reading adventures, 2008
So yes, I’m pretty damn proud of this list, if I may say so myself. After the dismal reading year that was 2007 (exactly 13 titles), it was my New Years Resolution last year that I was going to double that number over the course of 2008. Well, I accomplished that, and then some. And already on course in 2009 to go way above and beyond that…
But more than that, last year I feel in love with reading again–and that, of course, is the most important thing.
* denotes a poetry collection
…
The Trojan Women - Euripides
Homosexuality and Civilization - Louis Crompton
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
The Blithedale Romance - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Three Sisters - Anton Chekhov
The Celluloid Closet - Vito Russo
Beowulf
Ecclesiastes
Movie Wars - Jonathan Rosenbaum
Autobiography of Red* – Anne Carson
If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho* – Anne Carson
As You Like It - William Shakespeare
Moving Places: A Life at the Movies - Jonathan Rosenbaum
The Beauty of the Husband* – Anne Carson
A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway
Uncensored: Views and (Re)Views - Joyce Carol Oates
The Wasteland and Other Poems - T.S. Eliot
Kora and Ka (with Mira-Mare) - h.d.
Les enfants terribles - Jean Cocteau
Sexual Personae - Camille Paglia
Sex, Art and American Culture - Camille Paglia
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
The White Paper - Jean Cocteau
Say Uncle: Poems* – Kay Ryan
The Bell - Iris Murdoch
Vamps and Tramps - Camille Paglia
The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973 – 1982 - Joyce Carol Oates
The Profane Art: Essays and Reviews - Joyce Carol Oates
Catcher in the Rye (re-read)- J.D. Salinger
With Love and Squalor: 14 Writers Respond to J.D. Salinger - K. Kotzen and T. Beller, eds.
Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall - Richard Barrios
Dancing Ledge - Derek Jarman
Something Bright, Then Holes* – Maggie Nelson
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Seven Notebooks: Poems* – Campbell Mcgrath
The Art of Memoir: Then, Again - Sven Birkerts
The Holy Innocents: A Romance - Gilbert Adair
Sea Change* – Jorie Graham
Stroke: Poems* – Sidney Wade
A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930 – 1960 - Jeanine Basinger
Rock Harbor* – Carl Phillips
Art and Sex in Greenwich Village: A Memoir of Gay Literary Life after Stonewall - Felice Picano
Watching the Spring Festival: Poems* – Frank Bidart
The Lost Saranac Interviews: Forgotten Conversations with Famous Writers - Joe David Bellamy, ed.
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist - Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Against Interpretation - Susan Sontag
Arkansas: Three Novellas - David Leavitt
The Tether* – Carl Phillips
The Witches - Roald Dahl
Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles - Katie Roiphe
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Franweiler - E.L. Konigsburg
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
An Acceptable Time - Madeleine L’Engle
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
…
The books immediately ushered onto my “most-loved” list: Autobiography of Red, Journal of Joyce Carol Oates, Brideshead Revisited, Against Interpretation, Little Women.
Honorable Mentions: As You Like It, Sexual Personae, Les enfants terribles, The Name of the Rose, Say Uncle: Poems.
I love your reading list, you’ve covered a lot of ground there between classical literature and evolution of sexuality… think I’ll take a leaf out of your book =)
Thanks, Dean. Those were definitely two areas I particularly focused on last year, and have continued with it this year as well. Good luck with your own reading adventures in 2009!
-jesse
I have read only THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY and THE WITCHES. I also like the film THE WITCHES (1990, Nicolas Roeg), though it has a different ending from the novel. Sometimes I think I like the cruelty or the cruel fate in Roald Dahl’s stories. Sometimes I think he was too cruel.