2024 is over. Thank god. 2025 has begun. It just has a better ring to it, doesn’t it? In any case, when I was promoting my memoir in late 2023, I was asked what my favorite book I had read that year was and I realized the answer was: none. Yes, in fact, in 2023, I read exactly zero books. That was in part on purpose because I was finishing writing my own book, and I didn’t want some other author’s voice in my head. That said, it was a little embarrassing. I was a writer, an author. Shouldn’t I be reading books?
So in 2024, I decided to read some books and track my progress. In all I read a total of 21 books, which was a lot more than the no books I’d read the year before. So a win in that regard. But the reality is that I didn’t like most of the books I read in 2024. I’d chosen them mostly at random and for who knows what reason. There was fiction, nonfiction, memoir, self-help, one photo book, and graphic novels.
But my favorite book was what could be described as a picture book: Leela Corman’s Victory Parade. It was stunning and inventive and startling and arresting and wildly creative. In a way, I felt a little silly. I write words. Wasn’t I supposed to prefer one of the other books I’d read, with a lot of words, like, you know, Pynchon or Marlowe or someone like that? No, I liked the one with the pictures.
In any case, I decided I’d do another reading challenge this year and chart my progress publicly again, but in 2025 I’m going to attempt to only read books that are picture books. For example, my first book of the year, which is a reread and which I’ve already started, is Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.
That title selection may hold a clue. The truth is: I want to create a new comic strip, which is something I haven’t done in some time. Quite a few years ago, I created two erotic comics about the times I went to go see bukkake-themed adult movies being filmed. Those comics are called “My, My American Bukkake” and “My, My American Bukkake Too.” And I’ve long wanted to do a third bukkake comic strip. So I think perhaps this re-interest in pictures and words is laying the groundwork for that.
All of which is to say, you can follow my picture book reading progress at BOOKS I READ.
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