This is a partial and idiosyncratic list of my reading. It is not inclusive; it does not include school work, articles, anthologies, or all that stuff we consume day to day (for example none of the art books, political or business tell-alls, anthropology or linguistic works are in here…too much…too much…) This tends to be a list of books I sat down with, spent time with, not just became acquainted with in a passing sense; they’re works that are influencing me one way or another — because they work for me or don’t work for me, because I accept them or reject them — and I’m not telling which or how. Beyond that I’m not sure what the list says, but it is interesting to look at. It is certainly impacting my choice of what to read next.
I originally thought to just publish my Kindle list, but now that we know the iPad will be using epub for the iBook store, along with the NYPL, B&N etc I’m forestalling format wars by going back to good old text and HTML.
2010
- Fitzgerald – The Last Tycoon
- Smiley – 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel
- Prose – Reading Like a Writer
- Melvile – Moby Dick
- Conrad – Heart of Darkness
- Dana – Two Years Before The Mast
- Larsson – The Girl With the Dragon Tatto
- Doctorow – Homer & Langley
2009
- Bacon – On Studies
- Lethem – Chronic City
- Loyer – Hollowbound Book
- Write – Black Boy
- Roth – The Humbling
- ONeill – Netherland
- Plotnic – Spunk and bite
- Khrushcheva – Imagining Nabokov
- Emmerson – The Poet
- Doctorow – Loon Lake
- Stephenson – Snow Crash
- Dillard – The Writer’s Life
- Sexton – Master Class in Fiction Writing
- Tharp – The Creative Habit
- Whitman – Leaves of Grass
- McInerney – The Good Life
- McInerney – How it Ended
- London – Burning Daylight
- London – Call of the Wild
- Didion – Play it As it Lays
- Woods – How Fiction Works
- DeLillo – White Noise
- Mesmer – The Empty Quarter
- Mesmer – In Ordinary Times
- Burroughs – The Wild Boys
- Forister – Aspects of the Novel
- Kawabata – Palm of the Hand Stories
- Joyce – The Dubliners
- Maldoror – Lautremont
- Cisneros – The House on Mango Street
- Price – Lush Life
2008~
- Shorto – Descart Bones
- Dillard – The Maytrees
- Kafka – The Castle
- Oliver – Wild Gese
- Dickens – A Christmas Carol
- Didion – On Keeping a Notebook
- OBrian – The Far Side of The World
- Dilard – The Death of a Moth
- Dilard – How I Wrote The Moth Essay
- DeLillo – Underworld
- Tolstoy – The Death of Ivan Illich
- Roth – The Ghost Writer
- Bellows – Sieze the Day
- Twain – The Man Who Corupted Hadliesville
- Irving – Untill I Find You
- Lamount – Bird By Bird
- Bergreen – Over the Edge of the World
- Boorstein – The Creators
- Tuckman – A Distant Mirror
- Burke – The Day the Universe Changed
- Bronowski – The Ascent of Man
- Rubenstein – The Cunning of History
- Schulberg – What makes Sammy Run?
- Rand – Atlas Shrugged
- Helprin – Winters Tale
- Joyce – Ulysses
- Sante – Low Life
- Stephenson – Cryptonomicon
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