Summer reading? What do you have your eye on?

Summer holidays swiftly approaching--any good summer reads out there that folks are eagerly anticipating?

For me, I'm going to tackle the new Lee Child, 61 HOURS--along with Michael Connelly, this is about as trashy as I can manage.

http://www.leechild.com/61HRS.php

Think I'll also take the opportunity of re-reading some Thomas Pynchon novels. It's been awhile since I cracked one of them and I've done a lot of growing up (I hope) since. A fresh perspective should offer new insights...

I have my summer reading project for my blog, "Atlas Summer," rereading Atlas Shrugged amidst our current economic catastrophe.

I also want to read some more Kathy Acker and revisit Pynchon with Against the Day

I'm finishing Robin Hobb's Soldier's Son trilogy. I also have a bootleg copy of Infinite Jest on the Kindle. And I've been thinking about digging into some of the classic scifi that I've somehow never read, like The Stars My Destination.

I'd really like to get to The Known World this summer, as well as Super Sad True Love Story and finally Song of Time, which has been sitting around for too long.

The Three Fates by Linda Le (new novel from New Directions) and Three Delays by Charlie Smith (see Rick Moody's review in the Believer) are on my list.

From the Moody review: “Three Delays is so stunningly composed, so wildly, implausibly, excessively written, that it makes the entire shelf of novels from the last generation superfluous."

My summer reading project will be three quintets: Doris Lessing's Canopus in Argos Archives, Gwyneth Jones' Bold as Love Cycle, and L Timmel Duchamp's Marq'ssan Cycle.

Yeesh, you ask this right after my order from the Dalkey Archive Press summer sale has arrived. Lots of experimental fiction, I guess haha.

Good luck with the Lessing. I've read some of her short fiction but her full-length efforts appeal to me not at all.

Oh, I forgot to add, I've got Cliff's new book in my queue as well.

Well, SO DARK THE NIGHT is easier reading than INFINITE JEST, I'll tell you that...

I would like to read MY NAME IS MARY SUTTER.

Didn't Lessing write THE GRASS IS SINGING? I really enjoyed THE GRASS IS SINGING.

#11 Good to know. I started IJ once, and didn't really find it hard at all, but I refused to read it in a physical copy. Too bulky, even in paperback.

I've read Ulysses twice and Gravity's Rainbow 3 1/2 times. I think I can deal.

edited for clarity

Ah, you'll be fine. And IJ is a real forearm exercise, all right...

Matterhorn and the last book in the hunger games sequence which comes out in August.

I actually wrote Wallace a letter after reading Infinite Jest, somewhere in which I mentioned how much his book hurt my forearm. Got an answer, by the way.

I don't read more Shakespeare to this day--and I know how this sounds--because I have the Riverside and can't bear to heft it up inside my myopia.

REAL authors answer their fan mail. Good on Dave: he will be missed.

Just ordered Samuel Beckett's WATT and L.F. Celine's LONDON BRIDGE. With all the editing I have ahead of me, those two novels could constitute my summer reading. God help me...

from #14

>I've read Ulysses twice and Gravity's Rainbow 3 1/2 times. I think I can deal.

*faints

I just read Portrait Of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses and I've attempted Gravity's Rainbow (just wasn't in the mood for it at that time). While I enjoyed Joyce, I must admit that I think you are a masochist, littlegeek.

I'm now reading The Illuminatus Trilogy. I need some trash after reading two Joyce novels back to back.

#20 Not at all, I enjoyed every minute. And the last time I attempted GR, when I got bored somewhere in the middle (too much wandering around Peenmunde I think), I just bailed. And I have to confess, I think I've only read the skat scene once. Once was enough. (Ditto the nose job in V.)

I'm entrenched in Atlas Shrugged -- I figure this is the perfect economic climate to take down Rand's screed. But all the talk of money and such now has me craving to read JR by William Gaddis.

I'm not supposed to admit this, but I'm having trouble staying with Tinkers. For the beach, I'm taking a good mystery/thriller, Ashes to Water. Early reviews have been very good, and I'd like to support a "new voice."

#2 Karl, I can't wait for your comments this summer. With regards to Agsainst the Day, I am totally lost. There is plenty of support for all the gory details. For example, these extensive annotations are available:

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

However, the characters and plot are currrently driving me stark raving mad.

To think I once bragged that I read Ulysses... once. I'm so far behind in my reading lifetime that I've never returned to a book. That will change really soon.