Boring personal reading habits 2k11

Below are all of the 70 books that I completed in 2011. Only the books I finished, not all the ones I started or read most of. 70 is a pretty healthy number, except when I filter out the graphic novels and comic collections, I only completed 26 prose books. This is not to say that prose books are superior to graphic novels or anything like that (I read so many because I'm collaborating on one with the artist and writer John Dermot Woods) but I have to acknowledge that graphic novels take me almost no time to read. The shortest ones on my list were probably completed in twenty minutes and the longest ones were still likely quicker reads than the shortest novellas. So, I'm going to break things into two lists.



Prose: (* is a reread)

1. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love – Raymond Carver*
2. The Mezzanine – Nicholson Baker
3. Great Expectations – Kathy Acker
4. Hunger – Knut Hamsun
5. The Shadow over Innsmouth – H. P. Lovecraft
6. Baby Leg – Brian Evenson
7. The Late American Novel – Jeff Martin and C. Max McGee
8. The Baltimore Atrocities – John Dermot Woods (manuscript draft)
9. Stories V! – Scott McClanahan
10. Visitation – Jenny Erpenbeck
11. Us – Michael Kimball
12. The Sisters Brothers – Patrick deWitt
13. Antwerp – Roberto Bolano
14. Taking Care – Joy Williams
15. The Hundred Brothers – Donald Antrim
16. Waste - Eugene Martin
17. The Dog of the Marriage – Amy Hempel*
18. Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre – H.P. Lovecraft
19. The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories – Gene Wolfe
20. An Elemental Thing – Eliot Weinberger
21. Jakob Von Gunten – Robert Walser
22. Reflections in a Golden Eye – Carson McCullers
23. The Last Thing He Wanted – Joan Didion
24. Microscripts – Robert Walser
25. Beecher’s One
26. The Hall of the Singing Caryatids – Victor Pelevin

Favorites:

Hunger – Knut Hamsun
Taking Care – Joy Williams
Jakob Von Gunten – Robert Walser
An Elemental Thing – Eliot Weinberger

Graphic novels/comics:

1. Wilson – Daniel Clowes
2. The Clouds Above – Jordan Crane
3. Werewolves of Montpellier – Jason
4. Illustrated Three-Line Novels – Joanna Neborsky
5. 1963 – Alan Moore
6. Supreme: The Story of the Year – Alan Moore
7. Supreme: The Return – Alan Moore
8. The Killing Joke – Alan Moore
9. Ultimate Fantastic Four HC Vol. 1 - Brian Michael Bendis, Warren Ellis, Mark Millar 
10. Ultimate Fantastic Four HC Vol. 2 - Warren Ellis, Adam Kubert, Mike Carey
11. Ultimate Fantastic Four HC Vol. 3 – Mark Miller, Greg Land
12. Ultimate Fantastic Four HC Vol. 4
13. Ultimate Fantastic Four HC Vol. 5
14. Love and Rockets New Stories No. 3 – The Hernandez Brothers
15. Understanding Comics – Scott McCloud
16. World War Hulk
17. Ultimate Iron Man – Orson Scott Card
18. Silver Surfer: Parable – Moebius and Stan Lee
19. Bottomless Belly Button – Dash Shaw
20. Congress of the Animals – Jim Woodring
21. Weathercraft – Jim Woodring
22. Y: The Last Man (deluxe book 1)
23. Y: The Last Man (db 2)
24. Y: The Last Man (db 3)
25. Y: The Last Man (db 4)
26. Y: The Last Man (db 5)
27. Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi
28. Wally Gropius – Tim Hensley
29. The Bulletproof Coffin – Hine and Kane
30. The Living and the Dead – Jason
31. David Boring – Daniel Clowes
32. Prison Pit Book Three – Johnny Ryan
33. I Never Liked You – Chester Brown
34. It’s a Good Life if You Don’t Weaken – Seth
35. Ghost World – Daniel Clowes
36. Une Semaine de Bonte – Max Ernst
37. The Man Who Grew his Beard – Oliver Schrauwen
38. The Frank Book – Jim Woodring
39. Cave In – Brian Ralph
40. Climbing Out – Brain Ralph
41. Why Are You Doing This? – Jason
42. The Three Paradoxes – Paul Hornschemeier
43. Mother, Come Home – Paul Hornschemeier
44. Is That All There Is? – Joost Swarte

Favorites:

Wilson – Daniel Clowes
Weathercraft – Jim Woodring
Une Semaine de Bonte – Max Ernst

The above is a pretty fiction heavy list. I only read two non-fiction prose books--and  Weinberger's book is quite poetic and fictional for a non-fiction book--and I think four non-fiction/memoir comic books. I read no poetry books. Of course, the above list is only what I 100% completed, so does not include the myriad books and literary magazines I read large chunks of (or any of the article reading done online or it magazines).

Hey, I told you this was going to be boring in the title.