My plan for reading more
Mar 21, 2025
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I need to read more. I’ve never been much of a reader. In fact I can remember most times of my life when I was active in reading (and journaling, we’ll get to that), so at 40 to be able to pinpoint specific points in my life when I was actively pursuing literature and vehemently digesting it is probably a bad thing. I should read more. This blog was a way for me to disconnect from social media because I believe it can be inherently evil, even though it can be fun. So I taught myself how to code ,or taught myself how to search for answers. I deleted my twitter account, I don’t really instagram, I haven’t used Facebook since they added the tiered frienship system like 15 years ago. So now I’m going back in time and trying to fill those holes that I dug myself with more productive and enriching hobbies.
Enter, Comic Books!
A few years ago, if you’ve followed this blog even a little you’d have seen refer to 2022 as the Year of the Hack and Slash, a year in which I explored the character action genre of video games, in no particular order, trying to connect themes and influences while also getting better a genre that by the end, was cemented as my favorit. Why do I bring this up? Well the following year I was following up on a few threads and I was looking for information on the game Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden and the included miniature Dark Horse comic that came with it, and saw a discussion about “Hack/Slash”, the comic book. I was interested in it. I also saw that some of these were released on Image comics, the first comic book company that I read in the 90s (The Maxx is and was my all time favorite comic book). So I downloaded the first omnibus. And devoured it. I downloaded the second, and then the third and when I looked it up, I saw that there was a kickstarter for the definitive edition omnibus, number 3, and I stopped reading right then and there and backed that puppy. I became a fan of comic books again! It only took like 30 years.
Comics as a gateway
So now, a few years later I’m reading comic books fairly regularly. I have a comic shop that I like enough, I have weekly pulls. Hack/Slash is by Tim Seeley, he had another book come out called Local Man with artist Tony Fleecs, Tony Fleecs was making a follow-up to his book Stray Dogs called Feral and since I’m a cat AND horror nerd, that just fell right into place. This has been extremely fun, rediscovering comic books again. I’m not really a marvel/dc kind of comic reader, but I have started to read Rogue: Savage Lands by Tim Seely (in my youth Rogue and Gambit were my favorite X-Men).
This past January there were devastating wild-fires in both the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. I haven’t really blogged about this but it was really fucked up to see your city burn on two fronts, and now we know people who have lost everything. I did not have anything to say about it that others have not said better, so I kept it to myself mostly. I did write a draft blog post, but never published it because I don’t really think it added anything to the situation and it made me feel inadequate as a writer. Amongst the discussions about these disasters was talk of a book by Octavia Butler called “Parable of the Sower.” Catrena has been reading and listening to a lot of books since last year so we decided to read this together as a kind of book club. She got the audio book from the library and I found out they made a graphic novel adaptation. This felt right up my alley. I’ve been calling it my summer reading incentive, giving me a bridge between just reading comic books into literature while also not shocking my system. I have a hard time sticking with a book. I find my mind wandering, I don’t remember what I had just read, I can’t keep track of characters, I think this is me being mostly out of practice and also my social-media-addled endorphin seeking brain is constantly looking for that next post. I brought this up to a friend and he responded with:
“this is one of those books where however you can get it in your brain is a good plan of action”
I’ve read it, I liked the book, the graphic novel was well done and Catrena and I discussed it as we both progressed, which was fun, and I don’t really feel like I missed out on anything. I think the adaptation was extremely thorough with keeping true to the texts and it was so brazenly prescient in a lot of ways that it became scary. I’m glad I read it and I’m currently decided between waiting on the release of the sequel’s graphic novel adaptation or “graduating” myself and getting it from the library.
30 Days of Journaling
At the end of February I challenged myself to start journaling again. It’s been a few years since I’ve really taken it seriously and after cleaning out a desk drawer I found some unused notebooks I decided needed to get filled. I love notebooks and pre-pandemic I always had one with me wherever I went. Being stuck inside for 2 years, not traveling, I lost that habit. As I cleaned out a drawer in the living room desk to make room for Catrena’s scrapbooking supplies led me to declare “I’m going to start writing at night again.” So far, so good. I’ve missed two nights but I’ve made up for it by writing in the morning. “But this is a post about reading more” yeah I know there’s a point here, and it’s that I’d love to be a better “journaler.” I want to be more literary with the things I write, my journal, these blog posts, the game updates, my time with a camera and my thoughts about my galeries. I’m reading more blogs than ever, which is great, but I wanted to expand that. When i re-read my journals, I want to be entertained, I want to be challenged.
So now I have a short list of books I want to read, along with continuing up with the comic books. And I’m going to do it, at least that’s what anyone who is trying to make a change tells themselves. The first step to enacting change is telling yourself to do something. At least that’s the only way I can justify it. Here are some of the books I’m thinking of reading:
1. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
I’ve had this book for years, it was the cool book to tote around in your early twenties. I’ve never really given it a second look so color me surprised when I find out this was one of the prime examples of Gonzo journalism, something generally associated with Hunter S. Thompson.
2. Travels with Charley
Written by Steinbeck this is a journal of his travels around the country with his dog Charley. I’ve startedt his book before but never finished it and I finally want to get to the end.
3. Hold Still: A Memori with Photographs
Sally Mann’s memoirs, illustrated with her photography. I had to sneak at least one photographers journal into this list though I hope its not the only one.
4. These Savage Shores
This is a graphic novel I found when poking around League of Comic Geeks. A retelling of Dracula mixed with Indian mythology and legends. Sounds like a really interesting mash-up and the art is great.
5. The Enormous Room
This is by ee cummings, a poet that was fairly influential on me in my youth. I’ve never read any of his long form work but this account of his imprisonment during WWI seems likea good place to start.
6. Communion: A True Story
I had said to a friend that I wanted to read at least one UFO book this year and this one happens to be a first-hand retelling of the authors supposed UFO encounter. A lot of what we know about ufology stems from this, including into popular culture like the x-files, this feelsl ike a no-brainer.
Lets do it!
This feels like a good list of things to start with. Nothing too hard, nothing out of the scope of a high school reading lass, which is where I feel like I need to regress to in order to build the habit. And I’m well on my way. I’ll give some updates periodically. I know a popular thing to do on small blogs these days is to keep a running journal of books read but I don’t think I want to do that. If letterboxd taught me anything its that I may not be a great reviewer. But in time, maybe we’ll get to that as well.
