Thursday, July 31, 2008

Comparison Shopping Around

Here's what my reading list has shaped up to be so far. Only the first two titles have stayed from the original list. The rest were added along the way. It's a little narrative of my experience in June:

Picasso's War- Russell Martin
Shopping For God: How Christianity Went From in Your Heart to in Your Face- James B. Twitchell
The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin
- William Logan
Slaughterhouse Five- Kurt Vonnegut
If On a Winter's Night A Traveller- Italo Calvino
Iron John- Robert Bly

To Read:
The Odyssey- Homer
Grendel- John Gardner and Beowulf- Anonymous
Yes, I am putting this off because I don't necessarily want to think about teaching. But it's the second phase of summer now, so I suppose these will be next.

New Additions to the "To Read" List:
The Alchemist- Paulo Cuehlo
The Bird Catcher- Marie Ponsot
How Fiction Works- James Woods
The Two Kinds of Decay- Sarah Manguso
The Echo Maker- Richard Powers and/or Atmospheric Disturbances- Rivka Galchen
Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists- Susan Neiman

4 comments:

plastic said...

nice list...

no dispatches from the woods?disappoint level 0.1

Virgil Disgr4ce said...

I can vouch for John Gardner's "Grendel." It's one of the few works that I'd use the term "postmodern" in a favorable way. And I definitely want to check out Logan's collection... I don't actually know anything about him really.

Anonymous said...

awwwww. The Alchemist. International Baccalaureate Delighte.
and yay for calvino!

Frances said...

dude! I just read slaughterhouse 5 last week for the first time. holy brain waves. I also have a complimentary (slightly damaged) copy of how fiction works on it's way to ben mattison along with a book for you and gorgeous. you should steal it from him when he's done, or before he starts. I have a copy for myself, too....