Alex’s Inventory and Reflection

Nonfiction

Summer 2014:

• Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll, Peter Bebergal thematic
• Apollo 13, Jim Lovell & Jeffrey Kluger mimetic

Science Fiction

Summer 2009:

• The Star Trek:The Next Generation Companion, Larry Nemecek synthetic

Summer 2010:

• Vingt Mille Lieues Sous Les Mers: Tour du Monde Sous-Marin, Jules Verne mimetic
• Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton mimetic
• The Lost World, Michael Crichton mimetic

 

September-June 2010/2011:

• The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins mimetic
• Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins mimetic
• Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins mimetic

Summer 2011:

• Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card mimetic
• Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card mimetic
• Micro, Michael Crichton & Richard Preston mimetic

 

Summer 2013:

• Year Zero, Rob Reid mimetic

October 2013:

• Doctor Who:The Vault, Marcus Hearn synthetic

Summer 2014:

• The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury mimetic

 

October 2014:

• The Road, Cormac McCarthy mimetic

March 2015:

• I, Robot, Isaac Asimov thematic

Summer 2015:

• The Martian, Andy Weir mimetic
• A Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs mimetic
• Hyperion, Dan Simmons mimetic

 

May 2016:

• War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells mimetic
• Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury mimetic

Summer 2016:

• Dune, Frank Herbert mimetic

July 2017:

• Captain Future: Man of Tomorrow, Edmond Hamilton mimetic

 

Historical Fiction

October 2012:

• Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott mimetic

February 2013:

• Great Expectations, Charles Dickens mimetic

January-June 2015:

• The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald mimetic

October 2015:

• Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen mimetic

November 2015:

• A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens mimetic

July 2017:

• Shōgun, James Clavell mimetic

Horror

Summer 2008:

• Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley mimetic

 

Summer 2011:

• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Seth Grahame-Smith mimetic

 

July 2017:

• The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales, H.P. Lovecraft mimetic
• It, Stephen King mimetic

 

Fantasy

1998-2005:

• The Spiderwick Chronicles books 1-5, Tony DiTerlizzi & Holly Black mimetic
• The Chronicles of Narnia books 1-7, C.S. Lewis mimetic
• The Chronicles of Prydain books 1-5, Lloyd Alexander mimetic

2005-2007:

• La Quête d’Ewilan: D’un monde à l’autre,Pierre Bottero mimetic
• La Quête d’Ewilan:  Les Frontières de glace,Pierre Bottero mimetic
• La Quête d’Ewilan: L’Île du destin,Pierre Bottero mimetic
• Les Mondes d’Ewilan:La Forêt des captifs,Pierre Bottero mimetic
• Les Mondes d’Ewilan:L’Œil d’Otolep,Pierre Bottero mimetic
• Les Mondes d’Ewilan: Les Tentacules du mal,Pierre Bottero mimetic
• Le Pacte des Marchombres:Ellana,Pierre Bottero mimetic
• Le Pacte des Marchombres: Ellana l’envol,Pierre Bottero mimetic
• Le Pacte des Marchombres: Ellana la prophétie,Pierre Bottero mimetic

Summer 2008:

• The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien mimetic
• The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien mimetic
• The Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkien mimetic

September-June 2008/2009:

• Redwall, Brian Jacques mimetic
• The Return of the King, J. R.R. Tolkien mimetic

Summer 2009:

-Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer mimetic

September-June 2011/2012:

• Finnikin of the Rock, Melina Marchetta mimetic

Summer 2012:

• The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan mimetic
• Unholy Night, Seth Grahame- Smith mimetic

September- June 2012/2013:

• The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan mimetic
• The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan mimetic

Summer 2014:

• The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, Stephen King mimetic
• The Dark Tower: The Drawing of Three, Stephen King mimetic

 

• The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands, Stephen King mimetic

• The Circle Series (visual edition), Ted Dekker mimetic

May 2016:

• American Gods, Neil Gaiman mimetic

Summer 2016:

• A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin mimetic
• A Clash of Kings, George R. R. Martin mimetic

May 2017:

• Jerusalem Book 1: The Boroughs, Alan Moore mimetic
• The Dragon Lords: Fool’s Gold, Jon Hollins mimetic

 

July 2017:

• The Shadow Rising, Robert Jordan mimetic
• Small Gods, Terry Pratchett mimetic

 

Philosophy/Philosophical Fiction

January 2014:

• Does Santa Exist?: A Philosophical Investigation, Eric Kaplan thematic

September 2015:

• The Stranger, Albert Camus thematic

July 2017:

• The Hero with A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell thematic

 

Rom-Com

Summer 2013:

• Leading Man, Benjamin Svetkey mimetic
• The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion mimetic

 

Spy Thriller

Summer 2013:

• The Italian Mission, Alan Champorcher mimetic

Summer 2014:

• Shaken, Not Stirred :The Secret Files of I__ F______, Code Designate 17F, Aaron Cooley mimetic

• Casino Royale, Ian Fleming mimetic

Summer 2015:

• Operation Mincemeat:The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II, Ben Macintyre mimetic

 

Crime Novel

Summer 2012:

• The Client, John Grisham mimetic

Summer 2014:

• Alex, Pierre Lemaitre mimetic

August 2017:

• The Godfather, Mario Puzo mimetic

 

Mystery

September-June 2010/2011:

• The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin mimetic

Summer 2011:

• The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown mimetic
• Angels and Demons, Dan Brown mimetic

September-June 2011/2012:

• The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown mimetic

Summer 2014:

• Inferno, Dan Brown mimetic

Summer 2016:

• Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie mimetic

 

Adventure

Summer 2008:

• Doc Wilde and the Frogs of Doom, Tim Byrd mimetic
• Le Tour du Monde en 80 Jours, Jules Verne mimetic

 

September-June 2016:

• The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas mimetic
• The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas mimetic

March 2017:

• Hector and The Search for Happiness, François Lelord mimetic

 

Historical Thriller

Summer 2013:

• An Officer and A Spy, Robert Harris mimetic

 

Memoir/Biography

May 2014:

• Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, Jon Krakauer mimetic

Summer 2014:

• The Color of Water, James McBride thematic
• The Black Count:Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, Tom Reiss mimetic

Summer 2016:

• Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie thematic

July 2017:

• Samurai and Silk: A Japanese and American Heritage, Haru M. Reischauer mimetic

 

Children Stories and Young Adult Novels

1998-2005:

• Disney Classic Book Series, various authors mimetic
• Franklin the Turtle Book Series, Paulette Bourgeois & Brenda Clark mimetic
• Corduroy, Don Freeman mimetic
• The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter mimetic
• The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, Beatrix Potter mimetic
• Winnie-The-Pooh, A.A. Milne mimetic
• The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne mimetic
• The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein thematic
• Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein thematic
• A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein thematic
• Falling Up, Shel Silverstein thematic
• The Cat in the Hat,Dr. Seuss thematic
• Green Eggs and Ham, Dr. Seuss thematic
• One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Dr.Seuss thematic
• Fox in Socks, Dr. Seuss thematic
• Hop on Pop, Dr.Seuss thematic
• The Sneetches and Other Stories, Dr. Seuss thematic
• Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?, Dr.Seuss thematic
• Bartholomew and the Oobleck, Dr.Seuss thematic
• The Foot Book, Dr. Seuss thematic
• The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, Dr.Seuss thematic
• I Can Read With My Eyes Shut, Dr. Seuss thematic
• Moosetache,Margie Palatini mimetic
• Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry thematic
• We Share Everything!, Robert Munsch mimetic
• Miss Nelson is Missing!, Harry Allard mimetic
• You Are Special, Max Lucado thematic
• Room for A Little One, Martin Waddell thematic

2005-2007:

• La Soupe de Poissons Rouges, Jean-Philippe Arrou-Vignod mimetic

 

Summer 2007:

• The Dragon Detective Agency: The Case of the Missing Cats, Gareth P. Jones mimetic

September-June 2008/2009:

• The BFG, Roald Dahl mimetic
• Matilda, Roald Dahl mimetic
• There’s a Girl in My Hammerlock, Jerry Spinelli mimetic
• The Pinballs, Betsy Byars mimetic
• The Kid Who Ran For President, Dan Gutman mimetic
• Chasing Vermeer, Blue Balliett & Brett Helquist mimetic
• The Wright 3, Blue Balliett & Brett Helquist mimetic
• The Calder Game, Blue Balliett & Brett Helquist mimetic

September-June 2009/2010:

• Esio Trot, Roald Dahl mimetic
• The Gremlins, Roald Dahl mimetic
• The Bully, Paul Langan mimetic
• The Gun, Paul Langan mimetic
• Joey Pigza Loses Control, Jack Gantos mimetic

 

Summer 2010:

• Killer Pizza, Greg Taylor mimetic
• Killer Pizza: The Slice, Greg Taylor mimetic
• N.E.R.D.S.: National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society, Michael Buckley mimetic
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid books 1-5, Jeff Kinney mimetic

September-June 2010/2011:

• Freak: A Novel, Marcella Pixley mimetic
• N.E.R.D.S.: M is for Mama’s Boy, Michael Buckley mimetic

Summer 2011:

• Son of the Mob,Gordon Korman mimetic
• Son of the Mob: Hollywood Hustle, Gordon Korman mimetic
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever, Jeff Kinney mimetic
• N.E.R.D.S.: The Cheerleaders of Doom, Michael Buckley mimetic

Summer 2012:

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel, Jeff Kinney mimetic

September-December 2012:

• N.E.R.D.S.: The Villain Virus, Michael Buckley mimetic

 

Bildungsroman

April 2013:

• A Separate Peace, John Knowles mimetic

May 2014:

• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee mimetic

 

Short Stories

September-June 2008/2009:

• The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies: And Other Warped Creepy Tales, David Lubar mimetic

April 2011:

• The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe thematic

September- December 2012:

• The Lady, or the Tiger?, Frank R. Stockton thematic
• Lamb To The Slaughter, Roald Dahl mimetic

May 2014:

• The Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allan Poe thematic
• The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allan Poe thematic

 

Plays and Mythology

May 2011:

• Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare mimetic

October 2011:

• The Diary of Anne Frank, Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett (diary by Anne Frank) mimetic
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare mimetic

January 2013:

• The Iliad, Homer mimetic
• The Odyssey, Homer mimetic
• The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare mimetic

 

May 2014:

• Antigone, Sophocles mimetic
• The Crucible, Arthur Miller mimetic
• Macbeth, William Shakespeare mimetic

May 2015:

• A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams mimetic

 

Summer 2015:

• All My Sons, Arthur Miller mimetic

September 2015:

• No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre thematic

February 2016:

• Oedipus Rex, Sophocles mimetic
• Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller mimetic

May 2016:

• Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare mimetic
• Hamlet, William Shakespeare mimetic

 

Satirical/Comedy

Summer 2013:

• F in Exams: The Very Best Totally Wrong Answers, Richard Benson synthetic
• F for Effort:More of The Very Best Totally Wrong Answers, Richard Benson synthetic
• Enormous Boobs: Stupidest Bloopers and Hilarious Headlines, Richard Benson synthetic

Summer 2014:

• Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes mimetic

Summer 2015:

• William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope,Ian Doescher mimetic
• William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back, Ian Doescher mimetic

March 2016:

• Catch-22, Joseph Heller mimetic

May 2016:

• Slaughterhouse- Five, Kurt Vonnegut mimetic

 

Comic book/Manga/Graphic Novel

1998-2005:

• Captain Raptor and the Moon Mystery, Kevin O’Malley & Patrick O’Brien mimetic

2005-2012:

– Manga Claus: The Blade of Kringle, Erik Craddock & Nathaniel Marunas mimetic

– Spider-Man: Les Incontournables books 1-8, various authors mimetic

– XIII books 1-20, Jean Van Hamme & William Vance et al. mimetic

– Chasseurs de Dragons: Un Dragon Comme Pas Deux, Laurent Turner & Mattieu Venant mimetic

-Chasseurs de Dragons: Copains Commes Zombies, Mattieu Venant & Marc Lechuga & Lorien mimetic

– Les Aventures de Tintin: Tintin au Congo, Hergé mimetic

– Les Aventure de Tintin: Les Cigares du Pharaon, Hergé mimetic

– Les Aventures du Gottferdom Studio: La Flemme des Etoiles, Dav & Esteban & BenGrrr mimetic

– Gaston: L’Ecologie Selon Lagaffe, Franquin mimetic

– Le Lapin Bleu Mène L’Enquête: Quel Paroissien Es-Tu?, Coolus & Elvine mimetic

– Astérix books 1-34 & any side books, René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo mimetic

– Marsupilami books 3-5 & 19 & 22-23, André Franquin et al. mimetic

– Les Profs books 1-7 & side book, Erroc & Pica et al. mimetic

– Les 30 Deniers, Jean-Pierre Pécau & Igor Kordey mimetic

– Olympus Heights, Kevin Munroe mimetic

– Marvel Comics vs DC Comics, Ron Marz & Peter David et al. mimetic

– Thor: Siege, Kieron Gillen & Billy Tan mimetic

Summer 2013:

• Avengers vs X-Men, Brian Michael Bendis & Matt Fraction et al. mimetic

• Green Lantern: Secret Origin, Geoff Johns & Ivan Reis mimetic
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vol. 1, Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill et al. mimetic

• Batman: The Killing Joke, Alan Moore & Brian Bolland mimetic
• The Infinity Gauntlet, Jim Starlin & George Pérez mimetic
• The Infinity Gauntlet Aftermath, Jim Starlin et al. mimetic
• The Infinity War, Jim Starlin & Ron Lim mimetic
• Deadpool vol 1: Dead Presidents, Brian Posehn & Gerry Duggan mimetic
• Deadpool vol 2: Soul Hunter, Brian Posehn & Gerry Duggan mimetic
• Captain America: Winter Soldier, Ed Brubaker & Steve Epting mimetic
• Incredible Hulk vol 1 # 271: “Now Somewhere In the Black Holes of Sirius Major There Lived a Young Boy Name of Rocket Raccoon!”, Bill Mantlo et al. mimetic
• Rocket Raccoon issues 1-4, Bill Mantlo & Mike Mignola et al. mimetic
• Starborn: Beyond The Far Stars vol 1, Stan Lee et al. mimetic
• The Traveler: Man Out of Time vol 1, Stan Lee et al. mimetic
• Soldier Zero: One Small Step For Man vol 1, Stan Lee et al. mimetic
• Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who : Assimilation 2 vols. 1-2, Scott Tipton & David Tipton et al. mimetic

Summer 2014:

• Marvel: The Heroic Age, Brian Michael Bendis & Ed Brubaker et al. mimetic
• Various Marvel comics single issue storylines, various authors mimetic
• Various DC comics single issue storylines, various authors mimetic
• Marvel Civil War, Mark Millar & Steve McNiven mimetic
• Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt, J. M. DeMatteis & Mike Zeck mimetic
• Spider-Man: Death of the Stacys, Stan Lee & John Romita mimetic
• The Uncanny X-Men: Days of Future Past, Chris Claremont & John Byrne mimetic
• Star Trek: The Next Generation : Hive, Brannon Braga et al. mimetic
• Star Trek/ Legion of Super-Heroes, Chris Roberson & Jeffrey Moy mimetic
• Brilliant issue 1, Brian Michael Bendis & Mark Bagly mimetic
• The Rocketeer Adventure Magazine issue 1, Lee Kaluta & Vess mimetic
• Steed and Mrs. Peel issue 1, Grant Morrison & Ian Gibson mimetic

Summer 2015:

• Rex Mundi Omnibus 1, Arvid Nelson & Juan Ferreyra mimetic
• Saga vol. 1-4, Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples mimetic
• Starlight, Mark Millar & Goran Parlov mimetic
• Avengers: Kree/Skrull War, Roy Thomas & Sal Buscema mimetic
• Marvel Secret Wars (1984/85 version), Jim Shooter & Mike Zeck mimetic
• Avengers: Assault on Olympus, Roger Stern & Bob Harras mimetic
• Avengers The Korvac Saga, Roger Stern & Len Wein mimetic

Summer 2016:

– Astérix Chez Les Pictes, Jean-Yves Ferri & Didier Conrad mimetic

– Astérix: Le Papyrus de César, Jean-Yves Ferri & Didier Conrad mimetic

– Thorgal books 1-4, Jean Van Hamme & Grzegorz Rosiński mimetic

– Wayne Shelton books 1-4, Jean Van Hamme & Christian Denayer mimetic

– Largo Winch books 1-6, Jean Van Hamme & Phillippe Francq mimetic

– XIII books 21-24, Yves Sente & Youri Jigounov & Bérangère Marquebreucq mimetic

– XIII Mystery books 1-3, various authors mimetic

– Star Wars: Vader Down, Jason Aaron & Kieron Gillen mimetic

– The Immortal Iron Fist vol 1: The Last Iron Fist Story, Ed Brubaker & Matt Fraction mimetic

– The Immortal Iron Fist vol 2: The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, Ed Brubaker & Matt Fraction mimetic

– Doctor Doom & Doctor Strange: Triumph & Torment, Roger Stern & Gerry Conway mimetic

– Moon Knight: From the Dead, Warren Ellis & Declan Shalvey mimetic

– Dreadstar: The Beginning, Jim Starlin mimetic

– Dreadstar Omnibus 1, Jim Starlin mimetic

September-December 2016:

• Lone Wolf and Cub Omnibus 1, Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima mimetic
• Lone Wolf and Cub Omnibus 2, Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima mimetic
• Hulk: Planet Hulk, Greg Pak & Carlo Pagulayan & Aaron Lopresti & Gary Frank & Takeshi Miyazawa  et al. mimetic
• Secret Wars, Jim Shooter & Mike Zeck & Bob Layton et al. mimetic
• Doctor Strange: The Oath, Brian K. Vaughan & Marcos Martin et al. mimetic

April 2017:

• Watchmen, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons mimetic
• Carver: A Paris Story, Chris Hunt & Paul Pope mimetic
• Corto Maltese: Under the Sign of Capricorn, Hugo Pratt mimetic

May 2017:

• 100 Bullets: Book 1, Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso mimetic
• Inhumans, Paul Jenkins & Jae Lee mimetic
• Moon Knight: Bad Moon Rising, Doug Moench & David Anthony Kraft & Bill Mantlo & Steven Grant with Roger Slifer & John Warner & Don Perlin & Keith Giffen & Mike Zeck & Jim Mooney & Jim Craig & Keith Pollard & Bill Sienkiewicz mimetic
• Doom Patrol: Book 1, Grant  Morrison & Richard Case & John Nyberg mimetic
• Blankets, Craig Thompson mimetic
• The Sandman: preludes & nocturnes, Neil Gaiman mimetic
• The Sandman: the doll’s house, Neil Gaiman mimetic

June 2017:

• Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, Alan Moore & Curt Swan mimetic

July 2017:

• Lone Wolf & Cub Omnibus 3, Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima mimetic
• Daytripper, Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba mimetic
• The Complete Maus, Art Spiegelman mimetic
• The Fade Out, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips with Elizabeth Breitweiser mimetic
• Kingdom Come, Mark Waid & Alex Ross mimetic
• The Amazing Spider-Man #248: “The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man”, Roger Stern & Ron Frenz & Terry Austin & Joe Rosen & Christie Sheele & John Romita Jr. mimetic

August 2017:

• Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli mimetic
• Thorgal books 5-6,  Jean Van Hamme & Grzegorz Rosiński mimetic
• Largo Winch books 7-8, Jean Van Hamme & Phillippe Francq mimetic
• Spider-Man: Blue, Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale mimetic

 

A Young Life Influenced By Literature

Throughout my young life books have shaped the way I have read. Their power and influence are huge.

The first book I remember my parents reading to me was Max Lucado’s You Are Special. The story followed Punchinello, a Wemmick who is an outcast. All the other Wemmicks give each other gold star stickers for having worth (being pretty, athletic, strong). Punchinello only gets gray dot stickers because he is none of these. He thinks he is a mistake. So he visits his creator Eli, who tells him that he is not a mistake. He is special, and should believe in his own self. The stickers are meaningless. His value and worth is not shaped by the other Wemmicks’ opinions. Punchinello resumes his lifestyle proud of himself, catching the attention of the other Wemmicks. This beautiful philosophical  book taught me to be true to myself and not to worry about other people. Don’t worry about how I compare to other people. There will always be people better and worse than me. I just have to go my own path and enjoy being myself. This book’s message struck me to my core, and I would refer to it every time I felt unworthy. I learned to read my looking over this book many times.

The year my family returned to the US after a three year stay in France, my father’s brother gave me the complete set of Spider-Man: Les Incontournables– an eight volume collection of some of the most important Spider-Man storylines. This is where I discovered that superhero comics could feature serious storylines. Previously I had known about and read family-friendly comics like Asterix, and adults comics like XIII. But this was different. These were adult stories featuring characters generally thought to be kid-pleasing (this was before the first Iron Man movie came out, opening the gate to troubled heroes in pop culture). This was where my love for comics truly began. The stories I collected (and still do), are ones that pack an emotional punch. Two Spider-Man storylines that really stood out for me at a young age, ushering me into the power of comics, were “Kraven’s Last Hunt”, and “The Night Gwen Stacy Died”. The first story, which routinely quotes William Blake’s “The Tyger” (with the word “Tyger” replaced with “Spyder”), details Kraven the Hunter’s success in “killing” Spider-Man, and choice to assume his adversary’s identity, so as to prove to himself that he can be a better Spider-Man than Peter Parker. His methods are brutal, killing multiple criminals. When Spider-Man returns from the grave and confronts Kraven, the hunter realizes that he is not a better hero than Peter. The hunter allows Spider-Man to resume his crime fighting, realizing that his life had no purpose anymore, his hunting days now over. He retreats to his mansion, reminisces about his past and the peace that he now feels, and commits suicide with his own rifle in front of a picture of him in his youth with his parents. The story is intended to explore Spider-Man’s character and how others perceive him incorrectly. The image of Kraven’s bloody corpse inside an open coffin was engraved into my mind. The second story, “The Night Gwen Stacy Died”, is widely considered the end of the Silver Age of Comics, when Superhero comics “grew up”, ushering in the darker and grittier Bronze Age. The story details the hero’s climactic battles with his nemesis the Green Goblin, resulting in the death of his longtime girlfriend Gwen Stacy. This was the first time a hero failed and a shock. The Green Goblin threw Gwen Stacy off the top of the George Washington Bridge and after Spider man caught her leg with his webbing, he realized that she was dead. She had died due to the whiplash caused by the sudden stop of the webbing catching her body. Gwen Stacy was the woman Peter Parker truly loved. She loved him and trusted him, and was going to marry him. Peter had also promised her late father that he would protect her. The event left Spider-Man utterly distraught and in grief, almost breaking his rule of not killing any villains by going on as quest to kill the Green Goblin. This event also caused Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson (who was a close friend of Gwen) to grow closer together and eventually fall in love. Peter regularly visits her grave and reminisces about the times when they were together. As a young boy reading this, I truly felt the emotion running through the text and images. This showed me that comics could have major emotional impacts. Peter Parker lost the true love of his life, a girl he had fallen in love with since the day he had laid eyes on her. From that point on, I collected and read comics that made me feel emotions inside.

The summer before junior year AP English class, my professor assigned all of his students to read The Color of Water. The autobiography and memoir by James McBride details his struggles as an African-American youth coming-of-age, while also narrating the hardships that his mother faced as a white, Jewish woman married to a black man in the 1940s. Before The Color of Water, I never would have considered reading biographies and memoirs on my own. Whenever I did read them, it was for school. I always thought, “how interesting could a person’s life be?” This thought especially occurred with The Color of Water, where I thought that the stories were too recent and too common to be interesting. Instead the dual storylines captured my attention throughout. I believe that reading this novel made me realize how many interesting events can happen in a person’s life, and how much emotion can be felt through the words.Unlike other genres, biographies have the power to really connect the readers to the author. Maybe it is because the subjects have all lived at some point in time, learning their stories can be very captivating, as all of their life events truly happened. They can be stranger than fiction. So reading The Color of Water opened my mind to accepting biographies as captivating stories that truly happened. After The Color of Water, I began to read more from this genre.

     Senior year, I made a journey into existentialism when my senior year AP English 4 professor assigned the class The Stranger. The first-person story follows the French Algerian man Meursault from right before, to after he kills an Arab man and is sentenced to death. This story showed me how deep and layered a novel could be. The novel is about the irrationality of the universe and the philosophy that individual lives and human existence have no rational meaning or purpose. Humanity is absurd, and any attempt to find meaning will fail. It is an existential novel. Meursault is a stranger disconnected from emotions. Reading this very short story showed me how deep and meaningful words on a page can be. At the time it was almost mind-boggling.

This past May I read the graphic novel Blankets. Before reading it, I was mostly focused on reading superhero comics and graphic novels. And while those did have emotional impacts, I wanted to try something different. I knew biographies could bring that impact, but I didn’t feel like reading a normal book. Blankets is an autobiographical graphic novel about author Craig Thompson’s adolescence and young adulthood, his first love, his childhood relationship with his brother, and his struggles with Evangelical Christian faith and family. The large graphic novel explores first love, religion, familial relationships, sexuality, and coming of age. It is a heartfelt and bittersweet story that pulls no punches (one textless image is of Craig and his younger brother’s hairy male babysitter ushering them into a closet one at a time to sexually abuse them). This really showed me how graphic novels can be used in very thought provoking stories, without having to resort to superheroes.

 

        Books have shaped my life and will continue to do so. They lead me down a road of discovery, teaching me new things every day.