1featherbear
(Work in Progress)
Literature & bibliographic lists from a personal perspective.
With The Guardian’s Top 100 list in mind, some personal thoughts on – eventually – literary/bibliographic lists, inspired by a book I finished reading in previous weeks
The book was Ian Frazier’s The Snakes That Ate Florida: Reporting, Essays, and Criticism read via Kindle app. In the Essays section, he has a suggestion for aspiring writers entitled “Lists,” w/the opening sentence “I started to write for a living before I knew how to write, so I did what came easiest—I wrote lists.” List-making he further developed under the tutelage of George W.S. Trow, a fellow writer on The New Yorker. Frazier seemingly can (now) make a list out of anything, as demonstrated in another essay in the same collection, “Pick Your Part,” where he recounts visiting w/his brother-in-law the business Pick Your Part in Sun Valley California, in search of a rear mirror for the b-in-law’s ’83 Ford pickup. PYP houses a collection of derelict vehicles sorted by make & model where users can strip an appropriate part from any of the junkers & pay for the part at the door. While the b-in-law is searching for the part, Frazier spends his time looking into the back seats of the cars at “the great miscellany of items” the owners had thrown therein: “A white-plastic dustpan and a pack of Eve cigarettes (Buick Monte Carlo); a water-damaged copy of Macroeconomics by Robert J. Gordon (another Monte Carlo); a tube of Eucerin moisturizing cream (Chevy Citation) … Polaroid snapshots of the same woman in different hairstyles (Toyota Celica GT)” rounded out with: “a booklet called Handbook of Rights for Mental Health Patients (two tone Chevy Malibu Classic).”
“I reached through the Malibu’s missing rear window and took out the mental health handbook and read it awhile. Then, afraid of spirits, I put it back. Mixed in among the relics were cans of oil treatment, gasoline additive, radiator sealant, and other old-age medicines for cars. Some of the back seats were such a jumble of homely intimacy and automotive chaos that I had to look away.”
But back to the “Lists” essay. “The list, as a literary device, fit with the precepts of later modernism. A list could be a modernist collection of shards that the readers assembled for themselves, the way one does with a book like Ulysses in an attempt to figure out what’s going on. … In Lolita, Humbert Humbert mentions that his mother died unexpectedly when he was young, and he offers, in passing, this explanatory aside: ‘(picnic, lightning).’” … The two words demonstrate what a list should do. You have a sequence of apparently unconnected things and then a sudden flash connects them.”
Literature & bibliographic lists from a personal perspective.
With The Guardian’s Top 100 list in mind, some personal thoughts on – eventually – literary/bibliographic lists, inspired by a book I finished reading in previous weeks
The book was Ian Frazier’s The Snakes That Ate Florida: Reporting, Essays, and Criticism read via Kindle app. In the Essays section, he has a suggestion for aspiring writers entitled “Lists,” w/the opening sentence “I started to write for a living before I knew how to write, so I did what came easiest—I wrote lists.” List-making he further developed under the tutelage of George W.S. Trow, a fellow writer on The New Yorker. Frazier seemingly can (now) make a list out of anything, as demonstrated in another essay in the same collection, “Pick Your Part,” where he recounts visiting w/his brother-in-law the business Pick Your Part in Sun Valley California, in search of a rear mirror for the b-in-law’s ’83 Ford pickup. PYP houses a collection of derelict vehicles sorted by make & model where users can strip an appropriate part from any of the junkers & pay for the part at the door. While the b-in-law is searching for the part, Frazier spends his time looking into the back seats of the cars at “the great miscellany of items” the owners had thrown therein: “A white-plastic dustpan and a pack of Eve cigarettes (Buick Monte Carlo); a water-damaged copy of Macroeconomics by Robert J. Gordon (another Monte Carlo); a tube of Eucerin moisturizing cream (Chevy Citation) … Polaroid snapshots of the same woman in different hairstyles (Toyota Celica GT)” rounded out with: “a booklet called Handbook of Rights for Mental Health Patients (two tone Chevy Malibu Classic).”
“I reached through the Malibu’s missing rear window and took out the mental health handbook and read it awhile. Then, afraid of spirits, I put it back. Mixed in among the relics were cans of oil treatment, gasoline additive, radiator sealant, and other old-age medicines for cars. Some of the back seats were such a jumble of homely intimacy and automotive chaos that I had to look away.”
But back to the “Lists” essay. “The list, as a literary device, fit with the precepts of later modernism. A list could be a modernist collection of shards that the readers assembled for themselves, the way one does with a book like Ulysses in an attempt to figure out what’s going on. … In Lolita, Humbert Humbert mentions that his mother died unexpectedly when he was young, and he offers, in passing, this explanatory aside: ‘(picnic, lightning).’” … The two words demonstrate what a list should do. You have a sequence of apparently unconnected things and then a sudden flash connects them.”
2featherbear
Frazier notes 2 things that agree w/my observations following a recent traversal of the sacred text: “The Bible seems to be nothing but lists” & “Sometimes I imagine people on the American frontier going through lists of Bible names looking for ideas of what to call their children” (other than Donald, presumably), though he cites a list of what he imagines to be the least popular names from Genesis 10:25-29:
To Eber was born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg … and his brother’s name was Joktan. Joktan fathered Almadad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. (Wondering if “Jobab” led to Joe Bob though; & Sheba was the Gina Lollobrigida character in the movie so gotcha Frazier not to mention come back little S)
But back to literature. “It might be possible to compile a list of the all-time greatest literary lists.” Frazier notes The Catalogue of Ships in The Iliad, though his favorite is apparently the first line of Caesar’s Gallic Wars: “’All Gaul is divided into three parts,’ … Caesar knew his tribes. Then there’s the list of weird and horrifying witches-brew ingredients that the witches chant in Macbeth, and the expansive lists of Walt Whitman … and the list of miscellaneous stuff in a drawer in Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” & after stops w/The Great Gatsby & Man in the Holocene, Frazier rounds out with “the list of errors that the narrator of Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” must avoid so as not to become, in her mother’s words, “‘the slut you are so bent on becoming.’”
To Eber was born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg … and his brother’s name was Joktan. Joktan fathered Almadad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. (Wondering if “Jobab” led to Joe Bob though; & Sheba was the Gina Lollobrigida character in the movie so gotcha Frazier not to mention come back little S)
But back to literature. “It might be possible to compile a list of the all-time greatest literary lists.” Frazier notes The Catalogue of Ships in The Iliad, though his favorite is apparently the first line of Caesar’s Gallic Wars: “’All Gaul is divided into three parts,’ … Caesar knew his tribes. Then there’s the list of weird and horrifying witches-brew ingredients that the witches chant in Macbeth, and the expansive lists of Walt Whitman … and the list of miscellaneous stuff in a drawer in Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” & after stops w/The Great Gatsby & Man in the Holocene, Frazier rounds out with “the list of errors that the narrator of Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” must avoid so as not to become, in her mother’s words, “‘the slut you are so bent on becoming.’”
3featherbear
That said, my primary interest, in conjunction w/the Guardians of the Cultural Galaxy top 100 -- not to mention some of the lists in T-Magazine to determine one is cultured -- is in lists of (literary+) things to read, or aspire to read. My life-long journey was sparked in high school days by a list embedded in an essay by Randall Jarrell in his collection Poetry and the Age, recently reprinted in No Other Book, found not too long ago in a used bookstore – & now somewhere in my “bedtime reading” queue. The essay was “The Age of Criticism.” Jarrell complains that people only want to talk about the Important Cultural Galaxy books, w/the possible exception of In Search of Lost Time since it’s too long,
”But if you wanted to talk about Turgenev’s novelettes, or The House of the Dead, or Lavengro, or Life on the Mississippi, or The Old Wives’ Tale, or The Golovlyov Family, or Cunninghame-Grahame’s stories, or Saint-Simon’s memoirs, or Lost Illusions, or The Beggar’s Opera, or Eugen Onegin, or Little Dorrit, or The Burnt Njal Saga, or Persuasion, or The Inspector-General, or Oblomov, or Peer Gynt, or Far From the Madding Crowd, or Out of Africa, or the Parallel Lives, or A Dreary Story, or Debits and Credits, or Arabia Deserta, or Elective Affinities, or Schweik, or – or any of the thousand good or interesting but Unimportant books, you couldn’t expect a very ready knowledge or sympathy of most of the readers there.”
Still haven’t gotten around to many of these, tbh, though most of the Important Books talk I’ve experienced has been limited to college & graduate seminars. (I had regular lunches w/literature grad students back in the day but I seem to recall most of the conversation centered around the current movies, though granted, in those days it was a great time for films.* I suspect we were all keeping our literary opinions close to the vest to avoid being carpetbagged.)
*A couple of Jarrell’s Unimportant books are now talked about today because they were made into movies.
”But if you wanted to talk about Turgenev’s novelettes, or The House of the Dead, or Lavengro, or Life on the Mississippi, or The Old Wives’ Tale, or The Golovlyov Family, or Cunninghame-Grahame’s stories, or Saint-Simon’s memoirs, or Lost Illusions, or The Beggar’s Opera, or Eugen Onegin, or Little Dorrit, or The Burnt Njal Saga, or Persuasion, or The Inspector-General, or Oblomov, or Peer Gynt, or Far From the Madding Crowd, or Out of Africa, or the Parallel Lives, or A Dreary Story, or Debits and Credits, or Arabia Deserta, or Elective Affinities, or Schweik, or – or any of the thousand good or interesting but Unimportant books, you couldn’t expect a very ready knowledge or sympathy of most of the readers there.”
Still haven’t gotten around to many of these, tbh, though most of the Important Books talk I’ve experienced has been limited to college & graduate seminars. (I had regular lunches w/literature grad students back in the day but I seem to recall most of the conversation centered around the current movies, though granted, in those days it was a great time for films.* I suspect we were all keeping our literary opinions close to the vest to avoid being carpetbagged.)
*A couple of Jarrell’s Unimportant books are now talked about today because they were made into movies.
4featherbear
Not to forget a significant list from my library school days by S.R. Ranganathan (thanks Wikipedia):
The Five Laws of Library Science, are:
1. Books are for use.
2. Every person has his or her book.
3. Every book has its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader.
5. A library is a growing organism
(Also a last minute addition – I don’t have a subscription so I only caught part of it – from a contrarian article in Quillette: Lists, damn lists, and political correctness. (Seems to apply to popular music lists but as noted I don’t have access to the full article, but I suspect the Guardian list is somewhere in the background)
The Five Laws of Library Science, are:
1. Books are for use.
2. Every person has his or her book.
3. Every book has its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader.
5. A library is a growing organism
(Also a last minute addition – I don’t have a subscription so I only caught part of it – from a contrarian article in Quillette: Lists, damn lists, and political correctness. (Seems to apply to popular music lists but as noted I don’t have access to the full article, but I suspect the Guardian list is somewhere in the background)
5featherbear
Anyway, I still keep a catch as catch can notebook of literary (in the broad sense) lists, mostly as an aide to failing memoire – using generally unreadable cursive. First, before I forget: a list of reasons I need to keep making lists:
- poor memory for names, titles (I remember the relevant name, etc from 48 hrs to weeks later)
- from working on this thread, I discovered books I neglected to catalog for my personal collection on LT (e.g. Zinky Boys, the 2 Justin Wintle collective biographies, the Paul Edwards Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Wains Islam, John Keay’s India a history)
-reminder of books I did catalog but forgot about completely (see reason #1), especially on the more inaccessible shelves (forgot I had a copy of Leo Braudy’s book on war & masculinity; BBC Music Guides)
– to remember people I knew
– books to re-read
– authors to discover or further explore
– broaden horizons: cultures, specializations: important to go beyond "novels"
– books suggested by other books already/recently read for both obvious (“other books by this author” – computer software likes to do this for marketing reasons) ... & mystical reasons. Two recent examples: SPQR to Memoirs of Hadrian to The Abyss; The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to The New York Trilogy
-on a related note, before I forget, lists beget lists -- think of the loaves & fishes story in the New Testament -- from one list miraculous myriads -- this is a good thing, generally, "miraculous" -- though the shadowy thought of rabbits & cane toads in Australia occurs to me at times
– for ongoing weekly projects -- the LT weekly Weekend Reading is an incentive for me to finish a book or two -- a proper distribution amongst lightweight Kindle (novels & lightweight non-fiction), heavier Fire tablet (complex arguments require contrasting highlighting colors or contextual notes; easier navigation of long books), print medium in the absence of an e-surrogate (no preference for print unless the book is very heavy)
– send others down the rabbit hole of bibliographic discovery (every person his/her book, right?)
(other reasons as I keep working on this; suggestions?)
Addenda as I think of items in these categories to list, mostly but not necessarily books I own:
Books I Own, Want to Read, But Can’t Find!! maybe I don't want to find them though
Books in Series TBR/TRBRR Subhead:Titles in series where I haven’t read any so far, but curious >8 featherbear:
Unfinished business: books on halfway hiatus, started but not yet finished
Translations of classics I’ve read in other versions that now give me an excuse to “re-read”
Novelists or fiction writers who’ve been around I meant to read but haven’t gotten around to reading
Novelists who’ve been around; I’ve read at least one their books & would like to read more
Guardian Top 100 novels in my collection I haven’t gotten around to reading but would like to
Novels & fiction (recent & not) not listed by Guardian if memory serves
Short Fiction Collections >17 featherbear:
Novels to Re-Read as e-books if possible
Collections of Correspondence, e.g. Keats
Biographies of Literary Authors >11 featherbear:
Non-literary Autobiographies/memoirs TBR/TBRR e.g., U.S.Grant, Pepys, Saint-Simon
Poetry Read-Alongs with Helen Vendler I have 3 of these, e.g. The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Stately/lively English Prose, e.g. Thomas Browne, Thomas Carlyle, Anatomy of Melancholy, Ruskin, Edmund Burke, DeQuincey
Essays, e.g. Montaigne, George Orwell, James Baldwin
Aphorisms (correct term?): e.g. Pascal
American Literary History, and on a related note:
Used Library of America volumes I picked up at random
Proscribed authors,e.g. Alice Munro, Norman Mailer, JK Rowling
Shakespeare reading complete S as an ebook vs print -- sequentially or back & forth?
Books about modern economics
India & South Asian literature, history, culture
East Asian literature, history, & culture China >16 featherbear:
Antiquity inspired by SPQR
General religions surveys
Buddhism
Hinduism
Early Christianity
The Islamic World
Medieval & Early Modern Europe inspired by The Abyss
Modern European history (my collection of these seems to be quite small, surprisingly)
American History
Russian History
Art & Architecture
Music
Movies
Travel literature: TBR >13 featherbear: Read & worth a re-read >14 featherbear:
Science, technology, behavior, natural history, evolution (could use more of these tbh)
Philosophy Divided into 3 subheads of Classic (e.g. Plato, Hegel, Nietzsche) -- Continental, e.g. Simone de Beauvoir -- In/non-continental: e.g. Bernard Williams
Philosophy of Science >15 alco261:
Sociology/Anthropology/Human Sciences
Favorite anthologies
Immersive reference books, e.g. Encylopedia of the History of Ideas
Books with Personal Associations
Last Things >12 featherbear:
Books of Lists
- poor memory for names, titles (I remember the relevant name, etc from 48 hrs to weeks later)
- from working on this thread, I discovered books I neglected to catalog for my personal collection on LT (e.g. Zinky Boys, the 2 Justin Wintle collective biographies, the Paul Edwards Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Wains Islam, John Keay’s India a history)
-reminder of books I did catalog but forgot about completely (see reason #1), especially on the more inaccessible shelves (forgot I had a copy of Leo Braudy’s book on war & masculinity; BBC Music Guides)
– to remember people I knew
– books to re-read
– authors to discover or further explore
– broaden horizons: cultures, specializations: important to go beyond "novels"
– books suggested by other books already/recently read for both obvious (“other books by this author” – computer software likes to do this for marketing reasons) ... & mystical reasons. Two recent examples: SPQR to Memoirs of Hadrian to The Abyss; The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to The New York Trilogy
-on a related note, before I forget, lists beget lists -- think of the loaves & fishes story in the New Testament -- from one list miraculous myriads -- this is a good thing, generally, "miraculous" -- though the shadowy thought of rabbits & cane toads in Australia occurs to me at times
– for ongoing weekly projects -- the LT weekly Weekend Reading is an incentive for me to finish a book or two -- a proper distribution amongst lightweight Kindle (novels & lightweight non-fiction), heavier Fire tablet (complex arguments require contrasting highlighting colors or contextual notes; easier navigation of long books), print medium in the absence of an e-surrogate (no preference for print unless the book is very heavy)
– send others down the rabbit hole of bibliographic discovery (every person his/her book, right?)
(other reasons as I keep working on this; suggestions?)
Addenda as I think of items in these categories to list, mostly but not necessarily books I own:
Books I Own, Want to Read, But Can’t Find!! maybe I don't want to find them though
Books in Series TBR/TRBRR Subhead:Titles in series where I haven’t read any so far, but curious >8 featherbear:
Unfinished business: books on halfway hiatus, started but not yet finished
Translations of classics I’ve read in other versions that now give me an excuse to “re-read”
Novelists or fiction writers who’ve been around I meant to read but haven’t gotten around to reading
Novelists who’ve been around; I’ve read at least one their books & would like to read more
Guardian Top 100 novels in my collection I haven’t gotten around to reading but would like to
Novels & fiction (recent & not) not listed by Guardian if memory serves
Short Fiction Collections >17 featherbear:
Novels to Re-Read as e-books if possible
Collections of Correspondence, e.g. Keats
Biographies of Literary Authors >11 featherbear:
Non-literary Autobiographies/memoirs TBR/TBRR e.g., U.S.Grant, Pepys, Saint-Simon
Poetry Read-Alongs with Helen Vendler I have 3 of these, e.g. The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Stately/lively English Prose, e.g. Thomas Browne, Thomas Carlyle, Anatomy of Melancholy, Ruskin, Edmund Burke, DeQuincey
Essays, e.g. Montaigne, George Orwell, James Baldwin
Aphorisms (correct term?): e.g. Pascal
American Literary History, and on a related note:
Used Library of America volumes I picked up at random
Proscribed authors,e.g. Alice Munro, Norman Mailer, JK Rowling
Shakespeare reading complete S as an ebook vs print -- sequentially or back & forth?
Books about modern economics
India & South Asian literature, history, culture
East Asian literature, history, & culture China >16 featherbear:
Antiquity inspired by SPQR
General religions surveys
Buddhism
Hinduism
Early Christianity
The Islamic World
Medieval & Early Modern Europe inspired by The Abyss
Modern European history (my collection of these seems to be quite small, surprisingly)
American History
Russian History
Art & Architecture
Music
Movies
Travel literature: TBR >13 featherbear: Read & worth a re-read >14 featherbear:
Science, technology, behavior, natural history, evolution (could use more of these tbh)
Philosophy Divided into 3 subheads of Classic (e.g. Plato, Hegel, Nietzsche) -- Continental, e.g. Simone de Beauvoir -- In/non-continental: e.g. Bernard Williams
Philosophy of Science >15 alco261:
Sociology/Anthropology/Human Sciences
Favorite anthologies
Immersive reference books, e.g. Encylopedia of the History of Ideas
Books with Personal Associations
Last Things >12 featherbear:
Books of Lists
6Cecrow
Norman Mailer proscribed? I know the controversy with the other two.
On the subject of lists, I'm interested in tracking down and reading Umberto Eco's The Infinity of Lists.
On the subject of lists, I'm interested in tracking down and reading Umberto Eco's The Infinity of Lists.
7thorold
>5 featherbear: Books I Own, Want to Read, But Can’t Find!! maybe I don't want to find them though
…I think I’ve got a few of those on my list too!
…I think I’ve got a few of those on my list too!
8featherbear
Books in Series TBR/TRBRR:
In some cases – Henry James – the “series” is made-up by the publisher (Library of America), but in most it’s a case of author intention. Hard to believe neither Balzac nor Zola are in the Guardian Galaxy of Goodness subset, but then neither is Stendhal, it appears:
Read at least one or two in the series; eager to read more: The Human Comedy / Honoré de Balzac – Rougon-Macquart / Emile Zola. As they say of science fiction series: epic world building!
Balzac: top of the queue (because e-books): Cousin Bette & Lost Illusions (the latter a re-read; my Penguin edition is miles away in storage; but in my apartment are several used Penguins found at my local used bookstore). Zola: The Debacle on Kindle plus many trade pbks ordered via Amazon piled on a bookshelf catty-corner from the kitchen.
E-book sequels to My Brilliant Friend / Elena Ferrante (The Neapolitan Novels): The Story of a New Name -- Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay -- The Story of the Lost Child
Henry James Short Fiction (Library of America): Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 -- Henry James: Complete Stories 1874-1884 --Henry James: Complete Stories 1884-1891 -- Henry James: Complete Stories 1892-1898 (all hardcover)
The Faulkner Yoknapatawpha novels/stories I've mostly read, with the exception of the last 2 volumes of the Snopes trilogy. Picked up various LoA's over the years & will re-read if I get a chance & after I inventory the LoA's.
Kristin Lavransdatter: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (3 v in 1) / Sigrid Undset (trade pbk)
Raj Quartet 2 v Everyman hardcover / Paul Scott
Joseph and his brothers / Thomas Mann (multiple volumes in 1 Everyman hardcover)
Music history: Richard Taruskin’s Oxford History of Western Music (ebooks). I've read the 19th century volume; still have 18th & 20th in queue; probably won't read the others (they're expensive!)
I have 4 of Frank Dikötter's books on modern China in ebook format; not sure if they constitute a series as such. First order of business probably: The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962—1976
Science Fiction: The Expanse series (all ebooks; I’ve read the first one) -- Blue Mars, the last volume of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy; the last volume of the Mars trilogy has been in my "unfinished business" queue for some time -- Earthseed: the complete series / Octavia Butler.
Haven’t read any books by these authors so far, but curious:
Javier Marias: Your Face Tomorrow trilogy (hardcover) -- ebooks: Edward St Aubyn: The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk -- Elizabeth Jane Howard: The Cazalet Chronicles: Five Novels in One Collection -- Jane Gardam: The Old Filth Trilogy: Old Fifth, The Man in the Wooden Hat, and Last Friends -- Karl Ove Knausgaard: My Struggle (I have 1-3)
--2 historical fiction series: Madison Smartt Bell’s Haitian trilogy (trade pbks; the first volume is in the category of books in my collection I can't find) -- Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall & sequelsl (ebooks + remainder hardcover dups)
--Science fiction series: Iain M Banks’s The Culture series: Consider Phlebas ; Excession; Inversions; Look to Windward (all used pbks; are there others I haven’t cataloged?)
Crime fiction – a mix of tbrs & rrs, but generally back of the queue while I explore other avenues: most of Ngaio Marsh in ebooks (a late discovery when Amazon was putting her works on Kindle Daily Deals for 1.99); several Agatha Christie ebooks I’ve thought to re-read – most of my pbk Christies are off in storage & inaccessible) – Georgette Heyer – Dorothy Sayers – Reginald Hill – Elizabeth George -- Robert Galbraith (pseud for the proscribed JKR). Love reading the stuff but distracting in my sunset years.
List of Categories >5 featherbear:
In some cases – Henry James – the “series” is made-up by the publisher (Library of America), but in most it’s a case of author intention. Hard to believe neither Balzac nor Zola are in the Guardian Galaxy of Goodness subset, but then neither is Stendhal, it appears:
Read at least one or two in the series; eager to read more: The Human Comedy / Honoré de Balzac – Rougon-Macquart / Emile Zola. As they say of science fiction series: epic world building!
Balzac: top of the queue (because e-books): Cousin Bette & Lost Illusions (the latter a re-read; my Penguin edition is miles away in storage; but in my apartment are several used Penguins found at my local used bookstore). Zola: The Debacle on Kindle plus many trade pbks ordered via Amazon piled on a bookshelf catty-corner from the kitchen.
E-book sequels to My Brilliant Friend / Elena Ferrante (The Neapolitan Novels): The Story of a New Name -- Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay -- The Story of the Lost Child
Henry James Short Fiction (Library of America): Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 -- Henry James: Complete Stories 1874-1884 --Henry James: Complete Stories 1884-1891 -- Henry James: Complete Stories 1892-1898 (all hardcover)
The Faulkner Yoknapatawpha novels/stories I've mostly read, with the exception of the last 2 volumes of the Snopes trilogy. Picked up various LoA's over the years & will re-read if I get a chance & after I inventory the LoA's.
Kristin Lavransdatter: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (3 v in 1) / Sigrid Undset (trade pbk)
Raj Quartet 2 v Everyman hardcover / Paul Scott
Joseph and his brothers / Thomas Mann (multiple volumes in 1 Everyman hardcover)
Music history: Richard Taruskin’s Oxford History of Western Music (ebooks). I've read the 19th century volume; still have 18th & 20th in queue; probably won't read the others (they're expensive!)
I have 4 of Frank Dikötter's books on modern China in ebook format; not sure if they constitute a series as such. First order of business probably: The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962—1976
Science Fiction: The Expanse series (all ebooks; I’ve read the first one) -- Blue Mars, the last volume of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy; the last volume of the Mars trilogy has been in my "unfinished business" queue for some time -- Earthseed: the complete series / Octavia Butler.
Haven’t read any books by these authors so far, but curious:
Javier Marias: Your Face Tomorrow trilogy (hardcover) -- ebooks: Edward St Aubyn: The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk -- Elizabeth Jane Howard: The Cazalet Chronicles: Five Novels in One Collection -- Jane Gardam: The Old Filth Trilogy: Old Fifth, The Man in the Wooden Hat, and Last Friends -- Karl Ove Knausgaard: My Struggle (I have 1-3)
--2 historical fiction series: Madison Smartt Bell’s Haitian trilogy (trade pbks; the first volume is in the category of books in my collection I can't find) -- Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall & sequelsl (ebooks + remainder hardcover dups)
--Science fiction series: Iain M Banks’s The Culture series: Consider Phlebas ; Excession; Inversions; Look to Windward (all used pbks; are there others I haven’t cataloged?)
Crime fiction – a mix of tbrs & rrs, but generally back of the queue while I explore other avenues: most of Ngaio Marsh in ebooks (a late discovery when Amazon was putting her works on Kindle Daily Deals for 1.99); several Agatha Christie ebooks I’ve thought to re-read – most of my pbk Christies are off in storage & inaccessible) – Georgette Heyer – Dorothy Sayers – Reginald Hill – Elizabeth George -- Robert Galbraith (pseud for the proscribed JKR). Love reading the stuff but distracting in my sunset years.
List of Categories >5 featherbear:
9featherbear
>6 Cecrow: I purchased 2 LoA's not too long ago: Norman Mailer: Four Books of the 1960s (LOA #305): An American Dream / Why Are We in Vietnam? / The Armies of the Night / Miami and the Siege of Chicago (Library of America Norman Mailer Edition) & Norman Mailer: Collected Essays of the 1960s (LOA #306) (Library of America Norman Mailer Edition) following a news story that the editorial assistants for the publisher (not LoA) preparing a posthumous publication of a Mailer book were doing a walkout in protest of the author/content; worried his books would be consigned to publication Siberia. It occurs to me it may have been a publisher ploy to sell the book, though I haven't heard any news about a forthcoming publication. In any case, the hardcovers function as a replacement for my deteriorating mass market pbk collection.
10featherbear
Liz Maynes-Aminzade. New Yorker, 06/02/2026: Introducing Catalogues, a New Game for People Who Love Lists: Every day, order a set of items based on a hidden theme.
"In a story titled “A List,” from the classic children’s-book series “Frog and Toad,” Toad wakes up one morning and, anticipating a busy day ahead, decides to make a to-do list. At first, the list helps him keep track of his obligations, which include “Wake up,” “Take walk with Frog,” and “Take nap.” But when the list blows away in a gust of wind, he starts to spiral. Unable to remember its contents, he figures, “I will just have to sit here and do nothing.”
"For the chronic list-makers among us, Toad’s struggle is all too relatable. The impulse to organize the world by itemizing it is a time-honored tradition, whose luminaries (listed in roughly chronological order) include:
practicing my unordered list html skills!
"In a story titled “A List,” from the classic children’s-book series “Frog and Toad,” Toad wakes up one morning and, anticipating a busy day ahead, decides to make a to-do list. At first, the list helps him keep track of his obligations, which include “Wake up,” “Take walk with Frog,” and “Take nap.” But when the list blows away in a gust of wind, he starts to spiral. Unable to remember its contents, he figures, “I will just have to sit here and do nothing.”
"For the chronic list-makers among us, Toad’s struggle is all too relatable. The impulse to organize the world by itemizing it is a time-honored tradition, whose luminaries (listed in roughly chronological order) include:
- God, author of the Ten Commandments
- Santa Claus, maker of Naughty and Nice lists
- Homer, cataloguer of ships, in the Iliad
- Sei Shōnagon, lister of “Things That Make the Heart Beat Faster,” in “The Pillow Book”
- Carl Linnaeus, taxonomer of living things
- Maria von Trapp, singer of her favorite things
- Billy Joel, singer of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
practicing my unordered list html skills!
11featherbear
Biographies of Literary Authors:
Some preliminary notes. I lean toward “life & times,” a little history through the prism of an author. Good stuff I’ve managed to read, but focusing on TBRs to jog my memory.
17th century: Just finished Claire Tomalin’s Samuel Pepys: the unequalled self. Not sure if Pepys is technically literary, but I learned something about how personal politics interacted with the transition from the end of Cromwell’s Commonwealth through the royalist Restoration to the ouster of the Stuarts by William & Mary, & it reminded me of an historical overlap w/my favorite translator of The Aeneid, John Dryden, & of the biography by James Winn (slight personal association) that I’ve always been meaning to read: John Dryden and his World. In Tomalin’s Pepys biography Milton’s miserable time during the Restoration is mentioned in passing in a “guilt by association” political issue with Pepys’ nephew, who did some secretarial work for the blind poet who was a champion of Cromwell. In turn, a reminder that sitting on the shelf or in a pile in my bedroom are, respectively: Christopher Hill’s Milton and the English Revolution (trade pbk on a back shelf somewhere) & Barbara Lewalski’s The Life of John Milton: a critical biography, both TBRs. Irvin Ehrenpreis's biography spans 2 centuries: Swift, Volume 1, Mr. Swift and His Contemporaries -- Swift, Volume 2, Dr. Swift (Swift Vol. 2) -- Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age: Dean Swift, Vol 3.
18th century: On the other hand, I have read 2 biographies/biographical books on Alexander Pope by Maynard Mack that I liked a lot, though there may not be time to re-read: Alexander Pope: a life & The Garden and the City: retirement and politics in the later poetry of Pope 1731-1743; the latter seems to me a model “life and times” study. The only other literary biography I recall reading from the period is Boswell’s Life of Johnson (Oxford pbk). But it reminds me that still in the TBR queue are: Frederick Pottle/Frank Brady 2 volume James Boswell: the early years, 1740-1769 – James Boswell: the later years, & Walter Jackson Bate’s Samuel Johnson.
For the period covered by the recently read The Age of Napoleon by the Durants, I’ve read Richard Holmes’s Shelley: the pursuit (recommended) but his 2 volume biography of Coleridge is still in the TBR queue: Coleridge: early visions & Coleridge: darker reflections 1804-1834 (hardcovers but not unreasonably heavy). Walter Jackson Bate’s John Keats seemed definitive to me when I read it years ago. I read the one volume abridgement of Leslie Marchand’s Byron biography years ago, also recommended – the whole thing if possible – too much life to squeeze into one volume. Don’t really have a compelling recommendation for Wordsworth.
Victorians. Charles Dickens: his tragedy and triumph / Edgar Johnson and George Eliot: a biography / Gordon S. Haight, plus a biography of WM Thackeray I don’t seem to have cataloged; these were all excellent. Read Peter Ackroyd’s Dickens some years ago; not bad. Still working on John Forster’s contemporary Life of Charles Dickens, fortunately now in an ebook version cause the 1 volume used book I picked up years ago was a physical behemoth, plus still in queue Michael Slater’s Charles Dickens (trade pbk gift from my sister). Also waiting on the shelves is a Penguin pbk of The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell.
American literature. Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography / David S. Reynolds (missing; still looking for it) – Edith Wharton: a biography / R W B Lewis (pbk 2 copies) – The Life of Emily Dickinson / Richard B. Sewall (trade pbk sitting on my shelf for years uncataloged because the FSG edition had an invalid ISBN; now safely cataloged) – Henry James 6 v / Leon Edel (hardcover; a lot easier to read than its subject at times; I suppose this is why literary biographies are popular).
French literature. Marcel Proust: a biography 2 v / George Painter (read). All TBR: 2 by Frederick Brown: Flaubert: a biography; Zola: a life – 3 by Graham Robb: Rimbaud: a biography; Victor Hugo: a biography; Balzac: a biography
Russian Literature. Dostoevsky (5 v trade pbk) / Joseph Frank (trade pbks 1-4 read; 5 tbr after reading The Adolescent & a new translation of The Brothers Karamazov) – Tolstoy / Henry Troyat (absorbing though it’s been some time; I have Troyat’s Chekhov bio on my shelves somewhere TBR).
20th century. Virginia Woolf / Hermione Lee (TBR)* – 3 by Richard Ellmann (or 1 n): Yeats: the man and the masks; James Joyce; Oscar Wilde (all read) – 2 ebooks TBR: The World Is What It Is: the authorized biography of V.S. Naipaul / Patrick French – James Merrill: life and art / Langdon Hammer.
To return full circle before the 17th century: hardcover used copies of Shakespeare of London / Marchette Chute, Shakespeare’s Lives / S. Schoenbaum. Chaucer: his life his works his world / Donald Roy Howard (pbk: hope I can still find it) & ebook of The Life & Times of Chaucer / John Gardner, which didn’t seem to be as good as what I’d read of the Howard bio.
Collective: Lives of the Novelists / John Sutherland (ebook); Lives of the Poets / Michael Schmidt (2 hardcover remainder copies). Both were quite readable. There’s also Johnson’s & Aubrey’s brief lives collections but still haven't gotten around to them.
* I’ve read lots of Virginia Woolf, & Hermione Lee’s Virginia Woolf (hardcover) has been buried under a lot of detritus on my easy (former reading) chair. Really liked Noel Annan’s biography of her dad Leslie Stephen: the godless Victorian (used hardcover) read back in the day. Annan’s collective biography The Dons: Mentors Eccentrics and Geniuses (trade pbk) still in my TBR queue; I should also take another look at Our Age: English Intellectuals Between the World Wars – a group portrait which I’ve forgotten I’ve read.
List of Categories >5 featherbear:
Some preliminary notes. I lean toward “life & times,” a little history through the prism of an author. Good stuff I’ve managed to read, but focusing on TBRs to jog my memory.
17th century: Just finished Claire Tomalin’s Samuel Pepys: the unequalled self. Not sure if Pepys is technically literary, but I learned something about how personal politics interacted with the transition from the end of Cromwell’s Commonwealth through the royalist Restoration to the ouster of the Stuarts by William & Mary, & it reminded me of an historical overlap w/my favorite translator of The Aeneid, John Dryden, & of the biography by James Winn (slight personal association) that I’ve always been meaning to read: John Dryden and his World. In Tomalin’s Pepys biography Milton’s miserable time during the Restoration is mentioned in passing in a “guilt by association” political issue with Pepys’ nephew, who did some secretarial work for the blind poet who was a champion of Cromwell. In turn, a reminder that sitting on the shelf or in a pile in my bedroom are, respectively: Christopher Hill’s Milton and the English Revolution (trade pbk on a back shelf somewhere) & Barbara Lewalski’s The Life of John Milton: a critical biography, both TBRs. Irvin Ehrenpreis's biography spans 2 centuries: Swift, Volume 1, Mr. Swift and His Contemporaries -- Swift, Volume 2, Dr. Swift (Swift Vol. 2) -- Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age: Dean Swift, Vol 3.
18th century: On the other hand, I have read 2 biographies/biographical books on Alexander Pope by Maynard Mack that I liked a lot, though there may not be time to re-read: Alexander Pope: a life & The Garden and the City: retirement and politics in the later poetry of Pope 1731-1743; the latter seems to me a model “life and times” study. The only other literary biography I recall reading from the period is Boswell’s Life of Johnson (Oxford pbk). But it reminds me that still in the TBR queue are: Frederick Pottle/Frank Brady 2 volume James Boswell: the early years, 1740-1769 – James Boswell: the later years, & Walter Jackson Bate’s Samuel Johnson.
For the period covered by the recently read The Age of Napoleon by the Durants, I’ve read Richard Holmes’s Shelley: the pursuit (recommended) but his 2 volume biography of Coleridge is still in the TBR queue: Coleridge: early visions & Coleridge: darker reflections 1804-1834 (hardcovers but not unreasonably heavy). Walter Jackson Bate’s John Keats seemed definitive to me when I read it years ago. I read the one volume abridgement of Leslie Marchand’s Byron biography years ago, also recommended – the whole thing if possible – too much life to squeeze into one volume. Don’t really have a compelling recommendation for Wordsworth.
Victorians. Charles Dickens: his tragedy and triumph / Edgar Johnson and George Eliot: a biography / Gordon S. Haight, plus a biography of WM Thackeray I don’t seem to have cataloged; these were all excellent. Read Peter Ackroyd’s Dickens some years ago; not bad. Still working on John Forster’s contemporary Life of Charles Dickens, fortunately now in an ebook version cause the 1 volume used book I picked up years ago was a physical behemoth, plus still in queue Michael Slater’s Charles Dickens (trade pbk gift from my sister). Also waiting on the shelves is a Penguin pbk of The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell.
American literature. Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography / David S. Reynolds (missing; still looking for it) – Edith Wharton: a biography / R W B Lewis (pbk 2 copies) – The Life of Emily Dickinson / Richard B. Sewall (trade pbk sitting on my shelf for years uncataloged because the FSG edition had an invalid ISBN; now safely cataloged) – Henry James 6 v / Leon Edel (hardcover; a lot easier to read than its subject at times; I suppose this is why literary biographies are popular).
French literature. Marcel Proust: a biography 2 v / George Painter (read). All TBR: 2 by Frederick Brown: Flaubert: a biography; Zola: a life – 3 by Graham Robb: Rimbaud: a biography; Victor Hugo: a biography; Balzac: a biography
Russian Literature. Dostoevsky (5 v trade pbk) / Joseph Frank (trade pbks 1-4 read; 5 tbr after reading The Adolescent & a new translation of The Brothers Karamazov) – Tolstoy / Henry Troyat (absorbing though it’s been some time; I have Troyat’s Chekhov bio on my shelves somewhere TBR).
20th century. Virginia Woolf / Hermione Lee (TBR)* – 3 by Richard Ellmann (or 1 n): Yeats: the man and the masks; James Joyce; Oscar Wilde (all read) – 2 ebooks TBR: The World Is What It Is: the authorized biography of V.S. Naipaul / Patrick French – James Merrill: life and art / Langdon Hammer.
To return full circle before the 17th century: hardcover used copies of Shakespeare of London / Marchette Chute, Shakespeare’s Lives / S. Schoenbaum. Chaucer: his life his works his world / Donald Roy Howard (pbk: hope I can still find it) & ebook of The Life & Times of Chaucer / John Gardner, which didn’t seem to be as good as what I’d read of the Howard bio.
Collective: Lives of the Novelists / John Sutherland (ebook); Lives of the Poets / Michael Schmidt (2 hardcover remainder copies). Both were quite readable. There’s also Johnson’s & Aubrey’s brief lives collections but still haven't gotten around to them.
* I’ve read lots of Virginia Woolf, & Hermione Lee’s Virginia Woolf (hardcover) has been buried under a lot of detritus on my easy (former reading) chair. Really liked Noel Annan’s biography of her dad Leslie Stephen: the godless Victorian (used hardcover) read back in the day. Annan’s collective biography The Dons: Mentors Eccentrics and Geniuses (trade pbk) still in my TBR queue; I should also take another look at Our Age: English Intellectuals Between the World Wars – a group portrait which I’ve forgotten I’ve read.
List of Categories >5 featherbear:
12featherbear
Last Things
Inspired by the Bloom anthology recently downloaded as well as Montaigne; continuing practice w/unordered lists of items from my personal collection, mostly read (TBRRs) but some TBRs as well:
List of Categories >5 featherbear:
Inspired by the Bloom anthology recently downloaded as well as Montaigne; continuing practice w/unordered lists of items from my personal collection, mostly read (TBRRs) but some TBRs as well:
- Till I End My Song: a gathering of last poems / Harold Bloom, ed & notes
- The Oxford Book of Death / ed DJ Enright; occasional nightime reading
- The Hour of Our Death / Phillipe Aries (TBR)
- How We Die / Sherwin B Nuland
- Nothing to be Frightened Of / Julian Barnes
- The Nature of Things (Penguin Classics) / Lucretius
- Death / Shelly Kagan
- The Year of Magical Thinking / Joan Didion
- Spook: science tackles the afterlife / Mary Roach
-
Heaven and Hell: a history of the Afterlife / Bart D. Ehrman
- The Executioner’s Song / Norman Mailer (not sure if this falls into the category; need to re-read)
- The Gift of Death / Jacques Derrida; see previous; it's connected to/perhaps in contention with Fear and Trembling / Soren Kierkegaard
- wishlist: Swimming in a Sea of Death: a son's memoir / David Rieff on Susan Sontag's struggles; a related memoir on the death of a mother: Roommates: My Grandfather's Story / Max Apple I found tremendously affecting
List of Categories >5 featherbear:
13featherbear
Travel Literature
TBRs languishing on various shelves hopefully findable:
List of Categories >5 featherbear:
TBRs languishing on various shelves hopefully findable:
- The River at the Center of the World: a journey up the Yangtze, and back in Chinese time / Simon Winchester (used trade pbk; acquired today!)
- Black Lamb and Grey Falcon / Rebecca West (ebook & a 2 v used hardcover)
- Life on the Mississippi (The World's Best Reading) / Mark Twain (used hardcover)
- William Dalrymple travel books (he also does history):
- From the Holy Mountain: A Journey among the Christians of the Middle East (trade pbk)
- City of Djinns : a year of Delhi (trade pbk)
- The Lost Heart of Asia / Colin Thubron (trade pbk)
- Journey to Khiva: a writer’s search for Central Asia / Philip Glazebrook (trade pbk)
- India: a wounded civilization (trade pbk remainder) &
- An Area of Darkness / V.S. Naipaul (trade pbk)
- Hong Kong / Jan Morris (trade pbk remainder)
- On Persephone's Island: A Sicilian Journal / Mary Taylor Simeti (trade pbk)
- The city of Florence : historical vistas and personal sightings / R.W.B. Lewis (trade pbk)
- Fields of Battle: the wars of North America / John Keegan (trade pbk: battlefield tours) (trade pbk)
- God’s Dust: a modern Asian Journey / Ian Buruma (trade pbk)
- An Empire Wilderness: Travels into America's Future / Robert D. Kaplan (trade pbk)
- The Basque History of the world / Mark Kurlansky (trade pbk)
- 4 by Lawrence Durrell if I can find them; all pbks, trade/mm:
- The Greek Islands
- Reflections on a Marine Venus: a companion to the landscape of Rhodes
- Prospero’s Cell: a guide to the landscape and manners of the island of Corcyra
- Sicilian Carousel
- D.H. Lawrence and Italy: Twilight in Italy; Sea and Sardinia; Etruscan Places / D.H. Lawrence (trade pbk; had this around since the 80s but never cataloged until I started compiling this list)
- The Stones of Florence / Mary McCarthy
- 3 books by Patrick Leigh Fermor I haven’t gotten around to reading, all trade pbk:
- Roumeli: travels in Northern Greece
- Mani
- The Traveller’s Tree: a journey through the Caribbean islands
- Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland / Samuel Johnson & James Boswell
-
Italian journey : 1786-1788 / Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
- An African in Greenland (New York Review Books Classics) / Tete-Michel Kpomassie
- The Voyage of the Beagle / Charles Darwin
- Herman Melville : Typee, Omoo, Mardi (Library of America)
- South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation / Imani Perry in my ebook queue; keep forgetting it's there
- End of the Earth: Expeditions To South Georgia and Antarctica / Peter Marthiessen forgot I had this one too
List of Categories >5 featherbear:
14featherbear
Travel Literature I've enjoyed
this is going to be a work in progress I'm afraid since I used to consume these like crime fiction; as to the genre definition, for my purposes roughly: autobiography meets geography
this is going to be a work in progress I'm afraid since I used to consume these like crime fiction; as to the genre definition, for my purposes roughly: autobiography meets geography
- Paul Theroux's travel books:
- The great railway bazaar : by train through Asia hardcover remainder; this book probably began my reading journey in the travel lit genre
- The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through The Americas (hardcover remainder)
- Happy Isles Of Oceania
- Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar (ebook)
- Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown
- Pillars of Hercules
- On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey (ebook)
- Vegas: a memoir of a dark season / John Gregory Dunne; a mass market pbk I picked up long ago & loved; it's been getting a bit of a revival in the recent past
- A Time of Gifts (Travel Library) / Patrick Leigh Fermor
- Between the Woods and the Water / Patrick Leigh Fermor
- Out of Africa (Vintage Books, V740) / Isak Dinesen
- Blue Highways / William Least Heat Moon (mm pbk)
- Danube / Claudio Magris (trade pbk)
- A Moveable Feast / Ernest Hemingway
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream / Hunter S. Thompson; Ralph Steadman illustrations (mm pbk)
- Edward Hoagland's books (most of these hardcover remainders if I recall; sometimes observations, sometimes travel; sometimes introspection)
- Walking the Dead Diamond River
- Red wolves and black bears
- The Courage of Turtles
- Notes from the century before : a journal from British Columbia
- The Tugman's Passage
- African Calliope
- Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars / Paul Fussell
- In Patagonia / Bruce Chatwin
- Coming into the Country / John McPhee (Alaska)
- The Road to Oxiana / Robert Byron
- The Places In Between / Rory Stewart (walking through Afghanistan)
- Equator: a journey / Thurston Clarke
- Iberia: Spanish travels and reflections / James A. Michener (hardcover used)
- The Tree Where Man Was Born / Peter Matthiessen
- The Snow Leopard / Peter Matthiessen
- The Maine Woods / Henry David Thoreau
- Arctic Dreams / Barry Lopez (I thought I owned a copy but either it was a library copy I'm recalling or I never cataloged it)
- Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs, and the Chesapeake Bay / William W. Warner
- The Histories (Oxford World's Classics) / Herodotus; translation Robin Waterfield. (Wondering if The Histories -- or at least significant parts of it -- falls into the travel literature genre)
- Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found / Suketu Mehta
- Tristes Tropiques / Claude Lévi-Strauss
- The Sea and the Jungle / H.M. Tomlinson (the Amazon, like Tristes)
- Barcelona / Robert Hughes
- Semi-fictional travel:
- A Sportsman's Notebook / Ivan Turgenev (despite the literary polish, I'm assuming these sketches of rural 19th century Russia are based on real-life notes; a must re-read)
- Lavengro / George Borrow (autobiographical wandering through rural England & London; Ireland; Europe
- The Romany Rye / George Borrow (actually pt 2 of Lavengro; mostly rural England after the Napoleonic Wars)
List of Categories >5 featherbear:
15alco261
>5 featherbear: don't overlook philosophy of science
The Conduct of Inquiry
The Art of Scientific Investigation
Advice to a Young Scientist
Disturbing the Universe
Innovation: The Basis of Cultural Change
Modern Science and Modern Man
A philosopher Looks at Science
Philosophy of Natural Science
Science and the Modern World
Science and the Theory of Value
The Structure of Science
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The Conduct of Inquiry
The Art of Scientific Investigation
Advice to a Young Scientist
Disturbing the Universe
Innovation: The Basis of Cultural Change
Modern Science and Modern Man
A philosopher Looks at Science
Philosophy of Natural Science
Science and the Modern World
Science and the Theory of Value
The Structure of Science
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
16featherbear
East Asian Literature & Culture: Subhead China
Nearing the end of my Yangtze travel book, time to think of other tributaries. Asterisk if read. Alphabetical by author surname or (if unclear) by title -- correct me if I get Chinese surnames wrong:
Nearing the end of my Yangtze travel book, time to think of other tributaries. Asterisk if read. Alphabetical by author surname or (if unclear) by title -- correct me if I get Chinese surnames wrong:
- RM Barnhart: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting (Culture & Civiization of China)
- Eileen Chang: Love in a Fallen City (New York Review Books Classics) (ebook)
- Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II*
- Jung Chang: Mao: The Unknown Story / and Jon Halliday
- Raymond Chang, Margaret Scrogin Chang: Speaking of Chinese: A Cultural History of the Chinese Language
- Cao Xuequin; David Hawkes translator (Penguin Classics pbk):
- The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Vol. 1: The Golden Days
- The Story of the Stone, Vol. 2: The Crab-Flower Club
- The Warning Voice: The Story of the Stone, Chapters 54-80
- The Debt of Tears (The Story of the Stone, Volume 4
- The Dreamer Wakes (The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Volume 5)
- Frank Dikötter:
- The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957
- Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962
- The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962—1976
- China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower
- Mark Elvin: The Pattern of the Chinese Past
- John King Fairbank: The Great Chinese Revolution 1800-1985 see also Reischauer
- Wen Fong, James C. Y. Watt: Possessing the past : treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei
- Xingjian Gao: Soul Mountain / translator Mabel Lee (ebook)
- Guanzhong Luo: Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel (2 v; Moss Roberts translation (used trade pbk, University of California Press)
- Peter Hessler: Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China (P.S.)*
- Christopher Hibbert: The dragon wakes; China and the West, 1793-1911
- David Hinton (translator):
- The four Chinese classics : Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu, Analects, Mencius (ebook)
- Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology (ebook)
- Journey to the West 4 v trade pbk; read as 4 v ebook*; translator Anthony Yu; see also Monkey King
- Maxine Hong Kingston
- The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (Vintage International)* (uncataloged; do I still have it somewhere?)
- China Men* (uncataloged; do I still have it somewhere?)
- Joseph Levenson:
- Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy
- China: An Interpretive History from the Beginnings to the Fall of Han / & Franz Schurmann
- Jean Levi: The Chinese Emperor* (in storage, so I can't check the translator for this historical novel)
- Cixin Liu:
- The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth's Past) / Ken Liu translation (ebook)*
- The Dark Forest (The Three-Body Problem Series Book 2) / Joel Martinson, translator (ebook)*
- Death's End (The Three-Body Problem Series Book 3) (English Edition) / Ken Liu, translator (ebook)*
- Stuart Creighton Miller: The Unwelcome Immigrant: The American Image of the Chinese, 1785-1882
- Monkey King: Journey to the West (A Penguin Classics Hardcover) / Cheng'en Wu; Julia Lovell translator* (ebook despite the LT citation; Cheng'en Wu may be the attributed author of the original or the editor)
- Jan Morris: Hong Kong
- Diana Preston: The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners That Shook the World in the Summer of 1900
- Edwin O. Reischauer & John K. Fairbank:
- East Asia The Great Tradition (A history of East Asian Civilization Vol 1)
- East Asia: The Modern Transformation (History of East Asian Civilization, Volume II)
- Kim Stanley Robinson: The years of rice and salt* (alternative history novel; storage)
- Benjamin I. Schwartz: The World of Thought in Ancient China
- Lisa See: On Gold Mountain
- Nai'an Shi: Outlaws of the marsh (it's in the bedroom; pbk; not sure how many volumes or the translator)
- Laurence Sickman & Alexander Soper: The Art and Architecture of China (Hist of Art)
- Edgar Snow: Red star over China (mmpbk)
- Jonathan D. Spence:
- The death of Woman Wang*
- The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution
- God's Chinese son : the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan (hardcover)
- The search for modern China* (hardcover)
- Emperor of China; self portrait of Kʻang Hsi / Emperor of China Kangxi, Jonathan D. Spence (trade pbk)
- Mark Sullivan: The arts of China*
- Amy Tan: The Joy Luck Club
- Colin Thubron: Behind the wall : a journey through China*
- Barbara Tuchman: Stillwell and the American Experience in China 1911-45* (mmpbk in storage)
- Simon Winchester: The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time (currently reading)
- Yijie Zhuang: 24 Hours in Ancient China: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There (24 Hours in Ancient History) (ebook)
17featherbear
Short Fiction Shortlist
*read, otherwise TBR
Index >5 featherbear:
*read, otherwise TBR
- Aiiieeeee! / editor Frank Chin
- J.G. Ballard: The best short stories of J.G. Ballard
- Honore de Balzac: The Human Comedy: Selected Stories (New York Review Books Classics)*
- Isaac Babel: The Collected stories*
- Clive Barker:
- Donald Barthelme:
- E.F. Benson: The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson edited by Richard Dalby
- The Best American Mystery Stories 2008 ed George Pelecanos*
- Jorge Luis Borges:
- Borges: Collected Fictions / Andrew Hurley, translator*
- Labyrinths; selected stories & other writings*
- The Aleph and other stories, 1933-1969, together with commentaries and an autobiographical essay*
- Ficciones*
- Harold Brodkey: Stories in an Almost Classical Mode
- Angela Carter: Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories
- Raymond Carver: Raymond Carver: Collected Stories (Library of America)*
- John Cheever: The Stories of John Cheever*
- Anton Chekhov:
- Roald Dahl: Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories
- The Stories of Anton Tchekov / translators Constance Garnett & Marian Fell (Modern Library)*
- The Portable Chekhov / editor Avrahm Yarmolinsky*
- Seven Short Novels / translator Barbara Makanowitzky* (Norton)
- The darling and other stories. CONTENTS. The darling -- Tolstoy's criticism on "The Darling" -- Araiadne -- Polinka -- Anyuta -- The two Volodyas -- The trousseau -- The helpmate -- Talent -- An artist's story -- Three years (v 1)* (all of the Ecco/Norton set translated by Constance Garnett)
- The duel and other stories. CONTENTS. The duel -- Excellent people -- Mire -- Neighbours -- At home -- Expensive lessons -- The princess -- The chemist's wife (v 2)*
- The lady with the dog and other stories. CONTENTS. The lady with the dog -- A doctor's visit -- An upheaval -- Ionitch -- The head of the family -- The black monk -- Volodya -- An anonymous story -- The husband* (v 3)
- The Party and Other Stories (The Tales of Chekhov V. 4.) CONTENTS. The Party -- Terror -- A Woman's Kingdom -- A Problem -- The Kiss -- 'Anna on the Neck' -- The Teacher of Literature -- Not Wanted -- Typhus -- A misfortune -- A Trifle from Life*
- The wife and other stories. CONTENTS. The wife -- Difficult people -- The grasshopper -- A dreary story --The privy councillor -- The man in a case -- Gooseberries -- About love -- The lottery ticket (v 5)*
- The witch and other stories. CONTENTS. The witch -- Peasant wives -- The post -- The new villa -- Dreams -- The pipe -- Agafya -- At Christmas time -- Gusev -- The student -- In the ravine -- The hunstman -- Happiness -- A malefactor -- Peasants (v 6)*
- The Bishop and Other Stories (Tales of Chekhov ; vol. 7) CONTENTS. The Bishop -- The Letter -- Easter Eve -- A Nightmare -- The Murder -- Uprooted -- The Steppe*
- The Chorus Girl and Other Stories (Tales of Chekhov, Vol 8) CONTENTS. The Chorus Girl -- Verotchka -- My life -- At a Country House -- A Father -- On the Road -- Rotschild's Fiddle -- Ivan Matveyitch -- Zinotchka -- Bad Weather -- A Gentleman Friend -- A Trivial Incident*
- The Schoolmistress and Other Stories (Tales of Chekhov, Vol 9) CONTENTS. The Schoolmistress -- A nervous breakdown -- Misery -- Champagne -- After the Theatre -- A Lady's Story -- In Exile -- The Cattle-Dealers -- Sorrow -- On Official Duty -- The First Class Passenger -- A Tragic Actor -- A Transgression -- Small Fry -- The Requiem -- In the Coach House -- Panic Fears -- The Bet -- The Head Gardener's Story -- The Beauties -- The Shoemaker and the Devil
- The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories (Tales of Chekhov, Vol. 10)
- The Schoolmaster and Other Stories (Tales of Chekhov, Vol 11)
- The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories (The Tales of Chekhov, Vol 12)
- The Unknown Chekhov: Stories and Other Writings
- Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (ebook)
- Hal Clement: The best of Hal Clement*
- Agatha Christie:
- Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories: A Hercule Poirot Collection with Foreword by Charles Todd (Hercule Poirot Mysteries) (ebook)
- Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories: A Miss Marple Collection (Miss Marple Mysteries Book 13)
- Colette: The Collected Stories of Colette
- Joseph Conrad:
- THE PORTABLE CONRAD / ed Morton Dauwen Zabel*
- The shadow-line, and two other tales: Typhoon, The secret sharer*
- Lydia Davis: The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
- Walter de la Mare: Best stories of Walter de la Mare
- Isak Dinesen:
- Fyodor Dostoevsky: Great Short Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)*
- Arthur Conan Doyle: The annotated Sherlock Holmes : the four novels and the fifty-six short stories complete
- Gardner Dozois (editor):
- The New Space Opera*
- The Year's Best Science Fiction : Tenth Annual Collection (1993)
- The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eleventh Annual Collection (1994)
- The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twelfth Annual Collection (1995)
- The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection (1996)
- Andre Dubus: Andre Dubus Selected stories
- Greg Egan: Axiomatic* (ebook & mmpbk)
- William Faulkner: William Faulkner Collected Stories
- Gustave Flaubert: Three Tales
- Richard Ford:
- Mary Gaitskill:
- William Gass: In the Heart of the Heart of the Country
- Nikolai Gogol:
- The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol Vol. 2 (Old World landowners. Taras Bulba. Viy. The Tale of Ivan Ivanovich. The Nose. The Coach. The Portrait. The Overcoat)*
- The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol (Volume 1)
- Chaim Grade: Rabbis and wives
- Thomas Hardy: Great Short Works of Thomas Hardy
- Nathaniel Hawthorne: Nathaniel Hawthorne: Selected Tales and Sketches (Rinehart editions, 33)
- Ernest Hemingway:
- E.T.A. Hoffmann: The Sandman, The Nutcracker, and Other Dark Fairy Tales: The Best Weird Tales and Fantasies of E. T. A. Hoffmann
- Henry James:
- Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (Library of America)
- Henry James: Complete Stories 1874-1884 (Library of America)*
- Henry James : Complete Stories 1884-1891 (Library of America)*
- Henry James: Complete Stories, 1892-1898 (Library of America)
- Henry James: Complete Stories 1898-1910 (Library of America)
- Henry James : Stories of the Supernatural / editor Leon Edel*
- Eight Tales from the Major Phase: In the Cage and Others
- M.R. James uncataloged, still searching
- Randall Jarrell (editor):
- Randall Jarrell's Book of Stories (New York Review Books Classics) aka The Anchor Book of Stories*
- Six Russian Short Novels/ : The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol. Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov. A Lear of the steppes by Ivan Turgenev. Master and Man and Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy. Ward No. 6 by Anton Chekhov*
- Denis Johnson: Jesus' Son*
- James Joyce: The Portable James Joyce (includes Dubliners collection)
- Franz Kafka:
- Metamorphosis and Other Stories: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) / Michael Hoffman translator*
- The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics) / Joyce Crick, translator
- A Hunger Artist and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics) / Joyce Crick, translator
- Franz Kafka The complete stories / Nahum Glatzer, editor
- Stephen King:
- Rudyard Kipling:
- The Man Who Would Be King and Other Stories (The World's Classics)*
- Plain Tales from the Hills (World's Classics)*
- The Day's Work (Penguin Classics)
- Stalky & Co.
- Heinrich von Kleist: The Marquise of O--, and Other Stories*
- Jhumpa Lahiri: Interpreter of Maladies*
- Ring Lardner: The Collected Short Stories of Ring Lardner (Original Title: Round Up)*
- D.H. Lawrence: D.H. Lawrence Collected Short Stories (uncataloged; multivolume)
- Sheridan Le Fanu: In a Glass Darkly (World's Classics)
- Karen Joy Fowler:
- Clarice Lispector: Clarice Lispector Complete Stories / Katrina Dodson translator
- H.P. Lovecraft: H. P. Lovecraft: Tales (Library of America)
- Thomas Mann: Thomas Mann Collected Stories (Everyman's Library) / translator H.T. Lowe Porter (aka Stories of Three Decades)
- Katherine Mansfield: Stories of Katherine Mansfield
- Alice Mattison: Men Giving Money, Women Yelling: Intersecting Stories*
- William Somerset Maugham: The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham; Volume 1: East and West; Volume 2: The World Over*
- Guy de Maupassant
- Best Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant* (Modern Library)
- The Necklace and Other Stories: Maupassant for Modern Times (ebook; Sandra Smith translator)
- William Maxwell: All the Days and Nights: The Collected Stories
- Herman Melville: Billy Budd, Sailor and Selected Tales (Oxford World's Classics)*
- Ottessa Moshfegh: Homesick for Another World: Stories*
- Alice Munro:
- Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories*
- Runaway*
- Friend of my youth : stories*
- The progress of love*
- The moons of Jupiter : stories*
- The View from Castle Rock: Stories
- Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995-2014
- Too Much Happiness (Vintage International)
- Dear Life: Stories (Vintage International)
- Open Secrets: Stories
- Joyce Carol Oates: By the North Gate
- Flannery O'Connor: Flannery O'Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters (Library of America)
- John O'Hara:
- John O'Hara: Stories (LOA #282) (Library of America John O'Hara Edition) / Charles McGrath editor
- The Novellas of John O'Hara
- Tillie Olsen: Tell me a riddle
- The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories (Oxford paperbacks)* / ed Michael Cox & R.A. Gilbert
- Grace Paley:
- The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories / J.A. Cuddon*
- The Penguin Book of Horror Stories / J.A. Cuddon*
- Edgar Allen Poe: The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated Edition
- Katherine Anne Porter: Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels: A Library of America eBook Classic*
- J.F. Powers: The Stories of J.F. Powers (New York Review Books Classics)
- V. S. Pritchett: Complete collected stories
- Alexander Pushkin:
- Alexander Pushkin: Complete Prose Fiction / translator Paul Debreczeny
- The Complete Tales of Alexandr Sergeyevitch Pushkin / translator Gillon R. Aitken
- Dorothy Sayers: The Lord Peter Wimsey Short Story Collection: Lord Peter Views the Body, Hangman's Holiday, In the Teeth of the Evidence, and Striding Folly (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries) (ebook)
- Kim Stanley Robinson: Remaking history and other stories
- Bruno Schulz: The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories (Penguin Classics) / translator Celina Wieniewska
- John Steinbeck: The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
- Peter Taylor:
- The collected stories of Peter Taylor*
- Peter Taylor: The Complete Stories 1938-1992 (The Library of America)
- Paul Theroux: Theroux: Collected Stories
- Leo Tolstoy:
- Collected Shorter Fiction: Volume 1 (Everyman's Library)
- Collected Shorter Fiction - Volume 2
- The Cossacks (Everyman's Library)
- William Trevor: William Trevor: The Collected Stories*
- Ivan Turgenev:
- John Updike: The Early Stories: 1953-1975
- William T. Vollmann: Thirteen stories and thirteen epitaphs
- H.G. Wells: Best stories of H.G. Wells*
- Eudora Welty:
- The bride of the Innisfallen, and other stories
- Thirteen stories
- Eudora Welty : Stories, Essays & Memoir (Library of America, 102)
- Edith Wharton:
- Edith Wharton: Collected Stories Vol 1. 1891-1910 (LOA #121) (Library of America Edith Wharton Edition)
- Edith Wharton Collected Stories 1911-1937 (LoA, editor Maureen Howard)
- Connie Willis:
- Gene Wolfe:
- The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction (ebook)*
- The fifth head of Cerberus; three novellas*
- Tobias Wolff: Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories*
Index >5 featherbear:
18featherbear
Started to read From the Holy Mountain: a journey among the Christians of the Middle East, & 2 bookmarks I picked up at some conference or another featured Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the 20th century. Glad to see someone has already posted the list on LT.
Modern Library's 100 Best Novels (of the 20th century).
The New York Times has an ongoing list of the best books of the 21st century that might be worth monitoring (has anyone posted the list on LT I could link to?):
100 Best Books of the 21st Century.
Modern Library's 100 Best Novels (of the 20th century).
The New York Times has an ongoing list of the best books of the 21st century that might be worth monitoring (has anyone posted the list on LT I could link to?):
100 Best Books of the 21st Century.
