It just wouldn't be summer without a
wildly slightly ambitious bunch of titles -- mostly
this list, with a few additions. (Only ambitious because, and I don't know why I'm even bringing this up, I finished
one of the books on
last year's list. And I still haven't read THE POWER BROKER.) Some paperbacks, some hardcovers, all awesome? We'll find out.
Jhumpa Lahiri, UNACCUSTOMED EARTH (
finished 6/11)
Joseph Berger, THE WORLD IN A CITY (
finished 6/17)
Edith Wharton, ETHAN FROME, but let's keep this just between us (
finished 7/12)
Mark Harris, PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION (
finished 8/14)
Richard Yates, COLD SPRING HARBOR (finished 8/15)
Jonathan Coe, THE RAIN BEFORE IT FALLS
John Lahr, SHOW AND TELL
Markus Zusak, THE BOOK THIEF
Sheila Weller, GIRLS LIKE US
Herman Wouk, MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR
David Wroblewski, THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE
Henry James, PORTRAIT OF A LADY
I'm also
toying with participating fully implicated in
Infinite Summer, a new project (found via
52 books) sponsored by
The Morning News aiming to get a group read of David Foster Wallace's best known novel going this year. I am attracted by their claim that if you start INFINITE JEST on June 21st and read 75 pages a week, you will finish the book in September -- in other words, the jest is finite. And if you think that will be the only horrible joke I would make about reading the book
should I take the plunge, you are mistaken.
3 comments:
I didn't make it all of the way through Infinite Jest. It was fun while I was reading it, but it wasn't long because it needed to be so much as it was long because it is show-offy and masturbatory. In my opinion, it is a good 1000-page novel that could have made for an all-time short-list great 750-page novel. Its worth reading, but most people I know who love it read it over like over a summer in college, when they didn't have anything else to do. Somehow, that matters.
Good thing my other project for the summer was to fix my time machine!
objection, your honor, to the accusation of 'show-offy.' it is creating an incredibly vibrant, detailed, imaginary world that satirizes our own.
/didn't read it during college
/it's still a bear
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