Books 31-39

So, I have several more books to add to the list. Here we go!

31. Haruki Murakami - The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
32. Hakim Bey - Immediatism
33. Hakim Bey - Temporary Autonomous Zones
34. Jeff Smith - 'Bone' books 4 and 5
35. 'Swamp Thing' book 3
36. 'Swamp Thing' book 4
37. 'Swamp Thing' book 5
38. Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
39. Sophocles - Antigone

So, the Sophocles plays and the two Hakim Bey books are both re-reads for me. In the Greek tragedy case, it was for my final English class before I graduate, which is thankfully a better class than that shit I took over the summer. Hakim Bey is just a great political author who writes about anarchist and autonomous concepts in an interesting, albeit crazy, way. He's sort of like the situationists if they believed in magic and middle-eastern spiritualism, or something along those lines. I don't know how to describe it any more fairly, so I apologize. If it's a subject you're interested in, you should just give these two books a read. They're both incredibly short and filled from beginning to end with enthralling writing.

I read Wind Up Bird Chronicle knowing that it is one of Murakami's more famous books, and also that it delves more into his magical realism territories than my previous read of his did. However, I loved Norwegian Wood, and I was hopeful that the writing in this book would be as good as that, even if the subject matter changed. I'm glad to say that this book was equally as enjoyable, though much longer, and it was something I was actually excited to read.

Bone is a 9 book graphic novel series that was originally published as comics in the early 90s. I've been reading it off and on for a while now, but I'm trying to get around to finishing it this semester, along with Swamp Thing. Swamp Thing also has 9 compiled books of older comics, I believe, though Alan Moore was only on board for enough comics to fill the first 6 books. Still, the writing, art, and story in general is phenomenal, and it's another series I'm excited to finish. Books 3-5 have some more great political allegories, and also delve into more supernatural realms, and craft Swamp Thing into a more super-powered super hero. Read it, it rules.