Sunday, December 12, 2010

10 Books and 10 books

There are some books I can't seem to escape. A lot of them are novels that I teach or that I work with in the course of my own studies. I tend to choose books to teach and to work with that have been important to me. This is a short list of 10 books that I will read again this year. They have shaped me as a person and they have shaped my intellectual interests and development.
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
3. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
4. Anatomy of Criticism by Northrop Frye
5. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
6. The Political Unconscious by Fredric Jameson
7. Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes
8. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
9. Phenomenology of Spirit by G.W.F. Hegel
10. White Noise by Don DeLillo
11. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

This is a second list of books that I will read this year, but which I have not read before. I anticipate them having a similar effect.
1. On Liberty - J.S. Mill
2. Goldbug Variations - Richard Powers
3. You Bright and Risen Angels - William T. Vollman
4. The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
5. Minima Moralia by Theodor Adorno

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