I love reading books. They're a great source of continuing education (something else I love),
entertainment, and escape. I especially love my Kindle, which enables
me to read without all the distractions of a phone (or the risk of paper-cuts!).
I wanted to start keeping track a few years ago, and since I have a pretty
lousy memory, I figured I should make some sort of notes or write reviews. I realized
it would be incredibly painful to try to maintain it in one giant HTML page, so I broke
my rules and made this into a database. The summaries pop up (using magical AJAX) when
you click on a book title. Plus I found a cool table-sorting Javascript,
so the tables are sortable and filterable.
They aren't super-in-depth book reviews or summaries; sometimes they're not even
about the book much at all! It really depends on the mood I was in when I wrote the review.
But anyway, enough of my babblings... onto the books!
2019 - During the Great Scramble, the
Web Comics and
Graphic Novels have come over from E to reside on the Reading list now!
2020 - I had a lot of fun visually mapping out a couple of Ryan North's choose-your-own-adventure
books. I thought I might start a whole slew of maps like this, but alas it has not yet come to pass.
Until then, enjoy the maps for Romeo and/or Juliet and To Be Or Not To Be.
2021 - A new type of entry has appeared on this list - the "Short Story" - identified by slightly
shorter fonts, represents a, well, short story I've read and wanted to keep track of,
apart from random large collections.
2023-24 - Spent the year going through the Colson Fellows program
which included reading 10 different books about Christian worldview and apologetics. Additionally, I've been using
GoodReads more, so I've been a bit lax about including books on this list. I do intend to add them eventually, since
this is my primary "did I ever read that?" list / reminder for myself.
1/0 (Ended)-
I don't have individual favorites of this, but
a comment on XKCD's forums talked about how the
webcomic 1/0 ended similar to how it started,
and I ended up getting hooked and reading all 1000 strips.
LunarBaboon - I don't have favorites up yet,
but this is a great comic about an uber-imaginative father and his son (and now, daughter, too).
Lots of warm fuzzies with this one.
Doghouse Diaries
Amanda liked this one so much, she put it up on my closet and added a label of her own!
Other Favorite Doghouse Comics
Add 1:00 - Awesome, except he shouldn't have used microwave popcorn for the 2nd example. There's a button for that, too.
Subtitles - Personally, I use subtitles because I have very sensitive hearing. I get easily distracted by other noises. Like someone eating potato chips.
Chuck & Beans
Not sure how I got into this one; they don't update too often, but every once in awhile there's a gem.
Other Favorite Chuck & Beans
Kids - Very appropriate recently for a coworker of mine
I saw this one at work awhile ago, and it generated a laugh, though the other comics on
xkcd.com are even more risque than Not From Concentrate, so be warned...
Emoticons in Parentheses - I'd love an answer to this, though recently, I've been trying
reverse emoticons (just to be different (-: ) but that looks equally awkward now that I look at it.
Kindle - This one's on my Kindle screensaver, though I don't have 3G :-(
Unmatched Parentheses - This really bothers me - both when I encounter it, but most often when I'm the source of it. I blame auto-correcting software IDE's...
Not From Concentrate
This one, from NFC, seemed very appropriate, as I saw it
shortly after Epic stopped offering donuts on the first Monday of the month. He doesn't seem to update anymore, but I keep
it on my RSS reader just in case... waiting for the day...
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Feb 2014 - Whoa! Google Chrome thinks nfccomic.com has malware. Crazy! And not true. Still, I changed the
image to be self-hosted, so hopefully Chrome quits flagging my page for malware.
May 2014 - Aw, the site seems to be officially dead. Maybe I should've saved off
my favorites instead of just linking them. Aha! Thank you, Wayback Machine!
Basic Instructions are usually a little wordy, but I still enjoy them 3 times a week.
Unfortunately, Scott has retired from the comic (for now!) but is still posting the whole backlog on the same schedule.
I only recently (~2013) got into comics, and I still wouldn't say I'm into them, at least not as much as
my comic-loving nephew would like. But I'm starting to read them a bit more these days. There aren't many truly
science-fiction comics, but there are plenty of psychological-thriller-esque books that tease my brain.
Everyone seems to have their list of favorite books they're reading. I'm not sure why anyone cares. I guess
if you're odd enough to be reading this site about me, maybe you like weird, strange comics like these, too.
I started with The Walking Dead (after getting into it via my pastor, of all people). I then read through all of
Kirkman's Invincible that was available at the time. Perhaps that's a basis for my bias, but I've seen several
Image comics that I really like.
Anyway, most of these (and many more) are now included in the main reading list above (and the Full list),
but just in case I think about keeping this up-to-date, this fun table at least has images!
Metaphase - Chip Reece
The man who got me into comics himself, Chip, has authored Metaphase - a great little book about a superhero coming to terms with having a son with Down Syndrome and about his son's desire to be just like his dad, ultimately rising to become a hero himself in the story. I'm anxiously awaiting a sequel!
Hawkeye - Matt Fraction
In the airport for a work trip, a coworker asked if I knew which superhero was from my hometown. I had no idea Hawkeye was allegedly born in Waverly, IA! By default he's become my favorite superhero, and though I've read all the various one-shots, I'll always like the series I read first, the 2013 set by Matt Fraction.
Complex - Michael Malkin
This was a fun comic about a mysterious town where people seem to be living out some sort of experiment; a drug resets certain townspeople's memories while the others seem to fight against a system of injustice. I backed a 2nd volume on Kickstarter and was supposed to have a cameo in it; still waiting to see if/how that turns out.
The Last West - Evan Young & Lou Iovino
Heard of this just as I was getting into Kickstarter. I meant to back it, but time ran out before I got around to it. Sounds like a really fun story about "...a world in which all cultural and technological innovation has ground to a halt" Ooh! Hey, it's on Comixology now. I shall have to dig into this! (And see if I remember to come back and update this after I've read some of it!)
Mind the Gap - Jim McCann
It's been so long since I read a volume or two of this, but it was very intriguing, about a comatose girl who experiences a sort of "gap" world between this life and the next, as she tries to discover who tried to kill her.
iZombie - Chris Roberson & Michael Allred
After The Walking Dead, I'm a LITTLE into zombie comics, though they seem in quite plentiful supply. This one was a fun story that turned into a WAY better TV series. Well, the TV series has taken it away from the comic line quite a bit, but both the comic and the TV series are great on their own.
Lazarus - Greg Rucka & Michael Lark
Part of why I like this is that when I went to my first LCBS (local comic book store) after getting interested in comics, I picked up the first two issues. Who knows, maybe they'll be worth big bucks some day? Really interesting story about a sort of post-apocalypical US which has been broken up into different regions owned by families which each have a "Lazarus" - not really a family member but with amazing healing / regenerative capabilities. We don't quite know how it works, but we learn a bit more every issue.
scRambled - Reading lists
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