What are you reading?
Talk Bennington MFA
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2marych First Message
Betsy Cox The Slow Moon--last book I bought
Fifty Acres and a Poodle Jeanne Marie Laskas--funny creative nonfiction--recommended by one of my students
Sherwood AndersonThe Egg and Other Stories
also found a great little used bookstore in Appomatox VA so went on a Graham Greene rereading binge--including his autobiography which i hadn't read before Ways of Escape
glad we're here. thanks oona for starting it.
mary carroll-hackett (june 03)
Fifty Acres and a Poodle Jeanne Marie Laskas--funny creative nonfiction--recommended by one of my students
Sherwood AndersonThe Egg and Other Stories
also found a great little used bookstore in Appomatox VA so went on a Graham Greene rereading binge--including his autobiography which i hadn't read before Ways of Escape
glad we're here. thanks oona for starting it.
mary carroll-hackett (june 03)
3oona
I'm reading Paul Fussell's Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars--lots of Graham Greene mentions. It's from 1980, but not as dated as I expected it would be.
And in the now-for-something-completely-different category--am reading Stephen Hawking's Theory of Everything. The type of thing Bennington never gave me time for.
And in the now-for-something-completely-different category--am reading Stephen Hawking's Theory of Everything. The type of thing Bennington never gave me time for.
4kathrynmargaret First Message
I'm reading The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, a memoir of a very unusual childhood traipsing around the US with unconventional parents who now are homeless and living in NYC where Jeanette, who lives on Park Avenue, occasionally sees them picking through trash. So far fascinating.
Re-read Siddartha yesterday, a yearly read. This time I really skimmed through the story/narrative movements focusing on the kernals of wisdom, the great Om.
Just finished the fascinating true-crime memoir Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz, a Yale alum who survived a brutal attack in 1977 while on a xcountry bike trip with a classmate. I find her persistance in the search for the attacker, who was never brought to justice, inspiring if exhausting. The search is a model for me for story-telling, problem-solving, taking a pursuit to the nth degree. She really leads us well through the process, taking roads into the investigation then coming back to a short narrative of where "we" are. Then she forays out again. Very brave work.
Also just finished Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen, an historical true crime about an osteopath in Oregon, early 1900s, who kills several patients with her fasting cure, which was developed to cure everything. She prayed on several foreigners who had no dependents and pillaged their belongings and bank accounts.
Summer reading. I'm on vacation!
Re-read Siddartha yesterday, a yearly read. This time I really skimmed through the story/narrative movements focusing on the kernals of wisdom, the great Om.
Just finished the fascinating true-crime memoir Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz, a Yale alum who survived a brutal attack in 1977 while on a xcountry bike trip with a classmate. I find her persistance in the search for the attacker, who was never brought to justice, inspiring if exhausting. The search is a model for me for story-telling, problem-solving, taking a pursuit to the nth degree. She really leads us well through the process, taking roads into the investigation then coming back to a short narrative of where "we" are. Then she forays out again. Very brave work.
Also just finished Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen, an historical true crime about an osteopath in Oregon, early 1900s, who kills several patients with her fasting cure, which was developed to cure everything. She prayed on several foreigners who had no dependents and pillaged their belongings and bank accounts.
Summer reading. I'm on vacation!
5lmccfreeman First Message
While in England this past June, haunting used bookstores as usual, I stumbled across a book called, "The Provincial Lady Goes Further" by EM Delafield. I had read an article about these books from the 30's (can't remember where), so I bought it. Now I'm addicted. EM Delafield brilliantly depicts her life in the English countryside in the 30's. The tone is perfect and deeply funny. Seems she did a series of these books, so I backtracked and am reading the first one now. Can't wait to collect them all!!
6oona
I ran across this article on aldaily.com today and just wanted to post the link:
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=t9njsx5xymsf78726rtsll5c7403tt8m
To quote a little bit:
"That might sound like an oddly particular expectation. Shouldn't I have hoped — in a broader, more catholic vein — for smart classmates, literate classmates, humane classmates? Well, yes. That would be nice. But if you had asked me what trait I wanted them to share, a trait that in my experience had served as a useful metonymy for the kind of people I want to grab a drink with after work, the trait would be "subscribes to, or just reads in the library, literate, intellectual quarterlies and book reviews." I could find smart, thoughtful, fun, sexy, hilarious people in other precincts of life. What I had never found concentrated in one place were New York Review-type readers.
But after six years in graduate school, I didn't know more than three other students who regularly read journals like that. I later realized that there were a few more of us, other students seeking not just an intensively specialized education but also a community of what used to be called dilettantes. Two of those students, whom I did not know well in graduate school, went on to found n+1, a journal that deliberately gestures toward the Partisan Review of yore, and I now edit such a journal. But even if there had been a hundred of us, we wouldn't have been able to identify each other. The community never cohered . . . "
I'd thought I'd have to go back to academia to find such people--but even there it sounds a little sparse. Anyone ever hear of a book group that just discussed articles?
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=t9njsx5xymsf78726rtsll5c7403tt8m
To quote a little bit:
"That might sound like an oddly particular expectation. Shouldn't I have hoped — in a broader, more catholic vein — for smart classmates, literate classmates, humane classmates? Well, yes. That would be nice. But if you had asked me what trait I wanted them to share, a trait that in my experience had served as a useful metonymy for the kind of people I want to grab a drink with after work, the trait would be "subscribes to, or just reads in the library, literate, intellectual quarterlies and book reviews." I could find smart, thoughtful, fun, sexy, hilarious people in other precincts of life. What I had never found concentrated in one place were New York Review-type readers.
But after six years in graduate school, I didn't know more than three other students who regularly read journals like that. I later realized that there were a few more of us, other students seeking not just an intensively specialized education but also a community of what used to be called dilettantes. Two of those students, whom I did not know well in graduate school, went on to found n+1, a journal that deliberately gestures toward the Partisan Review of yore, and I now edit such a journal. But even if there had been a hundred of us, we wouldn't have been able to identify each other. The community never cohered . . . "
I'd thought I'd have to go back to academia to find such people--but even there it sounds a little sparse. Anyone ever hear of a book group that just discussed articles?
