While this week/end has afforded some time for me to catch up on my football and cooking habits, I find myself longing for some time alone to read the books I picked up over the last few weeks drifting from Wyoming to Colorado to Missouri and back. Shifting through those top ten books of the year from the big-wigs over at the New York Times, or those little-wigs blogging about those books you aren’t quite sure of can be time consuming and a little overwhelming. I tend to reject much of what the big-wigs tell me–a sentiment I just haven’t really been able to shake completely since high school, and honestly, I find what many of the little wigs are telling me about a bunch of (typically lesser-known) authors to be frustrating. So what better way to rectify these lists that I would probably not make it through anyway than by making my own list of books that I want to read, but may not get to once the semester begins.
First, I have a list of books I have had time to read over the last three weeks. I will recommend parts of each book, because all of them have had their high moments and low moments. Some too long, some a little overly narrative, some focus too much on pop culture.
- Savage Dreams: A Journey into the Landscape Wars of the American West – Rebecca Solnit
- Practical Gods (poetry)- Carl Dennis
- Man on Extremely Small Island (poetry)- Jason Koo
- Seven Mile (poetry) – Phebe Davidson
- Rock Springs (fiction)- Richard Ford
Below is a shortened version of the list of books I have purchased or have been considering purchasing, either having heard about them from some list or my father, or saw gracing the shelves of any of the various bookstores I visited in December. I am in no way recommending them, only making a list of books that have interested me in some capacity.
- Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel – Gary Shytenghart
- Mr. Hogan, the Man I Knew: An LPGA Player Looks Back on an Amazing Friendship and Lessons She Learned from Golf’s Greatest Legend – Kris Tschetter
- Saul Bellow: Letters – Saul Bellow and Benjamin Taylor
- Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 – Mark Twain, et al.
- Shadow of Sirius - W. S. Merwin
- One With Others - C. D. Wright
- Middlesex – Jeffery Eugenides
- Where We Think It Should Go – Claire Becker
- The California Poem – Eleni Sikelianos
Who knows, these may all drive me to playing video games, although I doubt it. Reading is something like taking a trip for me: the scheduling and anticipation can be just as exciting as the actual trip. I love the possibility of ideas before they are put into action and books can be very similar at times; they become something of an idea, a possibility that can rest on my bookshelf that I will hopefully pull down soon to see how it looks in reality.
Maybe what I’m reading or want to read is of no interest to you, but I thought it might spur some feedback from the ten or thirteen people who look at the website. If you’ve got a minute, let us know what you are reading or what you want to read, whether you think you will ever get to it or not.
-Adam Million
