Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris
379. Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler
380. Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman
381. Dance On My Grave, Aidan Chambers
382. Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Leguin
383. Hyperion, Dan Simmons
384. Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
385. Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett
386. To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
387. A Clash of Kings, George RR Martin
388. The Egyptian, Mika Waltari
389. Moab Is My Washpot, Stephen Fry
390. Contact, Carl Sagan
391. Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
392. Feersum Endjinn, Iain M. Banks
393. The Golden, Lucius Shepard
394. Decamerone, Boccaccio
395. Birdy, William Wharton
396. The Red Tent, Anita Diaman
397. The Foundation, Isaac Asimov
398. Il Principe, Machiavelli
399. Post Office, Charles Bukowski
400. Macht und Rebel, Abu Rasul
401. Grass, Sheri S. Tepper
402. The Long Walk, Richard Bachman
403. Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
404. The Joy Of Work, Scott Adams
405. Romeo, Elise Title
406. The Ninth Gate, Arturo Perez-Reverte
407. Memnoch the Devil, Anne Rice
408. Dead Famous, Ben Elton
409. Scarlett, Alexandra Ripley
410. Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol
411. Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks
412. The Colossus of Maroussi, Henry Miller
413. Branded, Alissa Quart
414. The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
415. Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac
416. White teeth, Zadie Smith
417. Under the bell jar, Sylvia Plath
418. The little prince of Belleville, Calixthe Beyala
419. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
420. A King Lear of the Steppes, Ivan Turgenev
421. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
422. Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Peter Kropotkin
423. Hija de la Fortuna, Isabel Allende
424. Retrato en Sepia, Isabel Allende
425. Villette, Charlotte Brontë
426. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
427. Ubik, Philip K. Dick
428. Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler
429. Solaris, Stanislaw Lem
430. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
431. Nausea, Jean Paul Sartre
432. The Island of the Day Before, Umberto Eco
433. The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq
434. The Angel Of The West Window, Gustav Meyrink
435. A Farewell To Arms, Ernest Hemingway
436. Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
437. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
438. In the Eyes of Mr. Fury, Philip Ridley
439. Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks
440. Into the Forest, Jean Hegland
441. Middlesex -Jeffrey Eugenides
442. The Giving Tree -Shel Silverstein
443. Go Ask Alice -Anonymous
444. Waiting For Godot, Samuel Becket
445. Blankets, Craig Thompson
446. The Girls’ Guide To Hunting And Fishing, Melissa Banks
447. Voice of the Fire, Alan Moore
448. The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler
449. Coraline, Neil Gaiman
450. Hip Hop America, Nelon George
451. A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
452. Basquiat, Phoebe Hoban
453. Sleepers, Lorenzo Carcaterra
454. Naked, David Sedaris
455. Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask, Jim Munroe
456. All Families Are Psychotic, Douglas Coupland
457. The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
458. Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom, Cory Doctorow
——-
459. The Tale of Genji, Shikibu Murasaki
460. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
461. Sabriel, Garth Nix

I’ve been memed!

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

I’ve gone through a number of choices. I almost went with Pride and Prejudice, which has that elegant language and a solid plot formula that’s been done over and over again. However, I realized that I would be memorizing this book and if I’m going to memorize anything it’s going to be about Jabberwockies and Chessmen in Alice’s Adventures through the Looking Glass. I loved Wonderland as a kid.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

I’m sure I have, I just can’t remember who…

The last book you bought is:

That’d be a copy of The Ragwitch I found while buying manga. Last time I checked it was out of print, so I figured I should buy a copy while I had the chance.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve got a few books I’ve got in my reading pile:

Mister Monday and The Golden Compass: I want to read these, they match up nicely with my interests. However, I rarely seem to be in a fantasy novel mood. I keep picking these up and getting distracted.

The Hunting of the President: I picked this one up after one of those household political arguments turned up over Vince Foster and I wanted to be able to articulate my doubts better than "Everyone who went on TV saying it was murder sounded like a loon." which is a stupid argument considering my media cynicism and one that leaves me insulting my sparring partner, territory I didn’t want to enter. I haven’t gotten so far, halfway through the first chapter on Whitewater, the Swift Boat Vets thrust themselves into the media limelight and the combination left me so riled that I started disturbing my sleep. I want to get to picking this one up again, because it does make an interesting compliment to David Brock’s Blinded By the Right.

The Grim Grotto: Normally, I devour a new Lemony Snicket book but I got stuck at the beginning of this one.

Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Access 2003: See, here’s my problem. I grew up using the Bank Street Writer to keep track of simple things, I love IF formulas in Excel, I get database theory and come up with lots of cool things I’d like to do with a database… things I currently do in Excel because I want to start out on lesson 23 and I haven’t found anything that teaches me how to get to lesson 23. Every book I’ve gone through seems to stop at lesson 15. This one, while well-written, looks like it will also stop too soon.

America: The Book: I’m reading this one slowly in pieces, partly because it can be that way and mostly to put of finishing it.

Strangers: This sounds cool, but like my two fantasy books, I keep getting distracted from it.

Five books you would take to a deserted island.

Three books from my favorites list make my deserted island list:

The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon: This is a book I have had multiple copies of because I lend it to friends and find myself wanting to read it while they’re getting into the mood to read the copy I lent. There’s something about Weldon’s ideas about people that entrances me, perhaps its the complexity of thought revealed in my favorite statement about herself, "I am called a feminist… by people who are not." She-Devil was my first experience with Weldon and it’s the one that holds me the most, the books theme about illusion resonates with me strongly.

Sabriel by Garth Nix: I’ll want to spend time with a magical heroine from time to time and Sabriel’s one of the best written ones.

The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester: This is a book I just love looking at, you really have to remind yourself of when it was written to fully enjoy it. Bester’s sci-fi concepts and typographical touches are some 30 years ahead of their time and the novel stands up to modern classics.

I’ll add my Fahrenheit book to the list — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass — because its such a childhood favorite.

The Tao of Pooh: If I were trying to impress I’d say the Tao Te Ching, but I know this volume will do more to keep me centered while I’m stuck on that island.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

Kyle, because it’s been so long since we’ve talked about books without pictures.

Rose, because it’s been too long since she’s posted.

Mark, because I only finally found his Live Journal.

To Tekurah, John & Karalee, David of Clover Hollow… can I pass the stick via e-mail to non-bloggers?

Something I’ve begun wondering…

After watching The Ring Two, I started reading the Ring 2 manga (based on the movie sequel written by Ringu director Hideyo Nakata, with an original story that was not related to the literary sequel, Spiral) to review the different directions the franchise went.

I started reading this volume under less than ideal circumstances. It was on BART after an exhausting day of work, so my brain wasn’t at my sharpest. The volume starts out by recapping the events of the first movie, which got me to turn my brainpower down, since I didn’t really need a recap. When I got to the heart of the story, however, I found the volume hard to follow.

As the train moved on, I found what I thought was my problem… Meimu’s art is rather static. My eye didn’t feel compelled to jump from one panel to the next. That got me thinking and the next I picked up a couple volumes of Tokyopop Sneaks to check out a sample of a couple action stories that did nothing for me. I always have a hard getting into action manga. I suspect part of it is that without the usual quips found in superhero action scenes, the balance of words and art is off. But looking for the same feeling I got from Meimu, I realized that part of the problem also lay in the panel designs.

Then I started reading Phoenix and realized how smartly Osamu Tezuka would arrange some panels, how the art made it hard to stop reading. I also thought about how action didn’t stop my enjoyment of Banana Fish, Uzumaki or Tuxedo Gin.

That got me thinking. Art that doesn’t lead the eye from panel-to-panel is a failing I often hear when American comics are reviewed, but I don’t remember hearing it applied to manga. Am I forgetting these reviews, or could that be something we manga readers forget in our analyses? I’ve realized that there are some manga series that I have an easier time reading than others and that a big factor there is the visual storytelling.

And that got me wondering even further if the times I’ve passed manga books around if I passed one with less-than-stellar art… ones I enjoy with slight difficulty — just enough of a hurdle to make the "new" form (it’s not really new, but it certainly feels that way) feel like it’s not worth the hassle.

I have no idea or even very many theories, this is just where my mind is roaming.

Game Daily takes a look at the upcoming City of Villains. The article nicely puts together the bits that have come through the grapevine, so City of Heroes players who haven’t been reading every tidbit leaked out by the developers would find the article pretty interesting.

The game concept is pretty unusual. I’ll be amazed when I find out that they’ve accomplished it:

According to Dave and Shane, villains aren’t
the type to "react." They’re the ones that plot and scheme, and as such
villains will be able to act "proactively." Because of this fundamental
divergence, Villains missions will feel much different than those in Heroes.
Dave Cook said, "We’re developing technology constantly that allows us
to vary the way missions work - from proactively seeking out leads on
your own to ‘random’ events that draw you in as you walk by."

Low-level
missions might entail laundering cash, stealing something valuable, or
robbing a bank. As you level up and increase your "reputation" the
missions will get grander and more diabolical. For instance, stealing a
priceless gem or component needed for a world-destroying weapon are
distinct possibilities. But here’s the galactic twist - with PvP combat
enabled, Heroes being played in CoH may learn of your scheme and attempt to stop you .

If they manage to live up to their lofty goals City of Villains could turn out to be much cooler than City of Heroes. That’s a big if, however..

Graeme rampages a homophobic message board thread that starts with the presumption that gay dating is mature readers content. I have a rude response but instead I’ll just link to a Bad Reporter comic strip that makes the same point, only with funny pictures. (And one line that riles my politically correct nerve slightly.) Don Asmussen is one of the funniest political commentators I follow, he’s got the irreverence of The Simpsons, only with a clue to the serious details of what he’s mocking.

I had something else to mention but now I’ve forgotten it. I’ve got my head stuck on a dinner I’m cooking up tomorrow.

I have no idea why I am so enchanged with this Cillit Bang Remix, but it’s gonna be stuck in my head for a while.

Found via Timmy Ray.

Steven Grant makes a sharp observation about the state of comic conventions. It’s something that’s been hovering in my head, but never fully put together in my head:

A crowd interested in
modern comics, which I hope would be the case at any show, for the
health of the industry, wouldn’t necessarily be a crowd interested in
back issues or collectibles/toys/etc., and there have been indicators
for several years that the two groups have become fairly distinct and
even antipathetic. So a hugely attended show where fans want to see
their favorite writers and artists might still not be - and, from
appearances, wasn’t - a show worth a retailer’s time, and this is a
dichotomy the industry is going to have to come to grips with.

Except for my first trip to San Diego, I don’t really go to comic cons to patronize comic shop retailers. That’s largely because I don’t shop for back issues anymore, while there are some old titles I’d like to have they don’t seem worth squeezing into a crowd to pore over a tightly packed back issue bin, especially since the rare occasions when I find an issue of Sinister House of Secret Love, the price is something I have to debate. My first Comic Con was about back issues but then I was chasing down the rest of the Baxter Legion (I’m still missing a couple issues that I didn’t want to pay exorbitant prices for, I’m just not as interested anymore, the reward doesn’t match the effort).

In my first trip to San Diego, I made a point of talking to people at booths that didn’t immediately catch my interest and because of that I picked up a few comics I really enjoyed. The next year, I went looking for more to discover more undiscovered gems (by then I was participating in APAs and on usenet, so there was a small degree of wanting to discover something cool). So there it began, comic cons became less about buying from retailers and more of a giant swap meet where creators and publishers could sell their books to me directly. Then there got to be certain creators who I enjoyed getting to say ‘hi’ to every so often.

While I enjoy comic discussions, I rarely make it to panels. Usually, the problem is poor time management on my part, along with laziness and maybe disinterest. There’s something about the energy of the exhibition floor that draws me in. No matter how big or small the floor is, it always fills my interest to the point of taking away from my interest in any panels. I used to make sure to go to the publisher ones, but they’ve become less interesting as the marketing hype begins to sound more and more familiar. I do make sure to go to the Gays in Comics: Crossfire panel that happens every year at San Diego.

Its struck me for a while that there’s a transition to be made with comic conventions. I never thought of it as a matter of separate audiences, until Grant put it that way. I had always thought of the kind of content I’m interested in as something that would require a big or specialized con like APE or SPX. Perhaps its less a matter of size than priorities? (Such as not putting Artists’ Alley on the far end of the exhibition floor.)

(Random flashback… the first year I went to San Diego the special guest was the creator of Sailor Moon. I remember being so tickled to go to the Horton Plaza on Saturday and to see so many families with a young daughter dressed in some sort of Japanese school girl outfit. I thought it was pretty cool to see a demographic that common wisdom said didn’t have any interest in comics, out in such numbers… and participating in cosplay, which I would think requires greater than average affection for the concept.)

Hm, I do take issue with the title, I’d much rather be something hip and trendy, but I guess it’s better than anything else Bacardi…

Bacardi 151 Congratulations! You’re 139 proof, with specific scores in beer (80) , wine (116), and liquor (121).

All right. No more messing around. Your knowledge of alcohol is so high that you have drinking and getting plastered down to a science. Sure, you could get wasted drinking beer, but who needs all those trips to the bathroom? You head straight for the bar and pick up that which is most efficient.

Found via Ilkya Damen.