The quest for more input…

I really love to read.

I do a fair amount of reading, but I want to do so much more. Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in the day to do everything else that has to be done.

I try to fit books (fiction, nonfiction, or fake nonfiction) in as much as possible, but the only thing I really regularly read are comic books and graphic novels, and when I say “regularly” I mean “whenever I get around to picking up my subscription from Aquilonia Comics.”

When analyzing my comic book subscription, I realized that a bunch of the comics I’ve been reading have lost their luster. Green Lantern and Justice League continue to be great, but I’m really tired of waiting for something big to happen with Action Comics, and things on Earth 2 just didn’t keep my attention. I continue to be blown away by The Walking Dead, and I’m up to date with the soft cover trade paperbacks. I pick up other trade paperbacks throughout the year as appropriate, too.

Aside from comic books, in 2012, I read a bunch of cookbooks, most by Gordon Ramsay. I also read Ramsay’s “Playing with Fire,” April Bloomfield’s semi-cookbook “A Girl and Her Pig” and Chuck Hughes’s “Garde Manger.” I got a chance to finally read Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential,” which was a somewhat entertaining and well written book.

On the fun end of things, I finally got around to reading John Hodgman’s “More Information Than You Require” and “That is All.” Both were pretty fun books; I have to say that Mr. Hodgman is almost as good at making up fake facts as I am.

Being that I got a Kindle Fire HD for Christmas, I’m trying to use it to do some actual reading instead of just browsing facebook, twitter, or playing Words with Friends. I picked up Ramsay’s “Humble Pie“, which turned out to be a waste of $2 since it’s a super abridged version of “Playing with Fire.” Ohh Well. Easy come; easy go.

I actually don’t mind reading things on the Kindle screen at all, and, with Amazon’s deals of the day, I think I could get lots of great stuff for low prices. I picked up the download of Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals“, which I’ve been meaning to read forever, for $3 on a deal of the day a couple of days ago.

And I just finished reading New Avengers Vol. 3 #1 on the Kindle using the Comixology app. It was incredible and was the catalyst for me to reflect on what I’ve read in the last year or so. [I don’t think I could ever switch to 100% digital comics though. I love flipping the pages, and 20% off at Aquilonia for just being a subscriber is just too good!]

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This is what I feel like having access to everything at my fingertips…

I’m sure it could get dangerously expensive quickly, so I wanted to see if I could get some solid recommendations for things that people think I’d like to read. Hopefully, having some suggestions will help me hone in on truly worthwhile purchases. (And, if nothing else, contrary to what was projected for the state of the world back in 2006, libraries still exist in 2013.)

I realize that, aside from the info I gave above, you probably have no idea what I might have read in the past, and that’s ok. I’m really interested in seeing what types of things people suggest.


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3 thoughts on “The quest for more input…

  • Jenna C.

    I guess my advice is more on Kindle ownership than specific books to read – I bought a Kindle Fire last spring and got myself a library card. Paying almost as much (occasionally more) for a digital book than a hard copy makes me sad (ok, angry), so I have a digital account with the Upper Hudson Library System. While they don’t have every book in Kindle format and it’s not always great for immediate gratification, it is super fun to go through and place Digital Holds on everything I want to read and then see the books trickle in. You can take them out for as long as 3 weeks. You can return them through your Kindle account if you want to return them early. I also signed up for Amazon Prime and use the hell out of it. 2 day shipping, a free book a month out of the Kindle lending library (not the greatest selection, but I’ve never had trouble finding something) and the free streaming movies and tv shows have made it worth the investment. Most recent books I’ve read – “The Mind’s Eye” by Oliver Sacks, “Never Let Me Go” by Ishiguro, a half-hearted attempted at “Cloud Atlas” (which I will definitely come at again when I can devote my attention to it), some of “The Giver” series by Lois Lowry (YA dystopic). All were library books. One on my Amazon wish list right now is “Wolf Hall”, a novel by Hilary Mantel about Henry VIII.


  • amanda

    I got a Kindle Fire HD for Christmas, too. I’m surprised at how much I like reading on it, although I have a hard time fitting in time for a lot of reading. I used to listen to audiobooks pretty frequently (standing at the lab bench while things evaporate in a controlled manner…) and Kitchen Confidential (read by the author) was one of my favorites. In the same vein, I really enjoyed The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen, about Jacques Pepin, and Heat, by Bill Buford. ‘Blood, Bones and Butter’ has been sitting on my shelf for a while, but I haven’t gotten to reading it. On the the other hand, the book I’m currently reading on my Kindle is ‘Maverick Jetpants in the City of Quality.’ I’m not an objective reviewer, because the author is a good friend of mine, but it has gotten some good critical reviews in the NYT and elsewhere. It’s most definitely not a food book. Good luck!



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