"Strange man, how can you have eyes for sale? Eyes? Eyes?"The disturbing tale of a young man's obsession with the Sandman, stealer of eyes, which has inspired writers from Sigmund Freud to Neil Gaiman.One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece.A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.(front flap)

Craig Thompson, for all the lack of works in his bibliography, is one of the best creators working in comics today. Apart from Blankets, he has only released one other major work of fiction. (His third, \
  Habibi\
, will be released this Fall.) [The cutest of meet-cutes.]There are any number of reasons that Thompson's work should be lauded. His art is gorgeous and his brushline expressive. He treats personal topics with a sense of both whimsy and honesty. He writes true experiences, even when they're fictional. And as great as all those things are, there is one idea that stands out in his work that I've yet to see another creator tackle (let alone master) as Thompson has done.His sense of the sacred and his ability to convey it in ink is breathtaking. He offers his readers these holy moments, these frozen, fluid, organic treasures. These sacramentals. Whether he intends to lead the reader into a religious experience or not, his work really is very spiritual. As spiritual as an atheistic holy experience can actually be at any rate. There may be moments in Miyazaki that approach the wonder of the sanctuaries that Thompson builds in Blankets. It's for this reason (among others) that Thompson's second book remains one of my favourites, even years after having first encountered it.The sweetly disturbing sentimental journey that was seeded years earlier in Thompson's Goodbye Chunky Rice finds pregnant fruit in his nearly-600-page opus, Blankets. Semi-autobiographically chronicling (via chrono-thematic structuring) his early life—from his establishment in faith and his discovery of love to his abandonment of that love and his subsequent abandonment of faith—Thompson plays honestly at all times with his story elements, thereby lending his tale an uncanny credibility. And while flashbacks and tangents proliferate, the overarching chiastic structure verifies the reader's intuition that Thompson knows well where he is headed and is going to take you there whether you like it or not.[Kinda want to punch this lady right in the breadbox.]Thompson's illustrated avatar acts, at all times, with striking realism and the chaos of his thoughts is entirely believable—if not exactly illustrative of the average meditative development. The Thompson that frets and plays in Blankets—we'll call him Craig— is highly introspective and acts often in the heat of his youthful emotional turmoil, rather than from a simple, sensible motivation. And though one may often wish to chastise him for such sillinesses, his youthful passion and pendular over-reactions will more than likely endear Craig to readers as they recognize more than a little of themselves in him.This book is a masterpiece of form, symbol, and structure. Tokens bend and writhe and carry narrative significance throughout. Thompson's art here is fluid and is of that less-polished variety found also in Goodbye Chunky Rice and serves well to establish the variety of moods described in his several vignettes.From the perspective of one who grew up both in a faith-community that was friendlier to the arts and in a home whose high standards weren't as strictly enforced, I found his story particularly compelling and tragic. Surrounded by hypocrisy and a weak-kneed, moralistic fundamentalism, the source of his disillusionment is not difficult to see. Perhaps Blankets' greatest quality is the empathy it exerts from the reader. I pitied and cared for Craig. I felt the same for his brother, his parents. I mourned for Raina, Craig's love interest in the book. I grew despondent for her family. More than anything, I wanted to hug each of these characters and make it all right and sensible again. [Man, how brutal to be Thompson's parents, years later to read this panel and think: "Oh crap. I did that to a child? I wanted to surprise him and all he could think about was whether he had sinned? And not even whether he was in trouble but whether he had sinned?"]And the whole while, my anger kindled toward an institutionalization of faith whose expression was not compassion, not mercy, not love. That Craig lived in a locale whose cutural acumen was bent toward a fear and persecution of that which skewed from the status quo is a horror that can be understood (while still remaining a horror). That his subculture should behave identically, built on a foundation of fear when it ought to be built on joy, peace, and love is terrifying. Thompson's work engaged in me a fury for a people and place with which I have no experience. They may not even exist as he portrayed them, but at the least, it is a challenge for me to not hate these characters who actively tear down Craig's life even from a young age. And as someone who actively tries not to hate anyone, consider this a testament to the veracity with which Thompson draws out Craig's life and circumstance.Blankets is an evocative work that should not be missed by any who would appreciate a serious, heartfelt, and magical telling of the tragedy and wonder of what it means to come of age.[review courtesy of Good Ok Bad]

People make a mess.Marc Maron was a parent-scarred, angst-filled, drug-dabbling, love-starved comedian who dreamed of a simple life: a wife, a home, a sitcom to call his own. But instead he woke up one day to find himself fired from his radio job, surrounded by feral cats, and emotionally and financially annihilated by a divorce from a woman he thought he loved. He tried to heal his broken heart through whatever means he could find—minor-league hoarding, Viagra addiction, accidental racial profiling, cat fancying, flying airplanes with his mind—but nothing seemed to work. It was only when he was stripped down to nothing that he found his way back.Attempting Normal is Marc Maron’s journey through the wilderness of his own mind, a collection of explosively, painfully, addictively funny stories that add up to a moving tale of hope and hopelessness, of failing, flailing, and finding a way. From standup to television to his outrageously popular podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, Marc has always been a genuine original, a disarmingly honest, intensely smart, brutally open comic who finds wisdom in the strangest places. This is his story of the winding, potholed road from madness and obsession and failure to something like normal, the thrillingly comic journey of a sympathetic f***up who’s trying really hard to do better without making a bigger mess. Most of us will relate.

Rather than go into the plot details I'd rather touch on the larger metaphors of the book in this review. Although the basic plot is chilling enough on its own (A man kidnaps a beautiful and intelligent young girl) the parts that truly disturbed me had to do more with what I believe Fowles was saying about modern culture and the rise of the middle class. Though this book is decidedly "British" in many ways, I think the issues he raises are applicable to any society where a large middle class is created in a relatively short amount of time. For me, this book is asking whether financial stability really leads to morality and more fulfilling lives (as in Major Barbara) or if perhaps we actually lose our souls once our bellies are fed.As some have mentioned in other reviews, Miranda is the stereotypical posh young artist. Born rich, it's easy for her to dismiss the complaints of the lower classes while at the same time hurling scorn at the society that produced her. I've met many people like Miranda (especially during my Masters at Columbia School of the Arts where trust fund babies were the norm, I went to school with a Pulitzer heiress for goodness sake) and usually found them boring and shallow, quick to namedrop an artist or recite tired rhetoric. But as her story progressed I began to like her more and more; Miranda is extremely self-aware, and I sensed that given time, she would grow out of her naivety and become a truly amazing woman. She is only 20 after all, barely an adult, and for all her idealistic pretension she is trying to evolve and grow (something that's can't be said for many of my Columbia peers). That's where the butterfly metaphor becomes even more apt; it's not just that she's a butterfly that Frederick has collected, it's what a butterfly represents: metamorphoses. It's almost as if Frederick has trapped her right when she was about to break out of her cocoon, halting her true beauty right before she was about to spread her wings. Which brings me to Frederick as a stand-in for middle-class mediocrity. Reading this book, I was often reminded of the idea that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Frederick is indifferent to everything: art, war, sex, etc. The only thing he seems to respond to is a fleeting type of beauty, and all he wants to do with that beauty is possess it. Not love it, not understand it, just possess it. His need to possess is similar to the middle classes need to buy buy buy with no thought as to why it’s important to own the largest house, drive the nicest car or watch the most expensive television. As we’ve seen with the rise of divorce, prescription drugs, therapy, suicides and the general malaise of the populace during the latter half of the 20th century these things rarely produce happiness, if anything they produce more anxiety as credit debt rises while wages fall. What Fowles seems to be asking is “what are we doing with all this money and success, are we living more stable fulfilling lives, or are we turning into something just as bad or worse than the elite we despise?” Frederick’s winning the lottery should have been an opportunity for him to live the life he wanted free of economic worries, not a chance to commit evil. Similarly, the rise of the middle class in America and the UK should have been a renaissance of ideas once our bellies were fed. In many ways it was (the civil rights and feminist movements come to mind), but in others, like the rise of reality television, celebrity culture and punditry news, our success has just made us comfortable and indifferent to human suffering. We go on collecting pop music, techno gadgets, houses, cars, spouses, designer clothes, with no question or investigation as to why. With the internet we have the opportunity to learn about anything and everything, for the first time in history the entire history of the world is available at our fingertips. Why then does misinformation and stupidity seem to be on the rise rather then the reverse? Why then are we becoming less literate rather than more? Why when given the world, we’re choosing the slum instead? I agree with Miranda when she says art collectors are the worst offenders. The idea that art is merely an investment (just like the idea that a house is merely an investment rather than a home you share your life in) is abhorrent to me. I could never stand to look at an ugly painting in my home just because it was worth money, nor could I ever live with myself if I hoarded Picassos or Bacons or Kirchners purely for my own benefit. Because the true lover of beauty (and not all beauty is beautiful as Bacon proves) wants to share that beauty with the world. They want everyone to see, hear, taste, feel, and enjoy that beauty so that others lives may be enriched as well. They want everyone to feel as passionately as they do about what they love, but more importantly they just want others to feel. (the example of the American soldier in the book comes to mind) Anyone, regardless of class, money, status etc., is capable of living passionately and truthfully. Frederick is a perfect example of someone who chooses not to, or worse, just doesn’t really care either way. 

Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but here Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning.Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from California's subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many fast food's flavors are concocted. Along the way, he unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths -- from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate. (back cover)

In the midseventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away." Emmy and Grammy Award winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written. At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory. The dedication to excellence and innovation is formed at an astonishingly early age and never wavers or wanes. Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times-the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies.Throughout the text, Martin has placed photographs, many never seen before. Born Standing Up is a superb testament to the sheer tenacity, focus, and daring of one of the greatest and most iconoclastic comedians of all time.

Favorite Books

book

Stephen B Williams

Guilty Pleasures

Music I vibe with. Musicians who consistently put out “the stuff”.

Favorite Musicians

1979 American war film directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Favorite Movies

Typically: west-palatable, abstract, focusing on humanism, surrealism, existentialism, experimental art, and melancholic and/or gritty tone, as well as dark themes.    

1998-1999 Japanese anime television series

Anime Favorites

Archived list of enjoyed games when growing up.

Played as a child

Favorite Shows

Favorite Games

Archived list of books I read as a child.