Reading Lists

Now that I have submitted my dissertation, I can return to all those non-dissertation-topic-based books that have been piling up. I thought a good feature for this site would be for us to post our reading lists, and eventually, our readers can give us recommendations in the comments. So here we go.

1. Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice.

Just started this one. Pynchon's writing style is fairly singular. This time he's playing with sixties and seventies lingo in what seems to be a send up of a detective novel. I'd like to imagine that he had fun writing this book, but I suppose that would be like imagining that he had a paranoid time writing The Crying of Lot 49.

2. James Joyce, Ulysses.

Those who know me, know the story: I have the 75th anniversary hardcover edition of Ulysses, but have refused to read it until my thesis is submitted, because it is the kind of book that derails academic research.

3. Sartre, Being and Nothingness.

I am reading this for part of a paper about Sartre and New Atheism that I am giving at the North American Sartre Society's conference at the University of Memphis. Which is why I am reading:

4. Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great.
At least he won't be in attendance.

5. Walter Benjamin, various Selected Writings.
Matt seems to think I might have something interesting to say for a panel at the CPA next year. I've got all of the selected writings, and the Arcades Project, so I should be able to find something to say about Benjamin, whose essay "Author as Producer" ended up playing a prominent role in a paper I gave at the RPA's conference in November 2008. When I was setting up my library in the study, through some coincidence, these books ended up sitting conveniently to my left, so that I don't even have to get up to look for them.