10 good books that I read this year:

The Road
by Cormac McCarthy

My reaction was similar to James Kochalka’s.

Harry Potter 7
by J.K. Rowling

Always a fan of the movies, this year I let go of my HP snobbery, looked past the clunky prose, and let myself fall into the dream..

The Early Comic Strip
by David Kunzle

A long-out-of print collection of ancient precursors to the comic strip that I got my hands on through interlibrary loan.

Posts about the book:

• KUNZLE’S HISTORY OF THE COMIC STRIP, VOLS. 1 & 2
• R. CRUMB ON COLLECTING AND DAVID KUNZLE’S THE EARLY COMIC STRIP
• EXAMPLES FROM KUNZLE’S “THE EARLY COMIC STRIP” 

Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow
by Anders Nilsen

Maybe my favorite book last year by my favorite contemporary cartoonist. My “review.”

The Political Brain
by Drew Westen

A book that got me interested in politics again.

My mindmap of the book.

Secret Knowledge
by David Hockney

A book about the use of optics in painting from the 1400s on, which changed a lot of my ideas about perspective, realism, comics, and collage.

Related Posts:

• DAVID HOCKNEY’S SECRET KNOWLEDGE: COLLAGE AND THE RETURN TO AWKWARDNESS
• WHAT VANISHING POINT? SOME REALLY BRIEF THOUGHTS ON COMICS AND PERSPECTIVE

King-Cat Classix
by John Porcellino

A retrospective collection of Porcellino’s King-Cat mini-comics. I also read his Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man and Perfect Example. Those clean, Zen lines!

The Gospel According to Jesus
by Stephen Mitchell

Reminded me how much I love the teachings of Jesus and how much I hate contemporary Christianity. A lovely book.

Related posts:

• CUTTING AND PASTING THE GOSPELS
• ON THE CHRISTMAS LEGEND

Saul Steinberg: Illuminations
by Joel Smith

This was the catalog of a gallery show we saw while we were on our honeymoon, and it kick-started the Year of Steinberg, in which I became obsessed with his work.

Posts about Steinberg from this year:

• NOTES ON SAUL STEINBERG
• SAUL STEINBERG’S REFLECTIONS AND SHADOWS
• AN ARTIST NOT-IN-RESIDENCE
• A WRITER WHO DRAWS

The Braindead Megaphone
by George Saunders

A collection of essays from my favorite living fiction writer. We got to meet Mr. Saunders twice this year: once at Oberlin College and once at the Texas Book Festival.

10 great books I read, in descending order:

Soccer In Sun and Shadow
by Eduardo Galeano

The ultimate bathroom reading. Short, smart, prose-poem chapters about soccer. Picked it up because Barry Yourgrau (another good bathroom read) recommended it. Became an instant fan.

Making Comics
by Scott McCloud

Not as good as Understanding Comics, but way better than Reinventing Comics. Any McCloud release is an event. Thrilled to see a chapter on world-building in there. Will make a good textbook someday.

Six Memos For The Next Millennium
by Italo Calvino

Intended as lectures, Calvino died before he could give them. The first five, Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, and Multiplicity, were written. The sixth, Consistency, was not. A hell of a collection of last words from a hell of a writer.

Beautiful Evidence
by Edward Tufte

The fourth of Tufte’s books, contains his devastating pamphlet on Powerpoint, which should be required reading for everyone. Come to think of it, all of his books should be required reading — in the age of pictures and words, they could take the place of freshmam composition…

The Rabbi’s Cat
by Joann Sfar

The Rabbi’s cat swallows a parrot and announces his ambition to learn the Torah. Loose, wonderful drawings, a no-nonsense structure, and a great story. Didn’t get to read Sfar’s Vampire Loves, but that looks excellent too.

Mother Night
by Kurt Vonnegut

Gallows humor, anyone? Picked this up because I read that it was Etgar Keret’s favorite Vonnegut. Devoured it in one sitting during a sunny afternoon on our balcony.

Curses
by Kevin Huizenga

I haven’t actually put my hands on the Curses collection (it’s on the xmas list), but when I was at Quimby’s in Chicago, I bought every Huizenga comic they had, and after that, ordered everything available through USS Catastrophe (including his great booklet for the Center for Cartoon Studies). Along with the stuff available online, I’ve read a good bit of what’s gonna be in the book. His blog is great, too.

Consider The Lobster
by David Foster Wallace

“I don’t know a whole lot about non-fiction journalism, but the way i think about [it] in terms of what I can do is: I think of it as a service industry. Essays like this are occasions to watch somebody reasonably bright but also reasonably average pay far closer attention and think at far more length about all sorts of different stuff than most of us have a chance to in our daily lifes…”

Brilliant dude, brilliant essays. Still haven’t read a bit of his fiction.

Fun Home
by Alison Bechdel

A story that couldn’t be told in any other form than a comic book. I loved meeting Alison, and her Powerpoint presentation about the “making of” made the book seem even more brilliant. Best book published this year, hands down.

Cruddy
by Lynda Barry

Next to getting married, meeting Lynda Barry and hearing her read from Cruddy was probably the event of my year. To me, Lynda is the perfect model of a writer and an artist. This book is just too cool for words.