Books and Literature

[IMJ]

Are there any TMNT fans here that have a passion for reading that resides outside of comic books? I've been a reader all my life - I remember loving it as a kid when I'd be reading and just disappeared into that "flow state" while reading books like "The Hobbit", "A Winkle In Time" and sci-fi material like "Voice of the Whirlwind" when I was young.

As I got older I found some enjoyment in actually letting good film adaptations sort of inform material I might like to read. A lot of people find more credibility in the other direction, but I'm a pretty authentic guy so I have no qualms about saying that Francis Ford Coppola encouraged me to read Bram Stoker's Dracula back in 1992, or that Fight Club made me a huge Chuck Palahniuk fan, or that Blade Runner was my catalyst to read "DADOES?"

I broke away from "fun reading" for a few years while doing my Master's Degree, but once I got back into it I became interested in acquiring true 1st editions and signed copies of fun books or by intriguing authors became something of a hobby for me.

These are 700+ Year Old Copies of "The Illiad" and the Odyssey" Under my Care


I'm a big fan of hardcovers - for some reason I'm more inclined to read a hardcover than a paperback any day. It's a nonsense personal virtue, but there's something about the authenticity of a hard cover - especially a true 1st edition that is gratifying. I have a modest collection of "investment worthy" books as true 1sts, most of which I have later print readers of as well. Books multiply like Gremlins and appeal to hoarder-mentality, so it takes discipline to maintain a clean and streamlined library. Of course, hunting true 1st editions in the book world can be maddening. My personal grails - books that I'd love to own True 1sts of would be:

To Kill A Mockingbird (one of my favorite books of all-time)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
A Wrinkle In Time

My sort of impulsive recommendations would be:

Blink - a great book about rapid cognition, no psychology degree needed
Hughes - a biography of Howard Hughes
Red - Sammy Hagar's amazing biography
Altered Carbon - the 1st book is gripping and the world building is amazing
Choke - Palahniuk's ongoing, comedic evaluation of society at it's best (runner up would be Lullaby)

Two of my buddies joke when they see my "library" that they are surprised that I haven't picked up a true 1st edition of "The Bible" yet, signed by God. Probably won't ever find a copy of that one.....