Monday, December 15, 2008

Simon's Year End Lists for 2008

It's not too late to send in Year End lists to LoM!

Simon sends his list from the far off land of Ontario. We are lucky to get any correspondence from our brothers in the British controlled territories of Canada. Let us cherish these words he's sent to us in the free land of America and wish them well in their struggle for freedom under the jackboot of the Queen.

One day you will taste the bacony flavor that is freedom, my friend.

With no further ado, here's Simon's take on 2008:


*Top 5 Books I've Read*


1. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon: I
was very late to the party on this one but it is an amazing story and
you can see how it won the Pulitzer Prize.
2. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow: subversive, entertaining and
educating fiction by my favorite of the new breed of SF writers.
3. Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B Cialdini: A
great book that can be used for good so that you can understand how
people can talk you into doing things you don't want to do and for
evil by using the tricks within to turn people into your mindless
minions. This book is probably on Lex Luthor's bookshelf.
4. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch: I'm a Dad now so I worry
about this type of stuff. It's Randy Pausch's advice to his kids that
he wrote after he was diagnosed with incurable cancer.
5. Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty: I "read" it as an audio book
which was a novelty for me. This is a hilarious novel about also ran
super-heroes who need to step up and save the world.


*Top 5 Comics I've Read*


1. All Star Superman by Grant Morrison: The absolute best Superman
story ever told bar none.
2. Planetary Vol. 1: All Over the World and Other Stories by Warren
Ellis:
I'm such a sucker for multi-layered stories with tons of
literary and pop culture references. See 5 for more evidence.
3. Welcome to Tranquility: Volume 1 by Gail Simone: What does
happen to retired super-heroes? Gail Simone answers this with her
customary humor and pathos.
4. Astro City Vol. 2: Confession by Kurt Busiek: My favourite of
all the Astro City volumes where he explores what it truly means to be
human using an analogy to Batman and Robin.
5. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier by Alan
Moore:
While I did not like it as much as the first mini series this
book is filled with so much information that you literally need a
compendieum website to fill in the blanks


I wish I could give you a top 5 movies I've seen this year but I've only
really seen Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight and Wall-E. I
was aiming for quality not quantity this year.

3 comments:

Simon MacDonald said...

Here is the Black Dossier Annotations site that I forgot to put in the post.

J.S. said...

I wonder if any of these books and/or comics have been translated from Candian into American so that we can enjoy them?

Simon MacDonald said...

Why do you think it too me so long to get to some of these books? I had to wait until the Canadian translation came out.

The hardest thing about participating on the internet from Canada is that I must post and equal amount of material in English and French. For every LOM comment I leave I have to post something on a French language site in Quebec. I don't want the CRTC to take away my internet license.