Summer Reading List Challenge

27 April, 2010

I’m planning to read like a monster this summer. The idea is one book a week, netting me 16 books before I have to jump back into things. Some of them will be school books, but most of them will be things I’ve been collecting, as well as some new things coming out. This list isn’t in any particular order.

  1. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
  2. The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James (First 1/2)
  3. The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James (Second 1/2)
  4. Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch
  5. The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade by Thomas Lynch
  6. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier
  7. Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing by Lydia Peelle
  8. Voodoo Heart by Scott Snyder
  9. Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon
  10. Count Zero by William Gibson
  11. Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer
  12. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
  13. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
  14. In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
  15. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
  16. A World Beneath by Aaron Gwyn

I’d also do Brady Udall’s The Lonely Polygamist, but it is 700 pages. I’m buying it today, but I’ll be reading it this fall, I think. I’m really excited about this book.

So, it seems I’ve started a movement. My friend Rae English has started her own list and a challenge to others. So, I’m issuing the same challenge to you all: what kind of reading can you squeeze out of the summer at the rate of one book a week?

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6 Comments

  1. Th.
    Posted April 27, 2010 at 8:37 am | Permalink

    .

    I’m reading Udall’s now (his best so far) and Chabon’s also on my list.

  2. Cole Slaw
    Posted April 27, 2010 at 8:12 pm | Permalink

    OK, here’s my list:

    1. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon
    2. Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
    3. Emma by Jane Austen
    4. Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class by Eric Lott
    5. Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King
    6. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
    7. Tinkers by Paul Harding
    8. Poor People by William Vollmann
    9. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
    10. American Zombie Gothic by Kyle Bishop
    11. How to Be Alone by Jonathan Franzen
    12. Soldiers’ Pay by William Faulkner
    13. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge
    14. Best Music Writing 2009 edited by Greil Marcus
    15. 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke
    16. The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans

  3. Todd Petersen
    Posted April 27, 2010 at 8:47 pm | Permalink

    That’s the old pepper, Slaw. That’s the pepper.

  4. Slarue
    Posted April 28, 2010 at 12:10 am | Permalink

    Uhhh. Please don’t judge me. How do I have a Master’s in Literature again?

    1. “Animal Farm” by George Orwell
    2. “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston
    3. “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith
    4. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
    5. “Fahrenheit 451″ by Ray Bradbury
    6. “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy
    7. “High Fidelity” by Nick Hornby
    8. “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabakov
    9. “Reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisi
    10. “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis
    11. “Midnight’s Children” by Salman Rushdie
    12. “The Country Girls” by Edna O’Brien
    13. “The Green Hills of Africa” by Ernest Hemingway
    14. “The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman” by Angela Carter
    15. “Selected Poems” by Eavan Boland
    16. “The Foreskin’s Lament” by Shalom Auslander

  5. CJoe
    Posted April 28, 2010 at 9:42 am | Permalink

    Here we go:

    1. “The Year of the Flood” (Margaret Atwood)
    2. “The Supergirls” (Mike Madrid)
    3. “Twilight of the Superheroes” (Deborah Eisenberg… See More
    4. “I Will Fear No Evil” (Robert Heinlein)
    5. “Vacation” (Deb Olin Unferth)
    6. “2666″ (Roberto Bolano)
    7. “Ficciones” (Jorge Luis Borges)
    8. “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History” (Laurel Thatcher Ulrich)
    9. “Do Anything” (Warren Ellis)
    10. “Hand to Mouth” (Paul Auster)
    11. “Manhood For Amateurs” (Michael Chabon)
    12. “McSweeney’s #34″ (McSweeney’s)
    13. “Suttree” (Cormac McCarthy)
    14. “The Writer’s Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House” (Tin House)
    15. “Gentlemen of the Road” (Michael Chabon)
    16. “Gun With Occasional Music” (Johnathan Lethem)

    Side note, looking at my list and at slaw’s list, Chabon is getting a lot of attention this summer.

  6. Maryposa
    Posted April 28, 2010 at 8:56 pm | Permalink

    Please excuse the TBAs on # 7, 11, and 15. My neighborhood book club is not so prompt.

    Here is my list:
    1. Something Wicked this way Comes – Ray Bradbury
    2. The Magicians – Lev Grossman
    3. The Alchemist – Paulo Coehlo (Greenslake ward book group May book)
    4. The Mysterious Benedict Society – Trenton Lee Stewart
    5. Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
    6. When you are Engulfed in Flames – David Sedaris
    7. (Greenslake ward book group June book)
    8. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    9. The Princess Bride – William Goldman
    10. A Passage to India – E.M. Forrester
    11. (Greenslake ward book group July book)
    12. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
    13. Rift – Todd Petersen
    14. Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
    15. (Greenslake ward book group August book)
    16. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
    17. The Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum
    18. Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins (this is of course assuming I can get my hands on it in time. This book is released on Aug 24th)