Summer is a time of getting round to doing those things that you never got round to doing. Like eating better, taking a vacation, joining a CSA and of course, reading (and re-reading) those books that you've always meant to read. Here's my summer reading list:
White Noise by Don Delillo
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fuwang lent me this book years ago, and I've been meaning to finish it ever since. I keep starting and starting over again. This time I think it will take. I'm in just the right kind of mental place for a snarky postmodern apocalyptic romp.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
I've always thought that I should read something by Octavia Butler, one of the more celebrated authors whose speculative fiction that deals with issues of queerness and race. I've started on Parable of the Sower and am liking it so far.
The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
I read this during a phase in high school where I was reading almost anything I could get my hands on that was about or set in San Francisco. I was also going through a Samuel Beckett phase. I think I was caught in a place where I was delighting in the brutal fact that there was nothing other than this absurd life, but also sublimating my internalized need for a heaven (thanks largely to Christian primary and secondary school education) into a mythic San Francisco where gay beat poets made free love all day and all night in bay windows with views of the golden gate bridge. This book was one of my favorites from that period of my life, and I want to re-read it now to see how I react to it having now lived in the bay area for almost 10 years.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
I haven't read this since high school, and I want to revisit it. It was the first Shakespeare play that I read without taking a class on it, and I loved taking my own time and developing ideas about the play that I could keep to myself instead of having to trot them out for the approval of an instructor or my peers.
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
One of the if not the biggest (in size) book in our house as a child. I was impressed that my mother read the whole thing, and even more impressed that somebody with a clearly Asian name could write such a huge novel and have it be a bestseller. I think it's time for me to read it. Also I think I might be ready for a South Asian/diaspora writers phase, and this and The Golden Gate might be just the thing to jumpstart that.
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
I've loved everything else she has written, and also, South Asian writers phase.
Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton
I'm almost done with this and just need to finish it. Some non-fiction also to round out my list.
Secret Identities edited by Jeff Yang, Jerry Ma, Keith Chow, and Parry Shen
I've been meaning to pick up a copy of this for a while. I like comics and I'm interested in the minds of straight Asian American men (I think these editors are all straight. Someone correct me if I'm wrong).
Tags: book, list, lists, summer
