It seems Mr. Eckard has called me out as part of this ongoing book/reading meme. So who am I to say no?

On the Shelf: between Andrea and myself we have about 90ish books in the apartment. We used to have more before the fire (including some good ones I still need to replace), but we’re pared back down nowadays.

Last Purchased: I picked up a copy of Stylin’ With CSS at Flash Forward in NY for something to read on the way home. I’m still sort of peeved over the XHTML chapter so I haven’t put much more time into reading it.

Last Five Read

I have a terrible habit of starting like 3 books at a time and never finishing any of them, so these are the ones I feel like I can honestly say “I read the whole thing” about.

• PHP 5 : Your visual blueprint for creating open source, server-side content
  I originally bought this because I know Toby and know his geek-fu is strong. But it really did turn out to be one of the most easily accessible, best-written technical books I’ve read in a long long time.
• Firefox Hacks
  My only O’Reillymon on the list. It made me wish there were more hours in the day to be actually playing with all the great stuff that could be done instead of just what I am doing.
• Batman: Year One
  Andrea’s a big Batman fan, and after we saw Sin City and heard that Batman Begins was going to be based on more of Frank Miller’s work she picked up a copy of this and I read it before she even got the chance to open it.
• Take The Cannoli
  I first heard of Sarah Vowell on This American Life and loved her pieces on there. Her book took some of those as a base but kept going beyond what her airtime would otherwise allow. (Tangental: she did a great job as the voice of the daughter in The Incredibles as well.)
• Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim
  David Sedaris is one of my favorite writers (right up there with Gibson, Burroughs and Welsh) and another This American Life discovery. Everyone should at least own Holidays on Ice if not all his books.

Next Round (provided they’re not all just too cool to take part in shenanigans like this.)

• Michele Howley
• Alex Giron
• Chris Casciano
• Pete Prodoehl
• John Riviello
• Andrea Chappelear