Sure, I understand summer is when kids and teachers have months-worth of vacation time. When people of means take trips to Hawaii or something. But for most of us, summer just means it’s better weather out while we’re inside working. So, by all means, make summer reading lists. But why not just make reading lists. Period. ?
To that end, here’s a list for you:
Books to Read During Your Lunch Break While at Work this Summer
{some new}
BOOK by Ken Sparling
The Awful Possibilities by Christian TeBordo
Pee On Water by Rachel Glaser
When All Our Days Are Numbered by Sasha Fletcher
{some old}
The Journey of Ibn Fattoum by Naquib Mahfouz
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Q Road by Bonnie Jo Campbell
As Cool As I Am by Pete Fromm
All of these are quite digestable in a few lunch hours (or half-hours). Besides, who needs to eat.
This summer everyone should read:
The Evolutionary Revolution by Lily Hoang
&
The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney by Christopher Higgs
&
The Gurlesque Anthology
Also…
My Life Outside the Ring by Hulk Hogan
The Hoang and Higgs are on my list, if I have one. They are also on the floor under my desk.
Those plus the Gurlesque Anthology are on mine.
Summertime!
When All Our Days Are Numbered is next on my list, and then Prose. Poem. A Novel., and then probably No Country for Old Men, since I bought it almost a year ago and it’s been sitting on my shelf, and maybe I can take a small break from all the new stuff.
Prose.Poem.A Novel is one i’ve been meaning to pick up for a long time. and i was just admitting yesterday that i’ve never read any McCarthy.
You can finish the Iredell in 1-2 hours. It’s good.
I’m looking forward to it. Jamie shuffled me a copy at the HTMLG party at AWP, and I’ve not been able to get to it yet.
I’ve only read The Road so far, which was fantastic, and I’ve heard mostly that Old Country is his weakest work, but it’s been on my shelf for months now, so I’m going to get it off the list.
very nice. i still haven’t read half of what i got at awp yet, haha. i’m about 1/2 way into Sparling’s BOOK currently.
Ha. Same here. I’ve a good 8-10 more books from AWP yet to read, and that’s not counting a copy of Annalemma 5 and PANK 4.
you may just want to skip to PANK 4
Oh, don’t worry. I was already planning on skipping over your bullshit words. : )
skip TO my words, i think you mean. actually my contribution to PANK 4 is about half a second worth of reading haha
Here, you can skip my Pank 4 contribution and instead just watch this:
Whoa, wordpress embeds. That is embarrassing, like: lookatme! lookatme!
What I’ve read that I got at AWP:
Lidia Yuknavitch, Liberty’s Excess
Urs Alleman, Babyfucker
Eunoia, Christian Bok
Annalemma 6
1/2 of the Harp & Altar Anthology (need to finish)
What I haven’t read:
Vanessa Place, La Medusa
the aforementioned Higgs and Hoang
Lance Olsen, Girl Imagined by Chance
Fence 21
Salt Hill 22 & 24
Mid American Review Volume XXIX No 2
A Couple Issues of Redivider I forgot the numbers
Nice list. I’m reading Pee On Water today, circling errors in the early edition. There are dozens!
i think that’s what i’m getting to next after BOOK. looking forward to it, mistakes and all! looking forward to Mike Young’s book, too, when that comes!
2nded.
I need to order it. I want it.
Good point Ryan.
I’d like to read a big book, but I think mainly I want to read older things.
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country – William Gass
Two Serious Ladies – Jane Bowles
Gospel According to Jesus Christ – Jose Saramago
Heart of the Heart of the Country is excellent. That story alone is worth an entire summer, reading & rereading.
I’ve got Cartesian Sonata on my shelf. Is that on okay place to start w/ Gass, or should I be starting somewhere else?
Yeah, that’s one I have read and reread and now I must again.
i am still chewing on witz and likely will be all summer. this is one of those sacrifice summers. one book. one big book. and lots of shining force when my brain burns out.
man, i really want to get Witz. it sounds amazing.
Y’all can help me decide from the following, which are all on my shelf:
Chris Higgs, Marvin K Mooney
Lily Hoang, Evolutionary Revolution
Lance Olsen, Girl Imagined by Chance
Vanessa Place, La Medusa
Kathy Acker, Blood and Guts in HS
Rebecca Brown, the Terrible Girls
Barry Hannah, Ray
The Collected Stories, Leonard Michaels
Most Likely You’ll Go Your Way…, Ben Tanzer
Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, Manuel Puig
Attempts at a Life, Danielle Dutton
The Word Book, Mieko Kanai
Aureole, Carole Maso
The Rocket’s Red Glare, David Peak
Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson
The Apocalypse Reader
City of Boys, Beth Nugent
Queer, Burroughs
Call me Ahab, Anne Finger
Desperate Characters, Paula Fox
Stories 1 and Stories 2, Scott McLanahan
Ruins, Achy Obejas
The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake
The Failure Six, Shane Jones
The White Road, Tania Hershman
Boons & The Camp, David Ohle
The Rainbow Stories, William T. Vollman
Girl Trouble, Holly Goddard Jones
Hoppla! 1 2 3, Gerard Gavarry
Wittgenstein’s Mistress, David Markson
Words from a Glass Bubble, Vanessa Gebbie
A Relative Stranger, Charles Baxter
The Burning House, Ann Beattie
Instruction Manual for Swallowing, Adam Marek
Dangerous Laughter, Millhauser
Women up on Blocks, Mary Akers
The Notebook The Proof The Third Lie, Agota Kristof
Where the Long Grass Bends, Neela Vaswani
The Open Curtain, Brian Evenson
In the United States of Africa, Abdourahman A Waberi
Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson
Stories in the Worst Way, Gary Lutz
The Sluts, Dennis Cooper
The Revisionist, Miranda Mellis
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower & The Guermantes Way & Sodom and Gomorrah, Marcel Proust
Collected Fictions of Borges
Lolita, Nabokov
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Calvino
Stuff I’m currently reading and/or left unfinished and need to go back and finish:
Through the Drowsy Dark, Rachel Swirsky
Self-Titled Debut, Andy Farkas
Age of Wire and String, Ben Marcus
Prisoner of Love, Jean Genet
Don Quixote, Kathy Acker
Claudia Smith’s most recent chapbook
…Do y’all see why I feel, like completely panicked like all.the.time.
This is maybe why I think abt reading and feel half-panicked like all.the.time.
Oh, and I forgot Leni Zumas’s collection, which is on my desk at home.
Here’s one idea: http://bigother.com/2010/01/08/paula-fox-desperate-characters/
I’d hope you enjoy the Lutz, I don’t know I have a similar list and I’m more apt to read those I’ve never read before or people totally unlike what I do. Like Lance Olsen, I’ve read most of that book. It’s very compelling.
I know! That post of yours was why I bought it when I saw it somewhere.
I do that a lot, that’s why the stack is ginormous.
I’ve read “A Partial List of People to Bleach,” so know I love Lutz.
I won a stack of Calamari books (several of which I didn’t put on this list because I know Im probably not gonna read them for a while) on htmlgiant, and I got to pick two of the ten or however many it was Derek sent and Lutz and Mellis were the two I picked.
Hey Tim, I’m thrilled to find myself on that freakishly short reading list of yours. I also think, and this is not remotely subjective, that Most Likely is a great place to start, which I’m sure Ryan will back me on, right Ryan? Ryan?
Who are you?!
I mean, yeah, MOST LIKELY is fantastic. it will be thoroughly enjoyed by any and all who read it!
Hey Ryan, that almost hurt, almost, but thank you for the fine recovery.
i was confused for a second, i thought your name was ben tangiers.
It happens, you may have been thinking about the brief time period I spent living and writing with Paul Bowles. For awhile it really did feel like we were one person.
i just checked in with him. he was under the impression that you two were still the same person.
He was always funny like that. Meanwhile, I’m wondering we need to kill this, because I do not want John Madera to kick my ass. He’s welcome to kick yours of course, your staff.
well, we’re on different coasts, so he’ll have to have long legs :)