Fndevogel 2017: Abridging the Gap

I feel like I made some good progress last year. The number of books I read off my shelf was a good bit more than what was added to it. I'm looking forward to beating down the number of unread books on hand and reducing a bit more of the stuff cluttering my life.

*I can actually spell my own username. I blame dropped letters on touchscreens.

Fundevogel 2017: Abridging the Gap

Pre-2017 Inventory:

Listing as of 1/8/17.

Sorta arranged by category. Dates are included when its acquisition date is known. I think this is complete, I'll update it if I find something I've missed.

Various Works of Fiction & Literature

The Annotated Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (gift)
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Copper Nickel, Vol. 5 - Jake Adam York

Various Works of Non Fiction

Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond (gift)
The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry - Kathleen Flinn (gift)
The Italian Boy - Sarah Wise
The New Annotated Oxford Bible - various
Charlatan - Pope Brock
Triangle - David Von Drehle
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing - John C. Bogle (gift)
Bloody Foreigners - Robert Winder 2/6/13 (gift)
The Autobiography Of Bertrand Russell: The Early Years - Bertrand Russell 11/4/13
The Reporter's Handbook - John Ullmann 11/17/14

Computer Reference

CSS in Easy Steps
Web Publishing with HTML and XHTML
DVD Authoring with Adobe Encore
Essential ZBrush
The Art of Rigging
Complete Maya Programming: An Extensive Guide to MEL and C API - David Gould 5/14/13

DIY Ref

The Animation Book
Applique - Pauline Brown 6/30/14
Crewel Embroidery - Erica Wilson 6/30/14
Working With Plastics - Time-Life Books 7/2/14
Stage Costume Techniques - Joy Spanabel Emery 10/21/14
Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns - Natalie Chanin 9/7/15
Creative Pop-Up: A History and Project Book - Trish Phillips 3/28/16
Advanced Mouldmaking and Casting - Nick Brooks 4/26/16
Figures in the Fourth Dimension - Ellen S. Rixford 8/13/16
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards 12/21/16

Russian

Аня в странѣ чудесъ - Lewis Carroll (translated by Vladimir Nabokov) 7/12/12
501 Russian Verbs - Thomas Beyer Jr. Ph.D. 1/28/13
Master the Basics Russian - Natalia Lusin, Ph.D. 5/29/13
Весёлые зверята - Художник В. Бастрыкин 10/21/14
The Russian's World: Life and Language - Generva Gerhart 10/21/14
English Grammar for Students of Russian - Edwina J. Cruise 10/21/14
A Handbook of Russian Verbs - Frank J. Miller 2/9/15

German

Mastering German - A.J. Peck 6/21/14
German Grammar - Erik V. Greenfield 7/14/14
Essentials of German Grammar - 7/14/14
German in a Nutshell - Henry Regensteiner, Ph.D. 12/3/14
Teach Yourself Beginner's German - Rosi McNab 2/9/15
A Grammar of Contemporary German - Max Hueber 2/23/15

Scandinavian

Norsk Folkemuseum - 1/13/14
Señor Peregrino - Cecilia Samartin 5/1/14
Kakerlakkene - Jo Nesbø 6/30/14
Beginning Norwegian - Einar Haugen 8/26/14
Complete Norwegian - Margaretha Danbolt Simons 12/25/14 (gift)
Nybörjarsvenska - Ulla Göransson & Hans Lindholm 2/5/15
Nybörjarsvenska Övningsbok - Ulla Göransson & Hans Lindholm 2/5/15
Spoken Norwegian - Einar Haugen 12/21/16

Spanish

El Túnel - Ernesto Sábato 8/4/14
Mastering Spanish - Laurel Herbert Turk & Aurelio M. Espinosa 2/10/15
Spanish the Easy Way - Ruth J. Silverstein 2/11/15

Books acquired in 2017:
Books purchased, won, swapped for or gifted to me.

1. Raw Vision #91 - John Maizels 1/16/17 (art magazine)
2. Hi-Fructose #42 - Attaboy & Annie Owens 1/28/17 (art magazine)
3. Habitat - Simon Roy 1/31/17 (gift)
4. Injection - Warren Ellis 1/31/17 (gift)
5. ODY-C - Matt Fraction 1/31/17 (gift)
6. Alan Kitching's A-Z of Letterpress - Alan Kitching 5/5/17
7. Hi-Fructose #43 - Attaboy & Annie Owens 5/19/17
8. Yvain - M. T. Anderson 6/2/17 (ER)
9. 101 Sewing Secrets - Singer Sewing Reference Library 6/7/17
10. Tailoring - Singer Sewing Reference Library 6/7/17
11. How To Make It - Erin Austen Abbott 6/8/17 (ER)
11. Wormwood, Vol. 2 - Ben Templesmith 7/3/17
12. Wormwood, Vol.3 - Ben Templesmith 7/3/17
13. Smocking Design - Jean Hodges 7/7/17
14. Raw Vision #94 - John Maizels 9/1/17
15. Hi-Fructose #44 - Attaboy & Annie Owens 9/1/17
16. How to Make Friends With a Ghost - Rebecca Green 9/27/17
17. Curvy, Vol. 2 - M. Magdalene 10/2/17
18. Hi Fructose #45 - Attaboy & Annie Owens 10/12/17
19. Isaac the Pirate, Vol. 1 - Christophe Blain 10/13/17
20. Isaac the Pirate, Vol. 2 - Christophe Blain 10/13/17
21. The Angry Chef - Anthony Warner 11/13/17 (ER)
22. Hey! Modern Art & Pop Culture, No. 1 Season 2 - Anne De Hey! 12/5/17
23. Zomnibus, Volume 2 - Various 12/25/17

Books read in 2017:
This includes all books read, not just the ones from my shelves. Books that don't come from my TBR shelf will be italicized.
I'm counting books acquired and read during the year as off the shelf. They're still off my shelf, even if they haven't been there long.

1. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing - John C. Bogle (gift) 1/6/17
2. Norsk Folkemuseum 1/8/17
3. Raw Vision #91 - John Maizels (art magazine) 1/22/17
4. Hi-Fructose #42 - Attaboy & Annie Owens (art magazine) 2/19/17
5. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy 2/26/17
6. Injection - Warren Ellis (gift) 2/28/17
7. Applique - Pauline Brown 3/3/17
8. Habitat - Simon Roy (gift) 3/14/17
9. Charlatan - Pope Brock 3/23/17
10. Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns - Natalie Chanin 3/29/17
11. ODY-C - Matt Fraction (gift) 3/30/17
12. Dust: A History of the Small & the Invisible - Joseph A. Amato 4/13/17
13. Advanced Mouldmaking and Casting - Nick Brooks 4/22/17
14. Copper Nickel, Vol. 5 - Jake Adam York 4/24/17
15. Alan Kitching's A-Z of Letterpress - Alan Kitching 5/7/17
16. Bloody Foreigners - Robert Winder (gift) 5/22/17
17. Hi-Fructose #43 - Attaboy & Annie Owens 5/29/17
18. Yvain - M. T. Anderson (ER) 6/6/17
19. The Italian Boy - Sarah Wise 6/12/17
20. Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 4 - Bryan Lee O'Malley 6/13/17
21. How To Make It - Erin Austen Abbott (ER) 6/16/17
22. Wormwood, Vol. 2 - Ben Templesmith 7/3/17
23. Wormwood, Vol.3 - Ben Templesmith 7/5/17
24. The Autobiography Of Bertrand Russell: The Early Years - Bertrand Russell 8/1/17
25. By Chance or Providence - Becky Cloonan 8/2/17
26. 101 Sewing Secrets - Singer Sewing Reference Library 8/5/17
27. Pixu: The Mark of Evil - Gabriel Bá 8/5/17
28. Triangle - David Von Drehle 8/31/17
29. Hi-Fructose #44 - Attaboy & Annie Owens 9/5/17
30. Raw Vision #94 - John Maizels 9/7/17
31. The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon 9/27/17
32. How to Make Friends With a Ghost - Rebecca Green 9/27/17
33. Curvy, Vol. 2 - M. Magdalene 10/3/17
34. Beautiful Darkness - Fabien Vehlmann & Kerascoët 10/7/17
35. Hi Fructose #45 - Attaboy & Annie Owens 10/18/17
36. Isaac the Pirate, Vol. 1 - Christophe Blain 10/18/17
37. Isaac the Pirate, Vol. 2 - Christophe Blain 10/29/17
38. The Angry Chef - Anthony Warner (ER) 11/29/17

1. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing - John C. Bogle (gift) 1/6/17
Off My Shelf

My dad wants me to make good financial choices. This book makes a good argument for low cost index funds and leaving them be.

That's all I've got.

2. Norsk Folkemuseum - 1/8/17
Off My Shelf

This is a tourist photo book published by the Norsk Folkemuseum. The text is printed in Norwegian, English, German and French. I read as much as I could in the Norwegian, but did fall back on the English as a learning tool. Some of the words were too specialized or historical to be of use to a learner at my level.

3. Raw Vision #91 - John Maizels (art magazine) 1/22/17
Off My Shelf

Finished up the latest copy of Raw Vision. Good stuff, but I was bummed to see I had missed a folk art auction near me. Such is the problem with quarterly magazines.

4. Hi-Fructose #42 - Attaboy & Annie Owens (art magazine) 2/19/17
Off My Shelf

Good stuff, though there were two articles where the concept attributed to the artists seemed slapped on. The first time I found it super irritating since the artwork struck me as pretty self-satisfied. The second time I was just sad that they tried to paste concept to it. It was clearly illustrative work and didn't need to be justified with conceptualisms.

5. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy 2/26/17
Off My Shelf

So. Blood Meridian. It's pretty violent, violent enough that I'm not even shocked that it's based on true events. I didn't like it as much as The Road, but I respect what McCarthy is doing.

There's just enough hint of superhuman malevalence with the Judge to push the question of why people do evil things. The monsterous Judge clearly acts as a corrupting figure, rallying lost souls and energizing them with a violent purpose, but his own preternatural qualities deny such abdication of personal responsibility. Because the Glanton band really did collect a bounty for Apache scalps with indescriminate murder and they didn't need a demon to egg them on.

So is the judge really the source of their evil or merely the handy excuse for their loss of human empathy? Our point of view character, the kid, while hardly an angel is one of the few who seems to abstain from gross acts of barbarism. But he still won't leave the butchering horde until it's crimes finally catch up with it.

And without the gang he is aimless, he is forced to confront the judge twice, but can not back up his words with actions. In fact the Judge claims he was always his favorite and he was never like the others. Perhaps because he knew his guiltiness, but lacked the animus to do anything else.

As I've been chipping away at the bottom layer of books left to read after all these years my interest in reviewing has decreased. Since the reviews were always serving primarily as a record for me I've accepted that for a while at least I'm ok with foregoing that record. But heres some word vomit anyway.

6. Injection - Warren Ellis (gift) 2/28/17
A graphic novel kicking off a series with a bored think tank stirring up shit they don't understand to make things more interesting. They get more than they bargained for of course.

7. Applique - Pauline Brown 3/3/17
Survey of various applique techniques, broad, but superficial.

8. Habitat - Simon Roy (gift) 3/14/17
Comic, a dire sci fi about a human colony in space descended into tribal warfare.

9. Charlatan - Pope Brock 3/23/17
Account of brazen real life huckster "Dr Brinkley" who made shameless money selling bogus fertility cures among other things. Brilliant self promoter, utterly void of morals or compassion. And yes he sewed goat testicles into people, a worthless procedure at best, when carelessness and ignorance didn't result in disfigurement, injury or death.

10. Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns - Natalie Chanin 3/29/17
Exemplary book on the Albama Chanin style of hand sewn jersey garments. Beautiful, inspiring and instructive.

11. ODY-C - Matt Fraction (gift) 3/30/17
A strange graphic novel retelling of the Odyssey with all the characters gender swapped. It really wanted to tell me something about culture and gender roles...but I never liked the Odyssey to begin with so...

12. Dust: A History of the Small & the Invisible - Joseph A. Amato 4/13/17
A cultural, historical and scientific look at humanity's perspective and relationship with small things throughout history.

13. Advanced Mouldmaking and Casting - Nick Brooks 4/22/17
A thorough look at various advanced moldmaking and casting techniques and materials. A very good source for someone ready to up their casting game.

14. Copper Nickel, Vol. 5 - Jake Adam York 4/24/17
A literary journal, published by the University of Colorado. A reasonable collection of short stories and poetry, in that some are quite good and some are torturously overwritten. That's literary journals for you.

15. Alan Kitching's A-Z of Letterpress - Alan Kitching 5/7/17

This is, in its entirety, a collection of vintage wood letterpress fonts. It is simply, but beautifully executed with prints taken from wooden typeset in the old manner. A beautiful collection for someone that appreciates typography or printmaking.

16. Bloody Foreigners - Robert Winder (gift) 5/22/17

Winder delivers an exhaustive history immigration and foreigners in Britain over many hundreds of years. There is no such thing as a typical immigrant, so Winder covers every sort and in the process exposes the difficulties and prejudices facing immigrants. Ultimately the book is a sympathetic one that gently points out the Britain has always been a country of immigrants and their descendents.

17. Hi-Fructose #43 - Attaboy & Annie Owens 5/29/17

Not the best issue, but still loads better than most art magazines.

18. Yvain - M. T. Anderson (ER) 6/6/17

I probably ought to stop reading medieval lit. I've read Beowulf, Chaucer, and an Icelandic saga I can't hope to name. It's not their fault, I just can't stop being a 21st century reader.

So while I can't say that I enjoyed the book, this is a consequence of reader/book pairing rather than a fault of the book. The writing is true to the era, and gracefully layers in more nuanced and balanced perspectives through it's illustration. These added layers build the story rather than undermine it. They make traditional heroes responsible for their actions, to the reader at least.

And I respect this. But ultimately neither the nuanced storytelling or original art could get me very excited about medieval lit.

19. The Italian Boy - Sarah Wise 6/12/17

Surprisingly bloodless book about a series of murders committed to produce corpses for sale to anatomists when that was a thing. While this was the first whole book I've read about resurrectionists AKA bodysnatchers I've read enough on related topics to notice some important omissions. The biggest was that the author never discussed why anatomists had to purchase stolen bodies in the first place--people sgill believed in bodily resurrection and so the idea of being resurrected in a dissected body was abhorrant.

At least I would have included that tidbit if I was writing about resurrectionists.

Overall the book was ok, but should have been more engaging and could have used more editing as some sentences just didn't make sense.

20. Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 4 - Bryan Lee O'Malley 6/13/17

I got broken up with! So I picked up the next Scott Pilgrim at the library. I feel this was the right choice. Scott's still the loveable doof I remember, tripping through life and love and just managing to extricate himself from the trouble he makes for himself. He even grows a little bit in the process.

21. How To Make It - Erin Austen Abbott (ER) 6/16/17

I chose to request this book as someone that is very seriously developing my own creative side hustle. I lack any formal business education, but am working to launch something I can learn with and grow in the future. This book didn't offer any insight or useful advice. It comes off as a series of puff pieces on creative business owners stretched out to book length to showcase the author's skills in layout and photography.

Each chapter features a short interview, a bunch of pictures, a blurb describing how their typical day goes, some kind of step by step craft that can fit on a single page and a playlist.

It doesn't help that I happen to know one of the featured artists. A housewife whose business is certainly a privilege of her husband's good job. I don't know how many of the artists in the book are able run their businesses courtesy or similar arrangements, but I'm pretty suspicious. In a book ostensibly rolemodeling creative entrepreneurs it's pretty irritating to see the sugardaddy factor keeping a business viable.

It shouldn't be surprising the book makes up for it's lack of good business insight with pretty pictures and too many mentions of yoga.

22. Wormwood, Vol. 2 - Ben Templesmith 7/3/17f
Off My Shelf

Volume 2 sends Wormwood and crew on a search for the leprechaun queen to cure Wormwood of a fatal leprechaun bite he picked up in an underground leprechaun fight. Templesmith does an amazing job diving into leprechaunia which had small but wonderful role in the first book. Loved it.

23. Wormwood, Vol.3 - Ben Templesmith 7/5/17t
Off My Shelf

This one wasn't as strong as the first two. Unfortunately, the squiddies in this book are just too serious about themselves to drive the sort of humor and horror you expect from Wormwood. It's still better than most comics though.

24. The Autobiography Of Bertrand Russell: The Early Years - Bertrand Russell 8/1/17
Off My Shelf

Not bad, not great. More than half of the book is composed of letters, both to and from Russell. Some seem more worthwhile than others. I learned more about Russell's early personal life, but I was most struck by the inescapable Victorianness of it all. I have long been interested in Russell's controversial take on relationships, but in fact, at least in his early years, he was too bent by his Victorian world to fully realize and respect the women that he had relationships with. Victoriana has a lot of baggage, and there's no escaping the overwhelming Victorianity of the book's setting.

25. By Chance or Providence - Becky Cloonan 8/2/17

Wonderful collection of three short comics. The stories are artfully told and the art is stunning. I suspect this was a passion project it's just so fantastic. Definitely check it out if you enjoy dark fantasy or gothic tales.

26. 101 Sewing Secrets - Singer Sewing Reference Library 8/5/17

Useful! Keeping on hand for reference.

27. Pixu: The Mark of Evil - Gabriel Bá 8/5/17

Not bad, but hard to follow and unsettling when you can follow it. Which isn't damning when it comes to horror.

28. Triangle - David Von Drehle 8/31/17

Drehle gives an in depth look at the history of the tragic fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. It's a particularly black spot in the history of labor with over 100 workers (mostly girls and young women) dying trapped in a blaze made more deadly by poor safety conditions. But even more upsetting is the fact the Triangle Factory was among the best employers in the business at the time. Not a good time to be a worker.

29. Hi-Fructose #44 - Attaboy & Annie Owens 9/5/17

Always a pleasure to read.

30. Raw Vision #94 - John Maizels 9/7/17

You know, the art that intrigued me the most had a pretty disappointing article. The artist's thoughts on his art were so uncompelling. C'est la vie.

31. The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon 9/27/17

A reread. It's such a mysterious book, I enjoy the thoughts that turn over reading it, but I don't think there is any definitive way to understand it. The lines between dangerous secrets and wild delusions are impossible to draw.

32. How to Make Friends With a Ghost - Rebecca Green 9/27/17

Tundra produces the most beautiful and charming children's books and this is no exception. Rebecca Green's simple concept is explored with inventiveness and good humor. I expect young children will enjoy the humorous tips and suggestions for having fun with a ghost friend. When my niblings get a bit older I'll have to share this with them.

33. Curvy, Vol. 2 - M. Magdalene 10/3/17

The web comic came to a close! So it seemed like the right time to pick up the second volume. It was. It's just as much silly, sexy fun as I remembered.

34. Beautiful Darkness - Fabien Vehlmann & Kerascoët 10/7/17

I kept seeing this book pop up online. It wasn't really my style, but it was, as reported, a surprisingly dark story, beautifully illustrated in watercolor.

35. Hi Fructose #45 - Attaboy & Annie Owens 10/18/17

It's Hi-Fructose, it's always worth reading.