Well.

Back in October I spent a week updating and getting caught up. And now, a month and a half later, I'm finally updating again. I'm going to try to get caught up before the end of the year. In 2007, I am going to try to update the book list at least once a week. Let's see if I can maintain the pace.

385. The System of the World by Neal Stephenson. When I finished this, the last of Stephenson's Baroque Cycle books, it took me a while to readjust to reading about something else. I had been immersed in 18th century intrigue, high-finance, and politics for so long that it felt like it should keep on going, even though I'd finished the book.
     
386. Ultimate Spider-Man, vol. 7 by Brian Michael Bendis & Mark Bagley.
     
387. Showcase Presents: Justice League of America, vol. 1 by Gardner Fox & Mike Sekowsky.
     
388. American Born Chinese by Gen Luen Yang. Before I read this, I had read a lot of very positive reviews of this book. They're all right. (Checked out of the library.)
     
389. The Pulse, vol. 3: Fear by Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Gaydos, & Olivier Caipel.
     
390. Thieves & Kings Presents: The Walking Mage by Mark Oakley.
     
391. A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13: The End by Lemony Snicket. In some ways, this book is very disappointing, because it leaves so many unresolved questions. But one of the points of the book is that life doesn't tie up loose ends. Also, I think I will love this book forever because of one particular event that happens towards the end of the book. (Library.)
     
392. Desolation Jones, vol. 1: Made in England by Warren Ellis & J.H. Williams III. Ellis channels Raymond Chandler through a filter of post-modernism. Great stuff.
     
393. Runaways, vol. 6: Parental Guidance by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona.
     
394. A Distant Soil, Book 2: The Ascendant by Colleen Doran.
     
395. A Distant Soil, Book 3: The Aria by Colleen Doran.
     
396. The Little Man: Short Strips 1980-1995 by Chester Brown. (Library.)
     
397. Klezmer, Book 1: Tales of the Wild East by Joan Sfar. (Library.)
     
398. A Distant Soil, Book 4: Coda by Colleen Doran. I do hope there isn't as large a gap between this volume and book 5 as there was between book 3 and this volume (5 years).
     
399. Sight Unseen by Robert Tinnell & Bo Hampton. A pitch for a horror movie done up as a graphic novel. (Library.)
     
400. Charley's War: 2 June 1916-1 August 1916 by Pat Mills & Joe Colquhoun. Very well done & well researched stories about WWI. (Library.)
     
401. Stormbreaker: The Saga of Beta Ray Bill by Michael Avon Oeming, Dan Berman, & Andrea DiVito. Eh. (Library.)
     
402. Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. Short stories & poems by the always-excellent Gaiman.
     
403. Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall by Bill Willingham, et al.
     
404. Gotham Central, vol. 4: The Quick and the Dead by Greg Rucka, Michael Lark, and Stefano Gaudiano. Man, I wish this series about the police in Gotham City were still going. But I guess comics fans want superheroes more than they want good stories.
     
405. The Rann-Thanagar War by Dave Gibbons & Ivan Reis. There was too much going on in this comic. A lot of stuff happened "off-screen", and it feels like it was written that way because there was too much happening (in this editorially-mandated mini-series) to fit it all on the alloted pages. So the readers were told a lot of things rather than shown them. (Library.)
     
406. Scrum Bums by Darby Conley. More great "Get Fuzzy" comic strips.
     
407. Captain America: Winter Solider, vol. 1 by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, & Michael Lark.
     
408. Captain America: Winter Soldier, vol. 2 by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, & Michael Lark. I never would have guessed that I would enjoy a comic that resurrected one of the two people in the Marvel Universe that everybody assumed would never come back from the dead. But I did.
     
409. Death Note, vol. 8: Target by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata.
     
410. Scrublands by Joe Daly. (Library.)
     
411. Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett. I am constantly amazed that Pratchett has not run out of things to say with his Discworld books.
     
412. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick, adapted by Richard Linklater.
     
413. Essential Moon Knight, vol. 1 by Dough Moench, Bill Sienkiewicz, et al. These comics from the 70's hold up remarkably well. Solid superheroics.
     
414. Inverloch, vol. 1 by Sarah Ellerton. (Library.)
     
415. Dragon Head, vol. 2 by Minetaro Mochizuki. (Library.)
     
416. Luba: The Book of Ofelia by Gilbert Hernandez. The short stories here started to feel repetitive after a while. I think I like Beto's work better when he does longer stories.
     
417. Available Light by Warren Ellis. In this book, Ellis wrote short stories & essays to go with photos he took with his phone, with some interesting results.
     
418. Y: The Last Man, vol. 8: Kimono Dragons by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, & Goran Sudzuka.
     
419. Fullmetal Alchemist, vol. 10 by Hiromu Arakawa.
     
420. Spider Man: The Other: Evolve or Die by various. Another example of editorially-mandated comics selling well but not being very good. (Library.)
     
421. Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, Book One. As a kid, I enjoyed Jansson's Moomintroll books, but I never knew that she had created a comic strip featuring the same characters. Fortunately, these charming strips are now being collected. I'm looking forward to future volumes.
     
422. Outlaw Nation by Jamie Delano, Goran Sudzuka, & Goran Parlov. I'm afraid I never bought any issues of the comic that is collected here, and I therefore contributed to its early demise, but I did enjoy reading this book.
     
423. Polly & The Pirates, vol. 1 by Ted Naifeh. There's something about Naifeh's other work that puts me off, but I enjoyed this a lot and hope he does more volumes. (Library.)
     
424. Can't Get No by Rick Veitch. I like a lot of Veitch's stories, but this didn't work for me. I think that's because it's closer to his dream comics than a more straight-forward narrative. (Library.)
     
425. The Sandman Papers edited by Joe Sanders. Academic papers about The Sandman. As with other academic books about pop-culture I have read, this was a mixed bag. For me, the low point was this quote: "As Moonwomon-Baird has said, 'I have come to think that language use among lesbians, at least across ethnicities and social classes of English-speaking American lesbians, is peculiarly lesbian in that interlocutors assume shared knowledge about many extradiscoursal matters touching on both gender and social-sexual orientation'." In other words: people from a particular sub-culture have experiences & knowledge in common, and they assume this when they talk. Wow! What insight!
     
426. Dragon Head, vol. 3 by Minetaro Mochizuki. (Library.)
     
427. Maison Ikkoku, vol. 12 by Rumiko Takahashi.
     
428. Maison Ikkoku, vol. 13 by Rumiko Takahashi.

I'm not caught up yet, but this did get me into December. More later.