Here's what I have lined up to start my reading year:
→ MAN IN THE WOODS by Scott Spencer - I put this book on my list for December but didn't get to it then. I started it yesterday and had to drag myself away after 50 pages in order to get other things done. This is going to be a gripping but distressing read.
→ THE MARRIAGE PLOT by Jeffrey Eugenides - I'm often hesitant to read the books that all the literary media goes crazy over, because I'm contrary like that. But I received this book as a holiday present, and since I loved Eugenides's previous book, MIDDLESEX, there's no good reason to avoid this one. It's partly set at Brown University in the early 1980s, and I must admit I'm curious about that, since I attended college there, though over a decade later.
→ FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley - Shelley is the Honored Ghost (posthumous honored guest, you see) at this year's FOGcon, the speculative literature convention that I had so much fun at last year. I believe I read FRANKENSTEIN many years ago (actually, I have a feeling I read about three quarters of it), but I don't remember it well, so I thought I'd read it again. Then I should probably read some more recent works relevant to this year's FOGcon theme, The Body.
→ THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN'S UNION by Michael Chabon - Selected semi-randomly from the large collection of books I own but haven't read. It has a great alternative history premise: After World War II, a Jewish state was set up in Alaska. I'm curious to see where that idea goes, and this will be my first Chabon novel.
2 comments:
I loved _The Yiddish Policeman's Union_. I read it quite some time ago, and in spite of my terrible memory, I still feel like the world he created is completely real. In fact, I was briefly in Alaska since then, and Chabon's creation takes up about as much space in my head as the real thing, maybe more. Yay for imaginative fiction.
I have _Frankenstein_ in my phone, and it's next on my phone list (heh) after I finish _Don Quixote_. I saw a great stage version of it, which is what got me interested in reading the book.
Henri, now I'm even more excited about reading THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION!
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