Obviously the first thing I should do is finish everything that is still lying unfinished on my nightstand, if I'm going to get around to those books at all. (Very likely.) Then I should probably tackle books people have lent and/or given to me, which would more than fill up the list for the summer. Yet I'm tempted to chuck it all and start on some Grand Project, even one which I have no dream of finishing in three months.
No, no, must be practical. If I were to make that list of borrowed and gifted books, it would look something like:
Jhumpa Lahiri UNACCUSTOMED EARTHI'm unconvinced. Good thing I still have a few weeks to think it over. Do you do "summer reading"? Have you got a plan yet?
Jonathan Coe, THE RAIN BEFORE IT FALLS
Sheila Weller, GIRLS LIKE US
Markus Zusak, THE BOOK THIEF
Richard Yates, COLD SPRING HARBOR
David Wroblewski, THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE (or, to refer to it as I did this week: THAT OPRAH BOOK, THE RETELLING OF HAMLET WHERE THEY'RE ON A FARM, I THINK IN WISCONSIN? Luckily I got bailed out at that point because I was out of subordinate clauses.)
Joseph Berger, THE WORLD IN A CITY
Patrick McGilligan, ALFRED HITCHCOCK: A LIFE IN DARKNESS AND LIGHT
ETA 3:34PM The weather outside is actually delightful now. Congrats, readers! We did it again!
4 comments:
Gifted and unfinished books always take a long time to read. Better to just read books that you want to read.
You will never read all the books that you want to read in your lifetime, anyway, so why not make sure that the books that you do read are at the top of the priority list?
Of course, I'm not one to talk: I'm still slogging through ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE: A LIFE IN LETTERS because it was a gift. I'll finish it one day! Really!
I won't be able to read all the ones I want in life? La la la, I can't hear you.
The thing is the gifted ones look really good (at least the ones on this list do) -- and I feel obligated to read them for the people who gave them to me. They just get skipped over.
I'm usually reluctant to give books as gifts, because its basically a request that the other person spent ten hours doing something I picked out for them to do. Because of that I usually only give books to my family and to my really good friends, whose tastes I know well and can (hopefully) anticipate.
My summer reading list includes a bunch of Vonnegut I've been meaning to get around to reading for awhile now, at least one book by Neal Stephenson, and, yes, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which promises to be the best retelling of Shakespeare set in the 20th century American midwest since Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres. And, of course, the Onion A.V. Club's next several selections.
I'm at least a minor offender on the count of giving people books they don't have time to read. But given my horrendous track record, I'm sympathetic when they don't have time to get around to my picks in a timely manner.
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