Leafing through the volume, his fingers opened it at the beginning of the Gospel according to Saint Mark. As an exercise in translation, and maybe to find out whether the Gutres understood any of it, Espinosa decided to begin reading them that text after their evening meal. It surprised him that they listened attentively, absorbed. Maybe the gold letters on the cover lent the book authority. It’s still there in their blood, Espinosa thought. It also occurred to him that the generations of men, throughout recorded time, have always told and retold two stories — that of a lost ship which searches the Mediterranean seas for a dearly loved island, and that of a god who is crucified on Golgotha. Remembering his lessons in elocution from his schooldays in Ramos Mejia, Espinosa got to his feet when he came to the parables.

- from “The Gospel According to Mark” by Jorge Luis Borges.

I missed this story when I was absorbing all the Borges stories I could, so it was a pleasant surprise when I did finally discover it. It both reads like a Borges story and not a Borges story, and a lot of the latter having to do with how straight forward it reads, working its way to its chilling climax.

There’s a certain Roald Dahl quality to this story that I love. The way all the clues are right there in front of you – practically screaming at you - and yet, the ending still takes you by surprise.

I once played a recording of “The Gospel of According to Mark” to a class, and when the ending came, two of the students gasped aloud. It’s that kind of reaction that writers shoot for, and Borges absolutely nails it with this one.

Take a moment and read it right here.

Here is a special Long Box Tuesday edition of Shelf Porn, where I’ll be looking at some more of the graphic novels in my library. In part 1 of Puff Chrissy’s Shelf Porn, I looked at the shelf above this one with more graphic novels.

Starting from the left…

For the longest time when I was younger, the Longmeadow editions of The Joker: Stacked Deck and The Frank Miller Collection were my most prized possessions. I loved these books for the stories inside, but having them on my shelf made me feel sophisticated and important (hey! I was 15!). Plus, they were good books to pull out when people argued about whether comic books were legitimate, and these editions certainly made the stories look serious. Batman Year One, which shows up individually later on the shelf, is still one of my favorite Batman stories, especially for its focus on Jim Gordon, who I have an unhealthy man crush on, as discussed before.

Next up are Alan Moore’s ABC books:  The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Top Ten, Promethea and Tom Strong. All of them being solid reading, with a special emphasis on Top Ten. Could that series possibly be any better?

A double shot of Alex Ross with Mark Waid’s Kingdom Come and Kurt Busiek’s Marvels. Both of them have aged fairly well, all things considered. I like that Ross got to work on love letters to both Marvel and DC and roughly the same time, and it was a wonderful way to be introduced to his art.

I remember waiting forever for Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison. It was the first hardcover graphic novel I pre-ordered. And I remember this book not being a thousand miles within what I was expecting it to be. I’ve come to appreciate the book over the years, but it was a little too heavy for my young brain to handle.

Jeff Loeb continues to get a lot of hate online, and while I don’t always agree with his writing choices, the man produced the amazing Superman for all Seasons with the phenomenal Tim Sale. I love this interpretation of Clark Kent, and the scene where he’s standing outside with his father is just perfect.

All of Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan comes next. Paired with Darick Robertson, Ellis created a world that’s both frightening and familiar and created one of the most iconic characters in comics in the last decade. For more thoughts on this book, check out what I wrote before.

Ellis’ Come in Alone is a nice time capsule of his thoughts on comics at the turn of the century. Worth reading.

When people talk about crossovers in monthlies, one of the best examples of this was the No Man’s Land story that ran within all the Batman books. This was a must have book for me at a time when I wasn’t even collecting comic books. Plus, it has one of my favorite Gordon moment, which I wrote about before here.

One of the books that brought me back to collecting comic books was Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Preacher series. This is all of the books. And while the story has a tendency to wander off at times, it’s a solid read, with one of the most satisfying endings in a comic book series.

I haven’t read the Death books, The High Cost of Living and The Time of Your Life, both by Neil Gaiman and Chris Bachalo, in a long time. I do remember loving these stories when they were published.

A book I loved when I first read it but have since fallen out of love with is the Daredevil story Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada. Quesada’s art is still great, and I regret that he’s not at the drawing table more. But Smith’s writing falls flat, with an inability to show us rather than tell. It’s not as bad as his Green Arrow work, where the dialogue balloons literally obstructed the art work, but it’s close. It’s a shame too, because I enjoy Smith’s stage presence and online personality.

Ellis returns with the Stormwatch run, Lightning Strikes, Force of Nature, A Finer World, and Change or Die, followed by his awesome run on The Authority with Relentless. Certainly a product of their times, but they continue to be a lot of fun.

My love for Morrison continues with his JLA work: Strength in Numbers, Justice for All, World War III, New World Order, Earth 2,and Rock of Ages. You can say a lot of things about Morrison, I know, but man, he knew how to write a great JLA story.

Earth X by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross was one of those things I used to be so excited about, but it’s fizzled since then. I’m not sure why. I need to give this a reread sometime.

More Morrison with The Mystery Play, New X-Men, and Marvel Boy. I have a soft spot for The Mystery Play. I know it’s pretentious and certainly not subtle, but there’s some real emotion at work here, and a large part of that is because of Jon J. Muth’s gorgeous work.

And THE writer who returned me to comic books full time:Brian Michael Bendis. Torso, Goldfish, Fire, and Jinx.  I seriously need to read these books again. I had a lot of love for Jinx, and Bendis’ work with Marc Andreyko on Torso is stunning. It was because of these books, with Bendis’ work on Sam and Twitch, that really taught me the importance of writing in comic books. Something I always knew, but just didn’t get apparently.

Frank Miller’s Sin City was such a big deal when it came out. Great work here by Miller.

Pretend for a moment that the movie never happened and give Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber’s Whiteout a read. A tight story with a real clever angle.

Man, I remember this one. A Death in the Family by Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo was such a big deal. I thought it was a good book, though I could have done with the UN part of the story. Aparo is another one of those artists I didn’t like as a kid, but now see him as being a real talent. He produced quality work month after month without so much as missing a deadline, and his work in this book was exceptional. Ah well, better late than never.

This is the book that introduced me to Frank Miller, though I didn’t know it at the time. Ronin still reads really well with a lot of cool ideas at work here. Still surprised we haven’t seen this one turned into a movie.

This was a collection from back in the day when collections like this weren’t normal. Origins of Marvel Comics was a favorite of mine. I love those old stories with Stan Lee’s writing touches and a pack of the best artists in the business.

I’ve already talked about Daredevil Born Again. And you can read it here.

Elektra Assassin was a real head scratcher when I was a kid, a lot of it having to do with Bill Sienkiewicz’s art. I was just too young to process what he was doing. Nowadays, it’s a lovely book with panels that explode off the page.

My first experience with Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean was on Black Orchid. This is a cool little road trip story with some cool takes on some old ideas. I really like how Batman is handled in this book.

Okay. Let me call it a day with this one.

Thanks so much for reading!

Welcome back to Shelf Porn, where every week I take a look at a shelf from my home library. This is either a lot of fun for you, or mind-numbingly awful.

This particular shelf is smaller and houses my paperbacks. I have a love-hate relationship with paperback books of this size. I understand their usefulness and the value of being able to put them into your pocket, but I’ve always preferred the larger paperback editions. It’s no accident that a lot of the books on this shelf were either given to me or I picked up among my travels.

The pile on the left is a stack of Stephen King books, including Night Shift, On Writing, Duma Key, Lisey’s Story, Danse Macabre, From a Buick 8, and The Gunslinger. I’ve always had a fondness for King’s first short story collection, and over the years I’ve come to dislike the stories I initially loved and come to appreciate the ones I initially disliked. On Writing is one of the best books on the subject. Duma Key is a lot better than most people give it credit for, and I like seeing this phase of King’s writing where his stories are set in places outside of Maine, as it is in From a Buick 8. Also, Duma Key gets points for mentioning Tampa and Davis Island. Danse Macabre is also quite good, but I’d love to see a second volume with a more experienced King looking back at the subject. And The Gunslinger, this one revised by King, is an awkward start to an exceptional series.

Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion is one of many books I’ve enjoyed on the subject in the last few years. It’s so refreshing seeing great thinkers and writers exploring atheism and being able to properly articulate a lot of the things I never could.

Stalingrad by Antony Beevor is a wonderful bit of nonfiction on a subject a lot of people have peripheral knowledge of, but once the details are laid out for you, as Beevor does so well here, it’ll knock you out.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne is an early example of metafiction. And this is why it’s on my shelf. I can’t say I enjoyed reading it, but I appreciate it for what it is.

The Plague by Albert Camus is a book I haven’t read in a long time. And I’m pretty sure this edition isn’t the one I read, as I remember a completely different cover to the one I read when I was in university. That said, it’s typical Camus; interesting and cold.

I have a few copies of Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus sitting around at home and at work. When you’re teaching English to foreigners, it’s good to have some back up.

I picked up this copy of The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos in Berlin because I wanted a Pelecanos fix. A great read that’s smart enough to keep a couple of its secrets when the story’s finished. Still though, I like his Derek Strange books better.

I still have quite a few Graham Greene books on my shelf to read, but I’ve already covered The Quiet American and The End of the Affair. Both of them are great books.

Zadie Smith’s On Beauty is one of those books I didn’t expect anything out of and it ended up blowing me away. Funny and heartbreaking in all the right places, this is one of those books that made me so happy.

I have to confess that it took me a long time to get around to reading George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. And I have to confess further that the reason I picked these up finally was because of the cover designs. Good books, by the way.

Donna Leon’s Wilful Behaviour was given to me along with a ton of other mystery books. This was the first and last book I’ve read of Leon, and though I enjoyed the book and the main character, I’m not in a hurry to read other books by her.

Nick Hornby’s 31 Songs was  a lot of fun. I always appreciate his thoughts on music and books.

I still haven’t read The Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde.

Another book I picked up because of its cover design is Steven Hall’s The Raw Shark Texts. It was the spine that got my interest, which is so rare. The spine has a pull quote that successfully sells the book while identifying it. The book is fantastic on a lot of levels, and like Mark Z. Danielewski, you can tell Hall is someone who really likes to play around with the text.

I love Kurt Vonnegut, but Jailbird doesn’t do anything for me.

One of the great things about living abroad is being able to discover writers I never would have in the States, and Ryszard Kapuscinski is one of them. Out of all the Polish writers I’ve read, Kapuscinski is probably my favorite. The Cobra’s Heart is part of an appetizer series to get people interested in reading the writer’s books, so there’s not much here to brag about. I’ll be gushing over Kapuscinski later when we get to his books on my other shelf.

The mandatory Polish-English Dictionary that sits on every foreigner’s shelf in Wroclaw.

Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is a cool little book. Chabon is an important writer for a lot of reasons, but his insistence on playing in the genre sandbox is what makes him so significant. This is an alternative history story that plays off a really cool What If?. What really makes this work are the little details Chabon throws out there in the background that he never comes back to or expands on.

Here is my old copy of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. You can read my thoughts on Salinger’s death and this book here.

I have a lot of Ayn Rand books. We’ll be seeing her again as we move on to other shelves. But here you’ll find The Early Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, Philosophy: Who Needs It, For the New Intellectual, and Atlas Shrugged. With the exception of Atlas Shrugged, I read them all when I was in university and I couldn’t tell you which book was which. I’ve read Atlas Shrugged three times now, but my heart belong to The Fountainhead. I’ll talk more about Rand later.

And some Haruki Murakami books, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Blind Willow Sleeping Woman and Kafka on the Shore. I really enjoyed his first book on running, which wasn’t something I thought I would. Basically, if you want to know Murakami’s thoughts on writing, this is probably the closest thing we’ll get to him writing a book on the subject. Blind Willow Sleeping Woman is a nice collection of his short stories, though I like his earlier collection better. And Kafka on the Shore is one of his books that just didn’t work for me, which is a shame because all of the ingredients were there.

Last, you’ll see the Key to Hell statue based on Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, specifically from Season of Mists. I’m happy I’ve kept this over the years.

Okay, looks like that wraps it up for this week. See you next time.

What we’re seeing here is yet another attempt to see beyond print. And while this looks like an honest effort on the part of vook, I have concerns over the writers chosen for this endeavor.

Stephen King tried this – albeit a less flashier version – back in 2000 with The Plant, a project King never finished because readers lost interest after the seemingly successful publication of the first part. And while one could argue it was the nature of the story itself that had readers disappearing (“. . . by the fourth installment, paid readers had dipped to 46 percent of all downloads”), I’d argue that King – while understandable – was the wrong choice for this experiment.

Here’s the thing. When I was in the States last December, I picked up a hardcover copy of King’s The Dome. Because I live abroad, I haven’t had the opportunity to pick up a fresh hardcover in a long time, which was something I did regularly – especially with King books – back when I did live in the States. The Dome is completely engaging and King’s confidence as a writer these days is nothing short of astonishing, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I loved having that book on my lap, the weight of it, the bulkiness of it, and there was a certain level of nostalgia that came with carrying this book around with me (especially on the 30 hour flight back home). This weight, for good or bad, is what I associate with King. And I’m willing to bet a lot of people associate the same thing when it comes to King and other writers of his generation.

Now I recognize that vook really isn’t for me. It may be big for the generation who associates books in terms of how much disk space they take, rather than shelf space. The vook is meant for the burst culture and completely bypasses all of the liberary techniques that have yet – and need – to be explored with print. But to use Rice, or King, for these kinds of experiments feels like wheel spinning.

I understand the need for name recognition for these kinds of projects, but I’d argue that to engage readers like me, vook needs to start offering amazing writers that I can’t access through other channels. Use all that advertising and technology to truly offer readers (veaders? viewders?) something that can’t be achieved in print through the vision of writers who see more than the page before them. Because all vook is doing is providing literary remakes to one generation that already experienced them the way they were meant to be and to another generation that’s scratching its head about who Rice is.

Check out vook’s website here. And let me know what you think.

Like most good things, I discovered Tom Waits late. While I had heard his music here and there over the years, it wasn’t until 1999 when I finally experienced Waits’ 1992 album Bone Machine. This is the kind of album that people have a rough idea what they’re in for in the first ten seconds of the first track, and either you’re on the bus or you’re not. I must’ve listened to Bone Machine about 20 times in a row, on full blast, dancing and writing and acting like a total lunatic (thanks, booze!). At one point, even the neighbors came over to figure out what they were hearing.

Now I know Tom Waits isn’t a name that enters people’s minds when they think about writers, but what interests me is the power of storytelling, whether that’s in a book, a movie or a song. And Tom Waits has quite a few beautiful moments of storytelling in his three CD set Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, such as “Missing My Son” and especially “First Kiss”:

And she had an Easter bonnet that had been signed by Tennessee Ernie Ford
And she always had saw dust in her hair
And she cut two holes in the back of her dress
and she had these scapular wings
That were covered with feathers and electrical tape
And when she got good and drunk
She would sing about Elkheart, Indiana
Where the wind is strong and folks mind their own business

And she had at least a hundred old baseballs that she’d taken from kids
And she collected bones of all kinds
And she lived in a trailer under a bridge
And she made her own whiskey and gave cigarettes to kids
And she’d been struck by lightning seven or eight times
And she hated the mention of rain

“First Kiss” is probably about Waits’ wife Kathleen Brennan, but I want to look at it simply as a piece of writing, because it’s successful even without knowing the context. What I love most about “First Kiss” is how it works like a character sketch, each line adding a newer dimension to this woman until she’s as real as that first kiss the narrator will never forget. There are more details in these 30 lines than some characters get in an entire novel, and this is what makes it so perfect.

The story of professor Asterios Polyp, as narrated by his stillborn twin brother, works on so many different levels it’s exhilarating, and in lesser hands, it would have fallen apart from the weight of its own ambition. But Mazzucchelli makes it look so easy with art that keeps the eyes moving and writing that knows when to let the pictures do the talking.

I’ve struggled to find just one page to give this book justice, and it’s impossible, as every page carries something amazing. I finally settled for this page, not only for its art, but because I like its message:

Sorry to keep it short this week, but there’s nothing I can add here that hasn’t been said a thousand times already. Asterios Polyp is everything a comic book can be and more. If you haven’t read it yet, I implore you to give it a chance.

Tutor’s work brings to mind the smell of fresh cut grass, air conditioned Saturday afternoons that felt like giant rooms full of treasures, and the feeling of the carpet against my elbows as I turned the page of my favorite comic books.

Take a moment to check out more of Tutor’s work at his website.

And here we are at shelf number 4.

For those just joining in, Shelf Porn is where I take a shelf from my library and go through the titles and write down some random thoughts. This is either 1) seriously boring, or 2) mildly interesting. Your mileage may vary. Click around to see the previous three shelves.

The Complete Works of Shakespeare is one of my textbooks from university, where I took two semesters worth of Shakespeare courses. I remember enjoying the courses, especially the professor (whose name escapes me now), but I was too young and distracted to take in everything. This is reflected in the countless doodles inside of the book. Which stuns me considering I recall this book being ungodly expensive. Cool book though, and my notes are still visible.

It’s hard to see, but wedged between the Shakespeare book and From Hell is the second issue of Egomania, a publication by Eddie Campbell. This issue is mostly an extensive interview with Alan Moore that is enormously fascinating. Well worth having, and is a small part of my PhD work.

From Hell is the classic book by Moore and Campbell, a mesmerizing account of the Jack the Ripper murders. It’s the touches of metafiction that I really love, but the detail and research is really something worth marveling over.

Great Tales of Horror and the Supernatural is one of those books you can find in the bargain bin of pretty much any major book chain in the States, and it’s a cheap way of accumulating a lot of classic stories under one roof. Not a brilliant collection, but plenty of gems.

World War Z is the exclamation mark at the end of the literary resurgence of zombie fiction in the last decade. If you’ve been avoiding this book because of the hype, I assure you it’s all true. Max Brooks attention to detail here is as frightening as the zombies. Also, I listened to the audio version of this (abridged) with actors reading various parts of the book, and it’s an experience worth your time.

I picked up Under the Dome in December when I was in the States. At the risk of repeating myself, I grew up reading King’s writing, going out of my way to buy his books as soon as they were published. It’s been a while since I had a King hardback in my hands, and feeling the weight of it on my lap was like going back in time. The story was excellent, and well worth carrying for the 30 hours it took to get back to Poland. King is simply the best storyteller in American today.

Everything’s Eventual is another great King book. This and Secret Windows are the only older hardback King books I brought back to Poland last time. I have over 20 King hardcovers in my library in the States, and for weight reasons, getting them over here is difficult considering that for every one King book I could be bringing up to five other books.

While I love King’s novels, I have a soft spot for short fiction, and King’s short stories have always been special. Everything’s Eventual has a lot of great stories. “1408” is a real stand out for a lot of reasons. On a technical level, the set up is extraordinary; so much so, that you feel like there’s no way King can possibly show us the ending in a satisfying way. And yet, he pulls it off beautifully. He shows us the horror and it’s still frightening. I would put this story together with Joe Hill’s “Best New Horror” as horror stories that successfully manage to scare readers without leaving it up to our imagination. Something that’s extremely difficult to pull off.

Delta of Venus by Anais Nin is one of the treasures in my collection. Not only is it an expensive book, it was left to me by my grandfather when he passed away, so the nostalgic value of the book is priceless.

Fictional Space in the Modernist and Post-Modernist American Novel by Greg Malmgren was a huge help for my MA work, and helped to create the foundation for my PhD work. It’s a little dated, but the ideas on display here are pretty awesome.

The Last Romantic Theodore Roosevelt is my favorite biography about the man. He was certainly one of the greats.

More university books, including The American Tradition in Literature, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy and The Norton Anthology of English Literature. All great books to keep, especially when you’ve no access to the internet.

The Writer in the Writing by Krzysztof Andrzejczak is a cool little book. Some nice ideas in here to spice up my PhD work. One sad note though. I ordered this one through Abebooks as a used copy. When I received it, I discovered that it was signed by Andrzejczak with a personal note to a friend. Man, I think I’d be devastated if I saw this happening to one of my books.

The An Anthology to English Literature series were picked up in a bookstore in Wroclaw by my wife. One of the many reasons why I love her.

Another important book for my PhD work is Between Science and Literature by Ira Livingston. Great stuff in here.

Immanuel Kant’s Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals is one of many books I have in this series. If you’ve been to university and taken a philosophy course, you know exactly what series of books this one comes from. Ah, memories…

Chaos Bound by N. Katherine Hayles is good reading, but not my favorite book by her. That one is coming up later.

N. Pendleton’s What Trees Have Done is a fine collection of short stories. I don’t think this edition is in print any longer, which is a shame. And I’m not saying this because I wrote the introduction. Some of the stories here show up in his more recent collection. Click the white book over there on the right to purchase it.

Essential Literary Terms is a great addition to an English major’s library, especially if you end up teaching it one day.

And we’re done for today.

Thanks, and see you next week.

If you’re a fan of American television shows and Minimalism, you owe it to yourself to check out the TV show posters by Albert Exergian at Blanka.

It’s a lot of fun to figure out the show from the images alone. Below is one of my favorite HBO shows…