Comics aficianado, scholar & journalist extraordinaire Chris Mautner asked me for a list of the books on my bedside table, which I'm assumably reading, for the weekly What Are You Reading over at Robot6.
These are the books on my bedside table, though some are by my drawing board, because I sometimes read when I’m in the middle of a deadline. I left off some of the books my daughters have left there so nobody'll think I'm reading Twilight, Horse Adventures or Captain Underpants (which, ok, I've read four times).
- The Art Forger’s Handbook by Eric Hebborn. Hebborn was a Cockney art forger and master of various art techniques who died under mysterious circumstances in 1996, and an entertaining writer. I figure this is a good skill to fall back on in case this whole cartoon thing heads south.
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I’ve never read much Dickens and I started this a year ago and I’m enjoying it very slowly.
- Ojingogo by Matt Forsythe. I just keep picking this up and looking through it over and over. It’s like a great silent animated fantasy you can hold in your hand.
- The Comic Worlds of Peter Arno, William Steig, Charles Addams and Saul Steinberg, by Iain Topliss. Topliss is an Australian academic and his prose can get a little dense, but he’s got a sharp eye and a sense of humor.
- Harvey Pekar: Conversations, edited by Mike Rhode. I’ve never read enough Pekar either, but I get a great introduction to the man in the 25 years of interviews Mike’s gathered here.
- Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. I reread this every few years, like I’m doing now, because it’s the greatest comic novel every written, along with A Confederacy of Dunces.
- Diaries: The Python Years by Michael Palin. Oh, this is fun to read! John Cleese says that Palin never shuts up, just yaps all the time. You can pick this up, read a few day’s worth of entries, and put it down a much happier man.
- Ordinary Victories, Parts 1 & 2 by Manu Larcenet. I wish I could draw comic realism as well as Larcenet, and tell a story so interestingly.
- The Complete Peanuts Volume 10 by Charles Shulz. Lucy gets mad at Schroeder and throws his piano to the kite-eating tree!!
- You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When it Monsoons: The World on One Cartoon a Day by Mo Willems. I wish I could do this too, but I’m glad Mo Willems did.
8 comments:
Oddly enough, we were just talking about "Great Expectations" last night at the office -- a book I read every few years. And "Scoop" is one I have never gotten around to and that belongs on my bedside table.
So, if great minds think alike, I suppose one of us has fallen just a bit short, but really not by very much.
That image of Petey reading is wonderful and awesome and I want a giant print of it hanging on my wall now.
Is that Dikkens, the well-known Dutch author with two k's?
Mike, It's probably me. But, yeah, you'd like Scoop, especially as a newspaperman. And, rare for an Evelyn Waugh book, it's got an almost happy ending.
Zack, thanks! Maybe I'll put one up on Cafe Press.
Odessa, maybe you're thinking of Dahl's Chickens, famous for children's literature and tasty chicken nuggetss?
The stuff that I read is such a hodge podge -- everything from Wodehouse to manga, all piled up on my bedside table. I'm relieved to see it's the same with you. I like the Reading Corner idea and maybe it's something you could come back to every 6 months or so.
Like Mike, I really enjoy seeing what people are reading !
I'm with Zach that is a great image of Petey, love seeing kids reading...
but I still enjoy the "Alice and Tree" for the Tototo Project the best. I am a big fan of Studio Ghibli though, so I am biased.
If you nag Richard, he could use Zazzle and make Petey into a poster that you could then buy from him.
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