Random
Summer Reading List
I’ve literally got piles & piles & piles of books in my office.
So maybe my summer reading list is a bit ambitious. But I’m excited and optimistic.
Started my summer off with Man in the Holocene by Max Frisch (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1979) & just beginning Sátántangó by Laszlo Krasznahorkai (New Directions, 2012) which I’m super excited about. And afterwards I’ll have a good excuse to re-watch Béla Tarr’s beautiful film.
And then:
The Recognitions by William Gass (Dalkey Archive, 2012)
Milkbottle H by Gil Orlovitz (Dell Publishing, 1968)
The Man Without Qualities Vol. 1 & 2 by Robert Musil (Vintage, 1995)
The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena by Dean Radin (HarperOne, 1997)
On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction by Brian Boyd (Belknap/Harvard University Press, 2009)
Zippermouth by Laurie Weeks (The Feminist Press, 2011)
The Loop by Jacques Roubaud (Dalkey Archive, 2009)
I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita (Coffee House Press, 2010)
The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes (Knopf, 2011)
Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin (Bantam Books, 1984)
The Philosophy of Surrealism by Ferdinand Alquie (University of Michigan, 1965)
Habibi by Craig Thomson (Pantheon, 2011)
Occult America: White House Seances, Ouija Circles, Masons and the Secret Mystic History of Our Nation by Mitch Horowitz (Bantam Books, 2009)
Pataphysical Essays by Rene Daumal (Wakefield Press, 2012)
All the Garbage of the World Unite by Kim Hyesoon; trans. Don Mee Choi (Action Books, 2011)
The Shock of the Lenders by Jorge Santiago Perednik; trans. Molly Weigel (Action Books, 2012)
The Number and the Siren: A Decipherment of Mallarme’s Coup De Des by Quentin Meillassoux (Urbanomic/Sequence Press, 2012)
The Sky Conducting by Michael J Seidlinger (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2012)
You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake by Anna Moschovakis (Coffee House Press, 2011)
The Listeners by Leni Zumas (Tin House, 2012)
What’s on your summer reading list??
AHHHHHHHHH I DIDN’T KNOW THERE WAS A NEW DAUMAL BOOK OUT
Now I’m very excited.
Proust, Pulphead, Jackie Under my Skin, Cyclonopedia, Philosophy of Fashion by Lars Svendsen. Also Emerson and Montaigne here and there. Possibly The Confessions by Saint Augustine.
Let us know how far into Man Without Qualities you get – I like long, slow books, but Musil’s just too much for me. I’m not sure how anybody could get through Vol 2, much less Vol 1, but good luck!
Yea we’ll see. Wishing myself good luck too haha.
Recently finished All The Garbage of the World, Unite! and enjoyed the self described maze laid out by Hyesoon from start to finish. Also read Skin Horse from Action Books as well. They are putting out some amazing, groundbreaking stuff right now.
I’m also going to read Satantango. I loved the Melancholy of Resistance, so I have high hopes. Currently doing Naked Singularity and might do The Great Fire of London by Roebaud.
I am reading Dark Reflections by Samuel Delany with full intention of reading his new one Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders.
Also :Paying for it by Chester Brown The Third Reich by Bolano Inventing Iraq by Tony Dodge
finishing The Brothers Karamazov. Then: The Inner Loneliness. The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. Influence by Caldini. Blow-up. Hopscotch. The Iliad. The Middle Length Discourses. And, hopefully, a shit-load of craft and grammar books. I don’t exactly have a “summer reading list” since I’m not in school anymore, but those are the books I’ll be reading in the near future.
I liked Blankets by Craig Thompson quite a lot. All I know about Habibi is that I showed it to a friend of mine who grew up Muslim, and he said it felt to him like a person who knew nothing about Islam using a lot of Muslim/Arab iconography (hehe). Shallow, in a word, I guess. That’s not to dissuade you. In fact I’m excited to see what someone else (who I know absolutely nothing about re background in Islam) thinks of it. Just thought I’d let you know, though.
JR, William Gaddis, Dalkey Archive Press
The Complete Donald Barthelme Short Story Output
The Greek Myths, Robert Graves, folio Society
Pour Sûr, France Daigle, 2011
Onze, Annie Dulong, 2011
Revenge of the Lawn / The Abortion / So the Wind Wont Blow It All Away, Richard Brautigan, Houghton Mifflin
Noir Canada, Alain Deneault, Écosociété (Banned!)
Catch-22, Joseph Heller, Simon & Shuster
Le Bon sexe illustré, Tony Duvert, Minuit
The Rings of Saturn, W.G. Sebald, New Directions
Soifs, Marie-Claire Blais, Boréal
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, Philip K. Dick, HMH
Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafron
Une Histoire populaire des États-Unis, Howard Zinn, Lux éd.
Make it 2 summers.
My stack has gotten a little larger than is entirely manageable. The next few in line are Ayti by Roxane Gay, Urdustan by Sabina England, Crocheting on the Edge Ruffles*Flora*Fringes*Points & Scallops by Nicky Epstein, Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur, The Speed Chronicles from Akashic and some other random crocheting crafty type books and whatnot.
currently reading an etgar keret collection and some joe brainard, but this summer i would like to read moby dick for the first time! also will probably read the passion according to g.h., dublinesque, planets, and the no variations when i scrape up the money to buy them in the next few weeks or so
the new clarice lispector translations
dhalgren – samuel r delaney
the two new caketrain chapbooks
men in space – tom mccarthy
I’m trying to read more books published by indie presses. So:
Person – Sam Pink
The Human War – Noah Cicero
Lucid Membranes – Tantra Bensko
Miss Gone-overseas – Mitchell Anne Hagerstrom
The Mosquito Song – ML Kennedy
Austin Nights – Herocious
The last three are from the same publisher. They make all their books by hand. Pretty impressive stuff.
will feel good if I can just actually read Don Quixote and East of Eden all the way through this time.
Men in Space was surprisingly fun. Have you read C?
6 women, 16 men. So that’s about a quarter of the summer, wasted.
Some books I plan on rereading –
Sayonara, Gangsters – Genichiro Takahashi
The Book of Lazaras – Richard Grossman
The Wanting Seed – Anthony Burgess
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
Some books I plan on finally reading –
The Open Curtain – Brian Evenson
Wool Omnibus – Hugh Howey
I Am a Cat – Soseki Natsume
Still Lives – Natsuki Ikezawa
Office Girl – Joe Meno
Edge – Koji Suzuki
Daniel Fights a Hurricane – Shane Jones
Wizzywig – Ed Piskor
I haven’t, but Remainder was excellent, so I’m excited about MiS and C.
midnight cowboy and the new sheila heti novel. or memoir. or whatever it is.
EE, I started the Heti book. I like it a lot.
jeez. i have no women on my list. well, i honestly intend to read Autobiography of Red in the near future. And…something else.
one thing I’d forgot to mention earlier: i am constantly frustrated by the way i read (i.e. quality over quantity). surely others face this; how do you deal with it? like, other than simply reading slower, how do you deal with it? like, do you actually just face the fact that if you really want to get the most out of a book (say, the recognitions, or ulysses, or infinite jest, or let’s say even a short book like autobiography of red) you have to accept the fact that you’ll read less than 10 books a year. [because i seriously think about the number of books i’ll read in a year, but that is stupid, except for the argument of spreading yourself thin so you can make vague references to as many novels as possible at cool parties. but i don’t even go to parties.]
In Dreams Begin Responsibilities and Other Stories: Delmore Schwartz
Ann Beattie: Distortions
Wonderland: Joyce Carol Oates
Tearing Down The Walls of Sound-Rise and Fall of Phil Spector: Mick Brown
Lolita: Nabokov (again, its summer!)
Sixty Stories: Donald Barthelme
Love Goes In Buildings On Fire-Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever: Will Hermes
Jeez. Get a job.
Just read: xTx’s Normally Special, DeLillo’s White Noise, Kristine Ong Muslim’s We Bury the Landscape, Brian Evenson’s Immobility, Ander Monson’s Other Electricities, Stephen Beachy’s Distortion, etc
Soon:
Sara Levine, Short Dark Oracles
Miranda Mellis, None of This is Real
Kevin Killian, Spreadeagle
Lauren Becker, Shutup/Look Pretty
Dennis Cooper, God Jr
Ryan Call, Weather Stations
Currently xTx’s Normally Special
THEN AD Jameson’s AAF
THEN James Tadd Adcox Map of the System of Human Knowledge
THEN Johnny Martonaro bio
THEN Franki Elliot’s Piano Rats
THEN Prison Pit, pt. 3
THEN Gary Indiana’s Resentment
THEN Algren’s Walk on the Wild Side
THEN Malcolm X Autiobio
What’d you think of Immobility? I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on my list.
Collected Stories – Amy Hempel
The Braindead Microphone – George Saunders
Cities of the Plain – Cormac McCarthy
The Magic Toyshop – Angela Carter
Immobility – Brian Evenson
The Ice Trilogy – Vladimir Sorokin
And others as they come along.
Books I look forward to and will read ASAP (due out July/August):
M John Harrison – Empty Space
Alan Garner – Boneland
The Stone Guests – I hope to read at least 2-3 of these Cetaceans by the end of the year.
James Joyce – Finnegans Wake
Stefano D’Arrigo – Horcynus Orca
J.G. Farrell – The Empire Trilogy (ebook)
Peter Esterhazy – Harmonia Coelestis
Harry Mulisch – The Discovery of Heaven
Joseph McElroy – Women and Men
David Grossman – A un cerbiatto somiglia il mio amore (Isha Borahat MiBesora/English: To The End of the Land)
Books near the top in my various tbr piles and more likely to be read this summer:
Shirley Hazzard – The Great Fire
Wesley Stace – Charles Jessold, Considered as Murderer
Margery Allingham – The Tiger in the Smoke
Muriel Spark – The Hothouse by the East River
Herman Melville – The Confidence Man
James Hogg – The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a
Justified Sinner
In Italian:
Paolo Volponi – Il Sipario Ducale
Goffredo Parise – Il Padrone
Vittorio Imbriani – Il vivicomburio e altre novelle
In German:
Terezia Mora – Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent
Alina Bronski – Die schärfsten Gerichte der tatarischen Küche
In Spanish:
Guillermo Saccomanno – El Oficinista
José Donoso – Lagartija sin Cola
Jorge Edwards – Persona non Grata
In French
Gustave Flaubert – L’éducation sentimentale
I read a lot less than many people ‘here’ – maybe 200-250 pages a week of prose, all-in (excluding periodicals and the internet). Maybe 40 books a year. (I read quite a bit more when I had no tv, hadn’t ever been on the internet, and rode mass transit every day.)
My thinking about quality-control is this: try to pick books I want to finish (based on several obvious criteria: first few pages, hear-say, knowledge of author/topic, and so on), and relax about stopping in the case that a book isn’t what I want. I’m also (probably too) relaxed about half-finished piles, about returning in months or years to finish a book.
Don’t worry about bluffing; just talk about what you think about what you’ve read, refer to your reading where it’s relevant, and let your ideas speak to people who listen to ideas.
I really enjoyed Immobility. It’s grim, riveting, and sometimes absurd and darkly hilarious. Think Last Days, a bit less concentrated, and with some Beckett-like dialog that’s very funny. I think I liked Last Days a little more, but that’s a hard act to follow.
I have 2. I read these on the way to work.
tinyurl.com/cyk9xz2