Reading List

I read these books between September of 08 and 09, intending to write about them here. Of course life has a way of ensuring that some things just don't happen. So for now they can sit there in a pile, looking heavy, full of the stories that make our lives. Some of them were great, a few were truly brilliant, and a couple just sort of there, but they were all good. ( I will list them below as some are hard to read, and if I can muster the time, will write about them soon)

For now, I am fascinated by a piece I am currently reading in the previously mentioned Acrana IV (see a few posts down for link) by David Dunn. He writes:

"The issue of how language may have evolved has long been the concern of philosophers and linguists. A new twist on this ancient question was recently put forth by paleoanthropologist Steven Mithen in his book, The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body. Mithen built upon the work of linguist Alison Wray-whose "holistic" theory of proto-language evolution has challenged the mainstream of "compositional" theories-to assert that early hominid proto-language was a root of communication modality from which both human speech and music bifurcated."

I find the implications of this really quite staggering.

From above photo, in order read:
Middlesex, Jeffrey Euginides.
The Fixer, Bernard Malamud (brilliant).
Atonement, Ian McEwan.
All the Names, Jose Saramago (brilliant).
Arcana III, Edited by John Zorn.
Arcana, Edited by John Zorn.
Wolf Totem, Jiang Rong (brilliant in some entirely inexplicable way).
Why Art Cannot Be Taught, James Elkins.
Ways of the Hand, David Sudnow (quite bad in an odd way).
Wildlife, Richard Ford.
The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles (brilliant).
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway (brilliant).
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene (brilliant).
Mercy Among the Children, David Adams Richards.
Let's Talk About Love; A Journey to the End of Taste, Carl Wilson (brilliant). Through Black Spruce, Joseph Boyden.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon.
The Shipping News, Annie Proulx.
Amulet, Roberto Bolano (will not leave me in the same odd way that The Sun Also Rises will not leave me.)
A Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright (necessary and daunting though great).
Crow Lake, Mary Lawson.
My Name is Red, Orhan Pamuk (this one will not leave me either though in an entirely different way form Amulet. A strangely challenging read).
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi. (brilliant)
The General in His Labyrinth, gabriel Garcia Marquez. (come on, it's Garcia Marquez).
Life is Elsewhere, Milan Kundera.
True North, Jim Harrison. (Thank you Jim for rekindling my faith in your wondrous writing.)
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace. (brilliant. just totally unbelievable and out of this world brilliant.)
Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation, Ben Watson. (if you already have a certain respect for Derek Bailey as do I, this will likely push him into the realm of deity.)
Arcana II, Edited by John Zorn.
A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway. (dare I say both Hemingway books I read last year were brilliant? Yes.)
Baltasar and Blimunda, Jose Saramago.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz. (poor Oscar.)
The Lives of Rocks, Rick Bass.
The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac. (Oh, my beloved Berkeley.)
East of Eden, John Steinbeck. (come on, it's East of Eden by Steinbeck.)

Posted by jeff pitcher at February 8, 2010 09:17 PM

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