I just looked at last summer’s book list, which I posted here last June. I didn’t read a single book on that list. This makes me think that perhaps I’m doomed to lose interest in any book that’s on the Summer Reading List. Or perhaps my list was made by just looking around my house at books I’ve been meaning to, but not especially wanting to, read (sometimes there’s a big difference between these two categories). This year’s book list features some books I’ve already read, so hopefully I’m not such a big liar this time around.

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Le Summer Book List 2011.

The Fountainhead/Ayn Rand (check)

Letters of James Schuyler to Frank O’Hara (check) (swoon)

The Art of Recklessness/Dean Young (in middle of)

A Visit from the Good Squad/Jennifer Egan (as of today, check)

The Best of It/Kay Ryan (in middle of)

The Good Earth/Pearl S. Buck

Invisible Cities/Italo Calvino (this was on last year’s list too, but now I actually own it)

Collected John Berryman (all of it, of course)

Linguistics: A Very Short Introduction/ P.H. Matthews

Otherwise: New and Selected Poems/Jane Kenyon

Lighthead/Terrance Hayes

Siddhartha/Hermann Hesse

From A to B and Back Again: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol(/Andy Warhol)

The Maverick Poets: An Anthology/ed. Steve Kowitt

Tremor: Selected Poems/Adam Zagajewski (again)

Truth and Beauty/Ann Patchet (in middle of)

A Trip to the Stars/Nicholas Christopher

Come All You Ghosts/Matthew Zapruder

Bossypants/Tina Fey

 

The photograph below, by Elliot Erwitt, is where I’d prefer to do all of this reading. But my kitchen table will work, too.