photo by David of Earth via flickr
CORRECTION:
I am desperately in need of the following:
– Book Blog recommendations
– Book Magazine recommendations
– Book recommendations
This is going to be a summer where I devour books. I want to stuff my cheeks full of text, like some sort of literary squirrel. I want to become so inundated with “book talk” that I can’t possibly pass by a shelf without grabbing one for the road. Perhaps this is strange? But I have a long summer ahead of me, full of work and travel. I want to fill my in-between time with as many literary things as possible.
Previously: I need your help. I’m really looking for some new book blogs to read. I feel as though I keep writing down a long list– yet always manage to lose it. I’m reconfiguring parts of the Drunk Literature blog roll so please comment back with any recommendations you may have (especially if you want me to check out your own blog– chances are I have, but its URL was written down on one of those ill-fated lists, which must end up in the very same place as the sock that never made it out of the dryer)!
There’s been a lot of hype lately around Brady Udall’s “The Lonely Polygamist.” I’ve been wanting to check it out, but I’m currently reading “Anna Karenina” and will be continuing to do so until, oh I don’t know, mid-September.
Anna Karenina is on my list of “Books I WILL Read Even If It KILLS Me!” Which, coincidentally, it just might. I hope you’ll be tracking your progress on your blog!
The Lonely Polygamist was actually a runner up for the Drunk Lit Book Club. I’ve heard all the buzz it’s getting– I’ll definitely have to pick it up.
Ha, I have a list like that too! Other titles include “War and Peace,” “Don Quixote,” and “Moby Dick.” I’ve thought about putting Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past” on there, but it’s over 3,000 pages long and would take up most of my twenties to complete. Maybe I’ll just trust the academics on the brilliance of that one.
Dude, is that squirrel eating a PB&J?? So awesome.
So uh, you are basically my go-to lit blog. But I’ll do some book blog hunting also and get back to you.
Book-wise, here’s what I’m doing:
– Cormac McCarthy kick… just finished Blood Meridian, it was kind of like a wild-west version of The Road
– read a fantasy novel called The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss… an enjoyable page-turner if you like fantasy
– reading 40 Ways to Look at Winston Churchill, a mini-biography, by Gretchen Rubin
– reading a mgmt book my boss gave me called The E-Myth Manager by Michael Gerber
– if you’re interested in the recent financial crisis, I read a really fantastic book about the JP Morgan derivatives team, which the book follows basically through the crisis, called Fool’s Gold by Gillian Tett
– re-reading Better by Atul Gawande (a classic, about what attributes make for the best doctors) and plan to read his new book The Checklist
– going to read Management Lessons from the Mayo Clinic by Leonard Berry
– I plan to read the following about the economy: The Invisible Hands by Steven Drobny, Billion Dollar Mistake by Stephen L. Weiss, The Lords of Strategy by Walter Kiechel III, and The Big Short by Michael Lewis
I also have two longer term reading goals. I want to (re-)read through the life works of Kurt Vonnegut and Martin Buber (whose The Way of Man I re-read about every 3 months).
Of course, I’m doing this after I get my copy of The Imperfectionists from Amazon and read that for the Drunk Lit Book Club.
When you put together your list of things you’re going for, make sure to share it so I can cherry pick your selections and put them on my personal reading list! Haha
Yes. I DO need more Cormac McCarthy in my life. Thanks for this monumental list of suggestions. And I’ll definitely share my “final list” whatever that may be.
Hi,
I too am trying to find more book blogs! I just discovered yours and love it. Check out mine – http://mmmetropolis.wordpress.com/
I also like the following blog http://thewriterscenter.blogspot.com/ It’s run by a nonprofit in my area called The Writer’s Center – it’s a little DC specific, but you may like it.
Happy Reading!
-Melanie
ps – I just added you to my blogroll. Want to add me to yours?
Thanks for the tips, Melanie! I just checked out you blog and will definitely be adding it to the ‘roll!
Here’s both a book and a blog suggestion. First, the blog:
http://wardsix.blogspot.com/
It’s written mostly by the novelist J. Robert Lennon his wife the novelist Rhian Ellis (with rare posts by Ed Skoog, perhaps the best poet in American). With that said, the book selection are any books by those three, especially The Light From Falling Stars (J. Robert’s first book, and a key read), and Pieces for the Left Hand (a collection of 100 very short stories by Mr. Lennon, great for the short-attention span summer moments), and Mister Skylight, Skoog’s last poetry collection. Rhian’s book After Life is also a great summer read.
Now, do you need some summer drinks too?
Great! I’ve heard you talk about Skoog on your blog, but have yet to read his stuff. I’ll put him on my summer list, for sure.
And yes: what is your suggestion for a refreshing summer drink that either:
a) tastes every so slightly of cherries
b) involves salt but isn’t necessarily a margarita.
Bonus points if you combine both.
I loved Anna Karenina and didn’t find it a chore at all — it was a real page-turner, as a matter of fact. But I tried and failed tor ead War & Peace afterwards. I’ve been reading a lot of memoirs lately — a great one was Truth and Beauty, by Ann Patchett, about her dysfunctional friendship with the writer Lucy Grealy. I’m also reading a day-by-day compendium of excerpts from memoirs by (not too) famous British people, which i picked up at the Strand. It’s huge, and I just read several pages at night before bed.
Lets see… I’m sure I have a few suggestions from around my room at the moment.
* Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami – I’m not sure if this is the best intro to Murakami, but it’s quite possibly my favorite of his books. His short fiction, and The Wind Up Bird Chronicle are also top notch. I went through a big Murakami phase this year after a weekend trip to Tokyo last summer. Kafka is a more slow and thoughtful book. If you want to get an idea of his style, pick up The Elephant Vanishes and check out a few of the short stories. Particually, “The Wind=up bird and Tuesday’s Women” (which Murakami extended into ‘The Windup Bird Chroicles”), “The Kangaroo Communique”, and “Fammily Affair”. I love this author, and definitely think that he’s worth trying out.
* American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell – A short collection of short stories from Michigan. These stories show a very dark and gloomy vision of the world around us. Desperate characters in difficult positions deal with their lives in front of you. The characters are what makes the book shine. If you aren’t sure about it, pick it up and read “The Solutions to Brian’s Problem. The shortest story in the collection. At four pages, it’s one of the more powerful stories I’ve read in a while.
* Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky – Not a new book at all, but since this is drunk literature I couldn’t resist a book that starts out with “I am a sick man… I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my liver hurts. However, I don’t know a fig about my sickness…”
Hope something in there interests you!
Have you read ‘Tinkers’? I have just picked this book up after I heard it was a virtual unknown that won the Pulitizer. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m curious about it.
For book blogs a couple of my favs are Workin In Progress and Evening All Afternoon.
Book recommendations, have you ever read Gabriel Josipovici? He is awesome and I am totally a fangrrl. Margaret Atwood’s Year of the Flood was a good read if you are looking for something pretty recent.
If you want a good book to read in between a couple harder books I would read the Creation of Eve by Lynn Cullen. Just read it.
I always like to read Ondaatje in the summer. DIVISADERO was incredible.
Hi ,
Give me the freedom to advice something :
Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill – Dimitri Verhulst
(a pity “De helaasheid der dingen” is not yet translated in English, that’s Drunk Literature :) , but it seems it is translated in Finnish…. . FYI Verhulst is one of the best contemporary Belgian writers )
Also interesting a story about the bookstore Shakespeare&co in Paris.
Time was soft there , a memoir , a Paris sojourn at Shakespeare&co – Jeremy Mercer.
(For Shakespeare&co also read Hemingway ‘a movable feast’)
Grtz.,
K.
(a Belgian reading drunk literature)
Well, my suggestions are not quite as high-brow as the others but here’s my summer reading list:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (again, this time to discuss with 17 yr old niece)
The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen
On Folly Beach by Karen White
The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara Samuel (and anything else by her – she’s great!)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (and then the next two in series)
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Brumwald
and one or two by Elizabeth George