books read from sept. 2005 to dec. 2012
[+ a few attempts at restarting]
sept/oct 05
menand – the metaphysical club
schlink – the reader
nabokov – lolita
mccullers – the heart is a lonely hunter
salinger – franny & zooey
erickson – tours of the black clock
adler – pitch dark
adler – speedboat
duras – the lover
duras – the sailor from gibraltor
gaiman – anansi boys
huxley – the genius & the goddess
bach – jonathan livingston seagull
dostoyevsky – the brothers karamazov
hesse – siddhartha
the bhagavad gita
nov 05
sartre – nausea
woolf – to the lighthouse
euripides – the bacchae & other plays (ion / women of troy / helen / bacchae)
sacher-masoch – venus in furs
miller – death of a salesman
coetzee – life & times of michael k
kesey – one flew over the cuckoo’s nest
vonnegut – god bless you, mr. rosewater
wiesel – night
dec 05
bradbury – the martian chronicles
lewis – a grief observed
duras – the sailor from gibraltor [repeat]
duras – yann andrea steiner
capote – in cold blood
sedaris – dress your family in corduroy & denim
dostoyevsky – crime & punishment
hoeg – borderliners [repeat]
nothomb – fear and trembling
hesse – demian
lao tsu – tao te ching
beckett – waiting for godot
jan 06
woolf – a room of one’s own
cogwell – chomsky for beginners
adler – pitch dark [repeat]
salinger – nine stories
levin – mercury
raab – the probable world
carson – glass, irony & god
palmer – sartre for beginners [repeat]
gaiman – smoke and mirrors
duras – four novels
wilde – the picture of dorian gray
smith – white teeth
thompson – kingdom of fear
feb 06
vonnegut – welcome to the monkey house
houellebecq – the elementary particles
robbins – skinny legs and all
nugent – elliott smith and the big nothing
lewis – the screwtape letters
lethem – men and cartoons
carre – the constant gardener
williams – the glass menagerie
gide – the immoralist
marquez – chronicle of a death foretold
mar 06
salinger – raise high the roof beam, carpenters / seymour – an introduction
ellis – less than zero [repeat]
erdrich – tracks
duras – the north china lover
camus – the stranger
schlink – flights of love
byars – the burning questions of bingo brown [ya]
agee – the morning watch
mcinerney – bright lights, big city
ishiguro – an artist of the floating world
turgenev – fathers and sons
delillo – white noise
chekhov – the major plays (ivanov, seagull, uncle v, 3 sisters, cherry orchard)
apr 06
haslett – you are not a stranger here
dostoyevsky – the best short stories
roy – the god of small things
alexie – the lone ranger & tonto fistfight in heaven
johnson – the middle passage
may 06
hornby (ed.) – speaking with the angel
byars – bingo brown & the language of love [ya]
michaels – fugitive pieces
palahniuk – choke
lahiri – interpreter of maladies
dillard – for the time being
palahniuk – fugitives and refugees
cormier – i am the cheese [repeat]
huxley – brave new world
hamilton – a map of the world
jun 06
coupland – shampoo planet
englander – for the relief of unbearable urges
haskell – i am not jackson pollock.
tolstoy – anna karenina
beckett – endgame
kundera – the unbearable lightness of being
jul 06
dunn – geek love
card – ender’s game
smith – the autograph man
chabon – the final solution
erdrich – tales of burning love
carroll – the wooden sea
aug 06
lightman – einstein’s dreams
matthews – philosophy & the young child
stoppard – arcadia
adler – pitch dark [repeat]
o’connor – everything that rises must converge
stoppard – the real thing
johnson – already dead
erickson – the sea came in at midnight
erickson – our ecstatic days
kundera – identity
jin – war trash
cameron – drinking to kindness
o’connor – wise blood
sep 06
chabon – the amazing adventures of kavalier & clay
solzhenitsyn – one day in the life of ivan denisovich
palahniuk – diary
barry – jennifer government
coupland – generation x
wagner & locke – a history of violence [gn]
hamilton – the book of ruth
gunn – rain
jones – cold snap
moore & lloyd – v for vendetta [gn]
auburn – proof
flaubert – madame bovary
ondaatje – coming through slaughter
lethem – motherless brooklyn
oct 06
gaiman – coraline [ya]
palahniuk – lullaby
salinger – nine stories [repeat]
cunningham – the hours
shanley – doubt
cambor – in sunlight, in a beautiful garden
haskell – american purgatorio
rilke – stories of god
edson – wit
ondaatje – in the skin of a lion
doseone – the pelt
pamuk – snow
nov 06
prose – a changed man
wolfe – the electric kool-aid acid test
dillard – teaching a stone to talk
blake – the marriage of heaven and hell
fussel – class: a guide through the american status system
rushdie – midnight’s children
lethem – gun, with occasional music
ondaatje – anil’s ghost
ondaatje – the collected works of billy the kid
klosterman – killing yourself to live
dec 06
russel – the sparrow
lewis – a grief observed [repeat]
ondaatje – the english patient
dostoyevsky – the idiot [trans. pevear & volokhonsky]
ondaatje – running in the family
ondaatje – handwriting
jan 07
balliett & helquist – chasing vermeer [ya]
duras – the sailor from gibraltar [repeat]
picoult – my sister’s keeper
lewis – main street
lahiri – the namesake
ondaatje – the cinnamon peeler
russel – children of god
lansens – the girls
gogol – the overcoat & the nose
eliot & gorey – old possum’s book of practical cats
feb 07
atwood – alias grace
ozick – heir to the glimmering world
orwell – keep the aspidistra flying
smith – on beauty
mar 07
mcewan – atonement
shelley – frankenstein
chabon – the mysteries of pittsburgh
clarke – jonathan strange & mr. norrell
proust – swann’s way
carroll – alice’s adventures in wonderland & through the looking glass
coleridge – rime of the ancient mariner
haddon – the curious incident of the dog in the night-time
flaubert – a simple heart
apr 07
murakami – after the quake
gogol – the collected tales of nikolai gogol [trans. pevear & volokhonsky]
duras – two by duras (the slut of the normandy coast, the atlantic man)
duras – the war, a memoir
snicket – a series of unfortunate events #1, a bad beginning [ya]
snicket – a series of unfortunate events #2, the reptile room [ya]
paz – an erotic beyond: sade
gaiman + mckean – mr. punch [gn]
hofstadter – what is it like to be a strange loop? [essay]
duras – destroy, she said
sophocles – philoctetes
may 07
mcewan – amsterdam
aeschylus – agamemnon
choldenko – al capone does my shirts [ya]
pynchon – the crying of lot 49
goethe – the sorrows of young werther
redhill – martin sloane
fromm – night swimming
jun 07
atwood – oryx and crake
snicket – a series of unfortunate events #3, the wide window [ya]
chekhov – the complete short novels [trans. pevear & volokhonsky]
sagan – idlewild
gilbert – refusing heaven
gogol – dead souls, volume i [trans. pevear & volokhonsky]
jul 07
gogol – dead souls, volume ii [trans. pevear & volokhonsky]
bulgakov – the master and margarita [trans. pevear & volokhonsky]
snicket – a serious of unfortunate events #4, the miserable mill [ya]
roy – the cost of living
aug 07
russell – a thread of grace
moore – lamb
erdrich – the master butchers singing club
hiaasen – hoot [ya]
snicket – a series of unfortunate events #5, the austere academy [ya]
flaubert – the temptation of st. anthony
gorey – the unstrung harp
crace – being dead
eggers – a heartbreaking work of staggering genius
fox – desperate characters
sep 07 // wk 139 hrs
sagan – edenborn
camus – the fall
saramago – blindness
lethem – the disappointment artist
turgenev – a month in the country
nabokov – pnin
july – no one belongs here more than you.
klosterman – klosterman iv
dostoyevsky – the eternal husband and other stories [trans. pevear & volokhonsky]
eliot – murder in the cathedral
oct 07 // wk 143 hrs
prose – the peaceable kingdom
voltaire – candide and other stories
mahfouz – akhenaten, dweller in truth
camus – the plague
camus – the fall [repeat]
graham – overlord
roth – everyman
hornby – a long way down
erickson – rubicon beach [repeat]
coetzee – slow man
miller & gibbons – give me liberty [gn]
gaiman & zulli – the last temptation [gn]
nov 07 // wk 152.5 hrs
dumas – the three musketeers [trans. pevear & volokhonsky]
erickson – zeroville
moliere – tartuffe
carson – decreation
shteyngart – absurdistan
camus – exile and the kingdom
camus – reflections on the guillotine
dick – valis
marquez – the general in his labyrinth
sagan – everfree
eggers – what is the what
haskell – i am not jackson pollock. [repeat]
dec 07 // wk 205.5 hrs
chekhov – stories [trans. pevear & volokhonsky]
gide – madeleine (et nunc manet in te)
kelly – song
beckett – mercier and camier
jan 08 // wk 235 hrs
fitch – white oleander
kelly – the orchard
fox – poor george
duras – the ravishing of lol stein
plato – meno
maxwell – so long, see you tomorrow
plato – charmides
mcewan – saturday
dostoyevsky – the double & the gambler [trans. pevear & volokhonsky]
duras – the lover [repeat]
feb 08 // wk 218 hrs
bowler – midget [ya]
hass – praise
levis – elegy
borges – collected fictions [trans. andrew hurley]
mar 08 // wk 237 hrs
johnson – tree of smoke
mccarthy – the sunset limited
mccarthy – no country for old men
beckett – happy days
apr 08 // wk 246.5 hrs
snicket – a series of unfortunate events #6, the ersatz elevator [ya]
hofstadter – i am a strange loop
snicket – a series of unfortunate events #7, the vile village [ya]
aczel – the mystery of the aleph: mathematics, the kabbalah, and the search for infinity
duras – summer rain
aeschylus – eumenides
siken – crush
may 08 // wk 222 hrs
woolf – mrs. dalloway
marquez – of love and other demons
dostoyevsky – demons [trans. pevear & volokhonsky]
macleish – j.b.
austen – pride & prejudice
hicklin (ed.) – the revolution will be accessorized
erickson – days between stations
jun 08 // wk 168 hrs
robinson – housekeeping
austen – sense & sensibility
beckett – krapp’s last tape
beckett – cascando
beckett – eh joe
morrison & janson – batman gothic [gn]
robinson – gilead
jul 08 // wk 135 hrs
duras – blue eyes, black hair
chabon – gentlemen of the road
adiga – the white tiger
palahniuk – rant: an oral biography of buster casey
roy – an ordinary person’s guide to empire
barsamian – louder than bombs: interviews from the progressive magazine
aug 08 // wk 116 hrs
hammett – the maltese falcon
moore & gibbons – watchmen [gn]
hass – time and materials
moore & campbell – from hell [gn]
miller & gibbons – martha washington dies [gn]
cohen – book of longing
sep 08 // wk 236.5 hrs
de bernieres – the war of don emmanuel’s nether parts
aeschylus – prometheus bound
aeschylus – the libation bearers / choephori
euripides – hippolytus
la rochefoucauld – maxims
conrad – heart of darkness
aristophanes – clouds
oct 08 // wk 248 hrs
wakefield – human parts of me want to eat the flowers off of trees
plato – crito
plato – apology
gallagher – instructions to the double
plato – gorgias
buckler – storm drunk
ferlinghetti – a coney island of the mind
euripides – medea
frank – alas, babylon
nov 08 // wk 210 hrs
plato – symposium
shiva – stolen harvest
woolf – jacob’s room
wright – deepstep come shining
dec 08 // wk 183 hrs
euripides – grief lessons: four plays (alkestis, herakles, hekabe, hippolytus) [trans. anne carson]
garnett – lady into fox
sophocles – oedipus the king
haeg – edible estates: attack on the front lawn
arendt – on violence
david – nalda said
jan 09 // wk 185 hrs
snicket – a series of unfortunate events #8, the hostile hospital [ya]
duras – hiroshima mon amour
sophocles – oedipus at colonus
murakami – after dark
mccarthy – child of god
snicket – a series of unfortunate events #9, the carnivorous carnival [ya]
whitefield – permaculture in a nutshell
feb 09 // wk 186 hrs
duras – the north china lover [repeat]
chabon – the yiddish policemen’s union
duras – emily l. [repeat]
camus – the stranger [repeat]
duras – no more
ibsen – four major plays (doll’s house, ghosts, hedda gabler, the master builder)
ibsen – love’s comedy
mar 09 // wk 236 hrs
roy – war talk
weil – waiting for god
james – daisy miller
haskell – out of my skin
milosz – fourteen poems
carver – a new path to the waterfall
austen – lady susan
didion – the year of magical thinking
apr 09 // wk 203.5 hrs
woolf – between the acts
woolf – flush: a biography
woolf – night and day
tsunetomo – hagakure
may 09 // wk 202.5 hrs
arnold – shells [repeat?]
strand – reasons for moving
sagan & hofstadter – that mad ache [trans. dh] / translator, trader
arnold – made flesh
connelly – the book of lost things
christensen – alphabet
williams – something cloudy, something clear
delillo – the body artist
jun 09
delillo – valparaiso
abe – the woman in the dunes
dick – the man in the high castle
hickman – the nightly news #1 & #2 [gn]
mcdougal – born to run
jul 09
simic – sixty poems
sophocles – aias (ajax) [trans. pevear & golder]
hornby – shakespeare wrote for money
kundera – the curtain
aug 09
nabokov – the defense
mcewan – on chesil beach
thoreau – civil disobedience & other essays
pollan – the botany of desire
aeschylus – agamemnon [repeat]
aeschylus – the libation bearers [repeat]
sep 09 // wk 83.5 hrs // 16 crd
aeschylus – the eumenides [repeat]
plato – euthyphro
euripides – orestes
melville – billy budd
oct 09 // wk 78 hrs // 16 crd
erickson – amnesiascope
garnett – aspects of love
moliere – the imaginary invalid
dostoyevsky – crime and punishment [repeat]
nov 09 // wk 79.5 hrs // 16 crd
fraction, brubaker, aja – the immortal iron fist, #1-7 [gn]
bastiat – the law
simic – that little something
dec 09// wk 51 hrs // 16 crd
eggers – how the water feels to the fishes
duras – practicalities
tolle – a new earth
arendt – eichmann in jerusalem
fitzgerald – the book shop
manguso – hard to admit and harder to escape
unferth – minor robberies
jan 10 // wk 82 hrs // 21 crd
mamet – cryptogram
shakespeare – othello [repeat]
sartre – existentialism and human emotions
feb 10 // wk 77.5 hrs // 21 crd
shakespeare – the taming of the shrew
sappho – if not, winter: fragments of sappho [trans. carson]
pollan – food rules
woolf – freshwater
mar 10 // wk 78 hrs // 21 crd
tadic – dark things [trans. simic]
aristotle – poetics [trans. sachs]
volkman – spar
shakespeare – richard ii
dickman – the end of the west
glenum – the hounds of no
shakespeare – henry iv, pt 1
apr 10 // wk hrs // 18 crd
wakefield – unsleep’s village
duras – writing
shakespeare – henry iv, pt 2
shakespeare – henry v
shakespeare – richard iii
may 10 // wk hrs // 15 crd
cole – best-loved folktales of the world
toelken – the dynamics of folklore
propp – morphology of the folktale
mark – the babies
nabokov – invitation to a beheading
lessing – nathan the wise
mark – tsim tsum
jun 10 // wk hrs // 15 crd
marx (& engels) – the communist manifesto [repeat]
fulbrook – a concise history of germany
lahiri – unaccustomed earth
derrida – on cosmopolitanism and forgiveness
gladman – juice
jul 10 // wk hrs // 15 crd
saint exupery – the little prince [repeat]
gilbert – the dance most of all
loncar – 66 galaxie
gladman – to after that (toaf)
millet – the sexual life of catherine m.
aug 10 // wk hrs // 16 crd
lévi-strauss – myth and meaning
tadic – dark things [trans. simic] [repeat]
hempel – reasons to live
richie – the truth about diamonds
mccullers – the ballad of the sad café and other stories
tadic – night mail: selected poems [trans. simic]
gregg – too bright to see
sep 10 // wk hrs // 16 crd
beowulf [trans. heaney]
strauss – half a life
sir gawain & the green knight
wakefield – the void of course moon [aloud]
everyman
the seagull reader: poems
sophocles – oedipus rex [trans. young] [repeat]
oct 10 // wk hrs // 16 crd
woolf – orlando [aloud]
shakespeare – king lear
beauvoir – a very easy death
marlowe – dr. faustus
nov 10 // wk hrs // 16 crd
sartre – existentialism is a humanism
lao tzu – tao te ching [trans. star] [repeat]
dec 10 // wk hrs // 16 crd
defoe – robinson crusoe
the seagull reader: stories
the norton anthology of english literature (selections)
hughes – christian america and the kingdom of god
unferth – vacation
jan 11 // wk hrs // 26 crd
proulx – brokeback mountain
harris – letter to a christian nation
machen – the great god pan
russell – the devil: perceptions of evil from antiquity to primitive christianity
kafka – the metamorphosis [repeat]
machen – the hill of dreams
feb 11 // wk hrs // 26 crd
douglass – narrative of the life of frederick douglass, an american slave
blackwood – julius levallon: an episode
chekhov – the cherry orchard [repeat]
blackwood – the centaur
mar 11 // wk hrs // 26 crd
calvino – if on a winter’s night a traveler
russell – satan: the early christian tradition
apr 11 // wk hrs // 23 crd
dante – inferno
james – pragmatism
freud – civilization and its discontents
campbell – a brief introduction to the philosophy of mind
swensen – magic kingdom [draft]
yeats – selected poems and four plays
yeats – per amica silentia lunae
may 11 // wk hrs // 23 crd
fortune – the demon lover
stowe – uncle tom’s cabin
sartre – transcendence of the ego
milton – paradise lost
shaw – pygmalion
woolf – the london scene: six essays on london life
chekhov – the cherry orchard [repeat]
jun 11 // london // 6 crd
woolf – moments of being
woolf – orlando [repeat]
woolf – mrs. dalloway [repeat]
shakespeare – as you like it [repeat]
gay – the beggar’s opera
jul 11 // wk hrs // 6 crd
hazzard – the transit of venus
packer – drinking coffee elsewhere
aug 11 // wk hrs // 16 crd
mcewan – the comfort of strangers
marquez – memories of my melancholy whores
nabokov – laughter in the dark
sep 11 // wk hrs // 16 crd
nabokov – transparent things
nabokov – transparent things [repeat]
oct 11 // wk hrs // 16 crd
nabokov – the real life of sebastian knight
nov 11 // wk hrs // 16 crd
nabokov – bend sinister
nabokov – the eye
dec 11 // wk hrs // 16 crd
carson – nox
rich – diving into the wreck
duras – the sea wall
nabokov – despair
jan 12 // 27 crd
markson – this is not a novel
delillo – mao ii
dillard – the writing life
winckelmann – reflections on the imitation of greek works in painting & sculpture
minoru – a corpse with feet
poe – the detective stories of edgar allen poe
plath – the bell jar
doyle – the hound of the baskervilles
camus – the stranger [repeat]
lessing – laocoon: an essay upon the limits of painting & poetry
christie – the mysterious affair at styles
yuknavitch – the chronology of water
feb 12 // 27 crd
hammett – red harvest
acker – kathy goes to haiti
chandler – the big sleep
hegel – introduction to the philosophy of history
crews – a childhood: the biography of a place
schiller – on the aesthetic education of man
schlegel – on the study of greek poetry
camus – myth of sisyphus [repeat]
himes – cotton comes to harlem
sartre – existentialism is a humanism [repeat]
mar 12 // 27 crd
sartre – nausea [repeat]
sartre – no exit
thompson – the killer inside me
tillman – american genius, a comedy
hölderlin – the death of empedocles
wakefield – the honeys trinity
carrington – the hearing trumpet
nabokov – transparent things [repeat]
apr 12 // 27 crd
highsmith – the talented mr. ripley
delillo – mao ii [repeat]
auster – city of glass
duras – the war [repeat]
lethem – gun, with occasional music [repeat]
wittig – les guerilleres
dunn – geek love [repeat]
nietzsche – on the advantage & disadvantage of history for life
marx – selected writings
derrida – voice & phenomenon [trans. lawlor]
may 12 // 27 crd
schelling – the philosophy of art
stein – the fallback plan
jun 12 // 3 crd
collins & pinch – dr. golem: how to think about medicine
beauchamp & childress – principles of biomedical ethics
murphy – case studies in biomedical research ethics
jul 12
erickson – these dreams of you
aug 12 // 19 crd
stein – dispatch from the future
huxley – ape & essence
spark – the girls of slender means
sep 12 // 19 crd
jones – in parenthesis
orwell – homage to catalonia
woolf – three guineas
nietzsche – on the advantage & disadvantage of history for life [repeat]
hamilton – hangover square
oct 12 // 19 crd
eliot – four quartets
plato – five dialogues
nietzsche – on the genealogy of morals
priestly – they came to a city
nov 12 // 19 crd
green – back
aristotle – de anima
aristotle – nicomachean ethics
dec 12 // 19 crd
narayan – waiting for the mahatma
whitman – complete poetry & prose
empiricus – selections from the major writings on skepticism, man, and god
jan 13
hannah – ray
adler – pitch dark [repeat]
[abandoned]
jun 14
powell – dance night
powell – come back to sorrento
powell – turn, magic wheel
jul 14
powell – angels on toast
powell – my home is far away
aug 14
powell – the locusts have no king
powell – the wicked pavilion
powell – the golden spur
sep 14
chopin – the awakening [repeat]
[abandoned]
jun 15
dworkin – alkali
toomer – cane [repeat]
[abandoned]
oct 17
mccarthy – the counselor
fernandes – transmitter and receiver [repeat]
[gn] = graphic novel / comic
[ya] = young adult
[repeat] = read previously
[aloud] = entire work read aloud
JESSICA HALLOCK 