What actual books would be in Clark's apartment?

[Lex Luthor]

he'd have books that Bruce and Diana let him borrow so some greek myth stuff, a book on feminism, and maybe some detective books.

He also has a lot of Lois's books so he'd probably have some stuff on journalism and some of her favorites as well.

[daBronzeBomma]

I'm of the mindset that Clark's Metropolis apartment never gets any visitors (at least none that don't already know his Secret) ... for example, while John Henry Irons may drop by the place on a regular basis, Steve Lombard is never walking through Clark's door.

If there are only a small number of books (I'm saying 10) in Clark's apartment, there'd be some sci-fi, some world and American history, some writing/journalism books and some literary (non-sci-fi) fiction.

Let's add a wrinkle: what books does Lex Luthor own and re-read from time to time?

I'll say that, for starters, Lex definitely owns a first edition all-German (signed?) copy of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, and well as the oldest existing edition of The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

[Ascended]

You know, I dont think Lex actually reads that much. He's likely read all the classics; Plato and Nostradamus up through to Hawking and Sagan, but I dont see Lex as being the kind of person who reads for fun. I think he reads for gain. He's read the classics so he can quote them at people, so he can mine their wisdom in order to better his own lot in life, so he can feel a sense of superiority. But reading for fun? I think Lex would just see that as a huge waste of time.

Just one little thing to reinforce the fact that the terrible, untrustworthy alien is more human than Lex, who in his own mind is the greatest human ever.

[unholyrevenger72]

The complete Dragon Ball Manga

[codystarbuck]

No doubt about the influence part. Take Hugo Danner from GLADIATOR, John Carter from A PRINCESS OF MARS and Clark "Doc" Savage from ( ... and that's part of the problem here) and then you have the trinity of proto-Supermen. Throw in the biblical Samson and Moses as well and that's your proto-Superman Voltron.

I find Doc Savage to be ... problematic ... on multiple levels for this thought-exercise.

A) I can't find a single non-graphic novel that introduces him properly

B) He's also become a comic book character since his 1930s debut in the pulp magazines

C) That was published at least once by Marvel Comics among other companies

Like I said, Doc is definitely an influence, but I haven't found a definitive novel (i.e. paperback) that sums up the character ideally for Clark to possess. If someone knows otherwise, please let me know and I'll save a space in my 10 books.





I have no doubt that Clark read all those books. In fact, I'll go on a limb and say that Clark has read ALL the books. Every last one of them. You name it, Clark has already read it (or if it is really new, will read it as soon as it is available at a library).

I can see Clark going to the Smallville Library and eventually flipping through (while reading thoroughly) every book in the building, one full second at a time per book. He'd check out books that he was really interested in, but also to avoid suspicion about going to the Library so often. And then repeating this pattern at all branches of the much larger Metropolis Public Library system.

So I'm not really asking the question of what Clark has read (my opinion: if it's in print and is even remotely considered "important", he has already read and memorized it, no matter the genre, be it fiction or non-fiction).

What I am asking is, out of all the hundreds of thousands (or maybe millions) of books that Clark has already read and memorized, which books would he have sought out and purchased with his own money (no hand-me-downs from Jonathan or Martha) to keep for himself in Metropolis because whatever was within those covers stayed with him long after he read it?

I'm going to say

COSMOS by Carl Sagan

for my first non-fiction selection of books that Clark definitely owns and keeps with him in Metropolis, to go along with my previous picks of

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD,

GLADIATOR, and

A PRINCESS OF MARS.

Doc Savage, His Apocalyptic Life, by Phillip Jose Farmer. Like his previous Tarzan Alive, it's a fictional biography of the hero, tied to his ever expanding Wold Newton Universe concept (where all of the great literary heroes and villains were tied to a meteor crashing in Wold Newton, in England). It covers all of Doc's major adventures, his companions, enemies, the skyscraper penthouse headquarters, the Fortress of Solitude; all of it. meanwhile, the Doc Savage paperbacks were reprinted from the late 60s until the 90s; so Clark could easily have encountered those or, Jonathan was a huge fan and Clark read his collections.

I'd have:
Gladiator and When Worlds Collide, from Phillip Wylie
A Princess of Mars, from ERB
Doc Savage, His Apocalyptic Life
The Scarlet Pimpernal
A Tale of Two Cities
The Outsiders
Bullfinch's Mythology
Also Sprache Zarathustra
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Le Morte D'Arthur
Of Mice and Men
The Grapes of Wrath
The Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi
The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller
The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
biographies of noted journalists
Winnie the Pooh
Little House on the Prairie
O Pioneers
The Wizard of Oz
Harpo Speaks

[Crawford Crow]

Since Superman lives in a fictional world, he probably has access to fictional books. It wouldn't surprise me if he had a copy of My Life In Kenya, by Lionel Hardcastle :-)