Themes & Projects

Mysteries, December 2008–January 2009

Maritime literature, January–March 2009

Melville read-through, part I, TypeeWhite-Jacket, December 2009–January 2010

Whirlwind tour of Russian literature, February–May 2010

Epistolary literature, July 2009–June 2010

Melville read-through, part II, Moby-DickBilly Budd, July–September 2010

The Unstructured Clarel Readalong, August–September 2010

The Art of the Novella Challenge, August 2011

The bibliographing Reading Challenge, January 2011–present



Authors

Fall Preview

Thanks to Joy’s blog, yesterday I checked out the Washington Post’s fall books preview. Things that strike me as interesting that I will probably never read:

  • Food Matters, by Mark Bittman (S&S, Dec.). A plan for responsible consumption, by the host of “How to Cook Everything.”
  • Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, Nov.). What makes some people such high achievers? And what makes others fail?
  • Thames, by Peter Ackroyd (Doubleday, Nov.) A biography of the river.
  • American Lion, by Jon Meacham (Random House, Nov.). From the author of American Gospel, a chronicle of Andrew Jackson, the president who brought us to the cusp of global power.

(For some reason I have developed a bit of a thing for Andrew Jackson, even though I always hated him, and still hate him in many ways.)

Things I have and will be reviewing:

  • The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell (Riverhead, Oct.) Quirky observations on America’s Puritan roots.
  • Descartes’ Bones, by Russell Shorto (Doubleday, Oct. The debate between religion and science as seen through the 350-year journey of René Descartes’s skull and bones.

I also read the new Stewart O’Nan book, Songs for the Missing, and should write something up about that.

Things I might actually read, depending on a million unforeseeable factors:

  • 2666, by Roberto Bolaño (FSG, Nov.). The great Chilean author’s last novel is set on the U.S.-Mexico border, where a series of mysterious murders has taken place.
  • Home, by Marilynne Robinson (FSG, Sept.). By the author of Gilead, a novel that takes place in the house of Rev. Robert Boughton, the best friend of Gilead’s hero.
  • Indignation, by Philip Roth (Houghton, Sept.)As the Korean War flares up, the fragility of life becomes all too clear to a draft-age young man and his terrified father.
  • The Widows of Eastwick, by John Updike (Knopf, Oct.). The witches of Eastwick — widows now — revisit their wicked deeds in a small Rhode Island town.

I didn’t care at all for Gilead but knowing me I will read this connected novel anyway. I’m sure I will read the Roth, it’s just a matter of when. And, I’m sad to say, I still have not read any Roberto Bolano.

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