I read a lot.  I mean, a lot.  Books, magazines, comic books, newspapers - if it's got pages and words printed on them I will read it.  I've always been this way, and I don't know why.  Sure, I come from a well-read family of (mostly) journalists who value the written word, but my siblings are certainly not the compulsive readers that I am.  They don't have The Bookstore Problem, as I like to refer to it, wherein I cannot go into a bookstore and come out empty handed. 

Some might call my compulsive reading a problem and I would be hard pressed to disagree with them, but it is what it is, and as problems go there are certainly worse ones to have.

As a result of my problem, I accumulate a lot of books.  Here are the books that currently occupy my "to-read" stack:

(from left to right)

Anathem (2008) by Neal Stephenson

Stephenson is probably my favorite modern writer.  I knew this as soon as I read Snow Crash and it was confirmed by Cryptonomicon.  His hyper dense mash-up of science fiction, techno punk, and futurism requires a lot of the reader as his works are usually epic in size and scope, and can feature casts of thousands and parallel storytelling spanning different time periods.  Stephenson rewards perseverance and attention to detail.  Cryptonomicon was a daunting headscratcher until about halfway through when all the pieces clicked intoplace and suddenly everything made sense.  I've heard a lot of moaning about Anathem which makes me even more excited to read it.  I could certainly render an intruder unconscious with it.

Soon I Will Be Invincible (2007) by Austin Grossman

I actually don't know a lot about this book other than I keep hearing its name, which has certainly made its way around the comic book community.  I have yet to hear a bad word about it, so that's good.  All I know is that it's a superhero story written by a writer not connected to comic books, and those are always fun and full of insights.  I could probably look up the plot and find out more about it, but I like the idea of going into a book totally clear of any preconceptions.  I am so detached from the contents of this book that I didn't even buy it myself.  I threw it on my Christmas list at the last minute and there it appeared under my tree.  I mention this only because had I bought it myself I probably would have given the page page plot summary a look and then I would at least have a better clue.  Because it came to me as a gift I was able to just put it on my stack without worrying about it.

Serling (1994) by Gordon F. Sander

This was the definition of an impulse purchase and it happened while I was watching the most recent New Year's Eve/Day marathon of The Twilight Zone that is shown here every year in the United States. I'm a big fan of The Twilight Zone and of Rod Serling himself.  Not just from The Twilight Zone, but near the end of his life, Serling taught writing at my alma mater - Ithaca College - which holds his archives and has a nice display honoring him in the communications building which is where I spent most of my four years.  Can you imagine being taught by Rod Serling?  With that voice, that cadence, that cigarette?  I like to think that it was mind-blowingly awesome.  And also kind of freaky.  But back to the book.  I have long held the opinion that Serling is one of, if not the most important writer/producers in the history of television.  Not only does most of The Twilight Zone still hold up today, but the subversive social commentary is just as powerful and just as shocking in its pointed criticsms of humanity as it was when the show originally aired.  So while I was watching the marathon I went on YouTube during the commercial breaks and looked up Serling and ended up watching a fascinating interview Serling did with Mike Wallace from right before The Twilight Zone began.  I urge anyone who is a fan of television or of writing in general to check it out.  After I watched the interview I realized that I knew very little about the man I admired so much and I went on a search for the definitive Serling biography.  There didn't seem to be many choices, but of the ones I did find this one seemed the most interesting.  It's way out of print, but I picked it up used off of Amazon.

Lush Life (2008) by Richard Price

I received this as a Christmas gift from my buddy Josh Flanagan who knows what I like, and I have a strong feeling that I'm gonna like this.  It's gritty crime drama.  It's New York City.  It's right up my alley.  At first its size might appear daunting (it's almost as big as Anathem!) but as Josh told me recently there are large swaths of pages that are just cop and perp dialogue, which is something I always like to hear.  I'm really looking forward to this one as I have never read a Richard Price novel, but I have heard a lot about him, and I did see Spike Lee's Clockers (which was adapted from a Richard Price novel of the same name) andI quite enjoyed that.

Brewster's Millions (1902) by George Barr McCutcheon

I was watching the underrated 80s comedy classic Brewster's Millions a few weeks ago and, as I am want to do while watching a movie at home, I looked it up online.  I was not only surprised to find that the Richard Pryor/John Candy classic was the fifth - fifth! - film version of this story but that they were all based on a book written at the turn of the 20th Century.  That was quite a shock.  So of course I had to track the book down.  Like Serling, this is out of print as well, so I picked up a used copy on Amazon and it claims to be a 1902 first edition.  The condition of the book itself, the distressing cracking noise that the binding makes when you just barely open it, and the way that the pages flake at the edges seem to back this up.  It also says "first edition" onthe title page.  But there is a page in the beginning with the author's photograph on it and that page is glossy and doesn't fit at all with the other pages.  Perhaps that page was added into the book at a later date.  Either way, I'm not overly concernced, it's more of a curiosity at this point.  My biggest problem right now is finding a way to read this thing without the whole binding falling apart.  That, and figuring out how to spend the rest of this $10 million by next Friday.

Superheroes and Philosophy (2005) edited by Tom & Matt Morris

Have you ever had one of those books that keeps sliding down the stack?  I got this one as a Christmas gift a few years ago and it keeps getting bumped.  It's nothing against the book itself, I think it will be right up my alley, it's just that the subject matter seems much less immediate and therefore less of a priority to me.  What is the subject matter?  Well, apparently this book is an examination of the underlying philosophical commentary that exists in modern superhero stories.  It features examinations of some of my favorite comic books and features the insights of some of my favorite people who make comic books.  As someone who writes about comic books and the comic book industry as part of their living I feel like I should have probably gotten to this book sooner.  And now I feel stupid.

Mister B. Gone (2007) by Clive Barker

In the summer of 2008, in the midst of The Dark Knight hysteria, I made a few radio appearances to discuss the comic book/superhero film craze.  One of the shows I appeared on was featured on a station in Detroit and they had some of their interviews archived on their website.  In preperation for going on the show I listened to one of them, just to get a feel for what I was in for.  I picked the interview with Clive Barker because that was the one closest to my subject matter and it turned out to be a really interesting discussion and Barker's creative process and the book itself.  I then saw Barker plugging the book again on some television talk show.  Now, I know who Clive Barker is, it's hard to not know who Clive Barker is if you are at all plugged into the subcultures that I am.  But not really being a horror guy, I don't think I've ever actually seen any of his films or read any of his books.  In the interviews Barker was so smart and charming and interesting that I went ahead and ordered this book.  The gimmick, I believe, is that the book is supposedly cursed, so in the midst of the story the text occasionally addresses the reader.  I'm prone to on overactive imagination and fright, so we'll see how this one goes.

The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of (1998) by Thomas M. Disch

This one was picked up based off of a recommendation of a friend.  I'm a big fan of science fiction (well, good science fiction) and this book purports to explore how science fiction has influenced American society and how it reflects upon American society.  I read a review that said if you're a sci-fi fan you will either love (interesting observations and connections) or hate this book (hard and uncomfortable truths).  I honetly have no idea what I'll think and that's exciting.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union (2007) by Michael Chabon

Although he wrote one of my favorite books of the last yen years - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - I haven't read a lot of Michael Chabon.  I keep meaning too, but it just never ends up happening.  That pretty much sums up what has happened with this book since I purchased it.  I keep meaning to read it next but it never ends up happening.  I'll have to read a bunch of things to review for work and then I'll get sidetracked and in the meantime I'll pick up three more books and the shiny new ones will grab my attention and this one slides down the stack.  This is a new problem I have now that I work from home.  Not spending an hour each day on the subway means that I end up reading a lot less.

Manhunt (2006) by James L. Swinson

Josh Flanagan already gave a much more in-depth look at this book than I ever could here.  I picked this one up for a few reasons.  One, after reading American Brutus a few years ago I found that not only didn't I know anything about the assassination of President Lincoln (I blame the schools), but I found that what I did learn was utterly surprising and completely engrossing.  Two, Josh loved this book which is always a good sign for me.  Three, when I found out that HBO and David Simon (Homicide, The Wire) were turning this book into a mini-series I had to give it a look.

Band of Brothers (1992) by Stephen E. Ambrose

It is entirely possible that the epic 11 part mini-series (10 episodes and one documentary) that HBO produced based on this book is my favorite thing to have ever aired on television.  And if it's not my favorite thing, it's definitely in the Top 10 (but that's another article for another day).  I am not exaggerating when I say that I have been meaning to buy this book for the last eight and a half years.  Ever since that mini-series aired it has been on my list of books to buy.  I have held it in bookstores, I have had it on my Amazon Wish List, and I have almost gotten a comp from the publisher.  And yet until one night a few weeks ago when I finally clicked purchase on Amazon, it had never happened.  I think the reason that it took so long for me to finally get this book is because of the television adaptation.  Because I love the mini-series so much I have watched it at least once a year since it aired in late 2001.  I know the story backwards and forwards.  So when a purchasing decision would come down to this book or a totally new book with a totally new story that I didn't already know really well, I would go with the new story.  And yes, I realize that this book will offer new and interesting insights and I know that the story was altered from book to screen (as it was probably altered from life to book).  I know all of that rationally.  It's just hard to turn down a new story, you know?  

Thursday Next (2007) by Jasper Fforde

In 2001 I was reading The New York Times and I came across a review for a book called The Eyre Affair written by film camera operator (I think that was what he was doing at the time) named Jasper Fforde.  The premise sounded really interesting, and the review gve the book a lot of praise.  The premise was this: in an alternate reality in England, literary detective Thursday Next investigates literar-based crimes.  In that case it was a criminal mastermind who had escaped capture by taking refuge in the pages of Jane Eyre.  I found that Fforde had a knack for whimsically inventive science fiction and it was some of the most fun I had reading that entire year.  I have pushed The Eyre Affair on a lot of people and I would recommend it for book nerds with a taste for science fiction. This is the fifth book in the series following Thursday Next and if I must confess, I don't really remember what happened in the last few books.  The first book is indelibly printed on my memory, and while I know I enjoyed the last three books I don't remember the plots all that well.  This book keeps getting pushed down the stack solely because before I read this one I am either going to have to do some research to refresh my memory of what has come before, or I'm going to have to reread the last three books, which is a sacry prospect.  Yes, I could just jump right in and read this one withouth remembering everything before it, but that just wouldn't be me.

So there you have it.  My to-read stack to kick of 2009.  I have made a pladge to myself to read all of these before the calender changes over to 2010, and dammit that's a pledge I intend to fulfill.

The only question that remains for me is: What should I read first?

And the question for you is: What's on your stack?

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