11.09.2007

Exhibit 4.22

Post-Gre Lit Reading List.

So, I'd more or less been reading for the Literature Subject Exam for about a year. I knew it wouldn't really help me on the test--of all the classic literature I read only one question about the Iliad and one about Wuthering Heights came up--but I wanted to fill in some holes in my education anyway. I learned I like Dickens. Not so much Melville (at some point I'm going to have to explore why this is before I start crying the next time someone says Moby Dick changed their life. I used to feel this way when my parents said they loved cantaloupe). Also, I discovered the The Good Soldier which squared the GRE and I.

I'm now going back to contemporary fiction. I figure I'll start with some of the recent big hits and then work my way into some more obscure things. If anyone has any thoughts on these or suggestions for other books, please let me know:

Haruki Murakami, After Dark (and the stories I haven't read in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman)
Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Michael Chabon, Yiddish Policeman's Union
Steven Hall, The Raw Shark Texts
David Mitchell, Black Swan Green
Gary Shteyngart, Absurdistan

Of course, before that I have to finish The Tin Drum which I've been reading on and off for approximately as long as it took to write it. And yesterday I bought Ben Marcus's Age of Wire and String, this in addition to quite a few other books I purchased during my hiatus. I can barely keep myself from smirking at all the Henry James on my bookshelf.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow -- I had a dream about Absurdistan last night!

Also, didn't notice the Wuthering Heights question - or did I just get the wrong answer?

What's your next poetry book?

A. Peterson said...

I have that copy of The Dream Songs I borrowed and I think I'm going to read the first book. Then I might start raiding your chapbooks.

Pete said...

I don't know a damn thing about books but I thought Yiddish Policeman's Union was pretty damn good.

Also, No Country For Old Men is getting ridiculously good reviews from people in the know: commenters on the AV Club. I'm fired up about it.