SansPoint

My Personal Reading List for 2008 (so far)

Books On My Shelf

  1. Thomas Pynchon - Against the Day
  2. José Saramago - The Stone Raft
  3. Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore
  4. Gabriel Garcia Márquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude
  5. David Foster Wallace - Consider the Lobster

Books I Need to Get:

  1. Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
  2. Dave Eggers - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
  3. Mark Z. Danielewski - House of Leaves
  4. David Sedaris - Me Talk Pretty One Day
  5. Don DeLilo - Mao II

4 Responses to “My Personal Reading List for 2008 (so far)”

  1. I’m surprised you haven’t got the first three on your list..8) Kavalier & Clay was really good, I thought. Heartbreaking Work is very good as well — particularly the stuff that’s not him talking about Might, but even he has sort of a disclaimer that the Might stuff might not be as interesting to folks who weren’t there.

    I’m kinda torn, myself, on House Of Leaves. Some of it is really interesting, but I really, really could have done without the wrap-around story featuring the guy who found the novel and was SOOO FREEEAKKKED OUTTTTT by it. Struck me as a little lame. (This isn’t really a spoiler, the wraparound starts on the first page, and it also talks about him being SFO.) But the actual novel is pretty dang good and interesting. It’d be a much stronger book if it weren’t for the gimmick of the wraparound.

    I want to read Marky Z’s other book, but I’ve heard it’s really not that good, even for people who liked House Of Leaves a lot more than I did. Hum.

    David Sedaris, I’ve never been able to get into, and sometimes it makes me feel sad that I haven’t been able to, like I’m missing something. But his style just seems to grate on me. Oh well, I love his sister, though.

  2. Well, hey, I only have so much money to spend on books that aren’t for classes right now, so they’ve all had to wait.

    Sedaris is… interesting. I can see why you or someone wouldn’t be too into him. I was really caught by the first essay in Naked though, and the shine never wore off. And, yes, Amy Sedaris is funny as hell.

  3. Just finished “Against the Day” myself a week or so ago. If you like Pynchon, there is a lot there to like. Haven’t really made my mind up on it just yet though. Its a rangy mother, but boy can he write. Currently reading “Mason & Dixon”. One thing fairly evident in that but missing from “Against the Day” is coherent plot. But I guess you just accept stuff like that with Pynchon.

    Also have also read “Kavalier and Clay”, “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, and “Mao II”. All good choices.

    Your other choices also look interesting and include items I’ve been thinking about myself, particularly Murakami, Saramago and Eggers.

  4. Howard West - Well, I liked the approximately 500 pages I managed to read of Against the Day before I had to put it away because I had no time to read it. I’m anxious to get back to it, as I’m a huge Pynchon fan. Gravity’s Rainbow is on my list of books to re-read, and I’m saving Mason & Dixon for last.

    If you’ve never read Murakami, I would like to suggest starting with either his short story collection, The Elephant Vanishes, which has my favorite short story of his, “TV People”—which was also the first one of his I read, or to read his masterpiece, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Really, though, there isn’t a bad book in the man’s catalog.