Upcoming books

I rarely have many new books in my 'to be read' stack so I had to commemorate this occasion. You'll be seeing these titles over the next several weeks, here and elsewhere.

The Expedition to the Baobab Tree by Wilma Stockenström, translated by J. M. Coetzee (Archipelago Books)

Harlequin's Millions by Bohumil Hrabal, translated by Stacey Knecht (Archipelago Books)

Rambling on: An Apprentice's Guide to the Gift of the Gab by Bohumil Hrabal, translated by David Short (Karolinum Press, Charles University)

Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero by James Romm (Alfred A. Knopf)

Leg over Leg (Volume One) by Fāris al-Shidyāq, edited and translated by Humphrey Davies (New York University Press—Library of Arabic Literature)

And the one older book: Jean Barois by Roger Martin du Gard, translated by Stuart Gilbert (The Viking Press, 1949)

I'm not including the online Shakespeare course's last three plays. Guess I better get started...

The tottering 2013 to be read stacks

Merry Christmas!
A bookish Christmas for me, receiving the annotated version of Some Do Not... and No More Parades. The wife, she notices.

These are the books staring at me from various places around the house, although I’m sure I’m missing some. I will try to focus on these in the early part of 2013. In fact I think I need to make a resolution…something along the lines of reading three of these for every book I buy. The problem, as I have found, comes from discovering new books or authors (especially from book blogs) and wanting to investigate. You’ll notice that a couple of books on the list are from recent reviews of book bloggers. Others listed are extensions of authors I enjoyed. And then there’s Galdós. Anyway, I put this out there in case anyone would like to read along on anything in particular—just drop me a line and I’ll be happy to coordinate with your schedule.

The project for the year will be Martin du Gard’s sprawling series. Maybe if I take a section of it a month I’ll actually make it. Anyway, here I go with the stacks…

Books started or already read (and in need of a post):
Death of an Athlete by Miklós Mészöly
Marginalia on Casanova: St. Orpheus Breviary by Miklós Szentkuthy
Raised from the Ground by José Saramago

In the stacks to be read:
The Thibaults by Roger Martin du Gard (France)
Summer 1914 by Roger Martin du Gard (France)
Pharaoh by Bolesław Prus (Poland)
The Tale of the 1002nd Night by Joseph Roth (Rothsville)
The Coming Spring by Stefan Żeromski (Poland)
Ashes by Stefan Żeromski (Poland)
Stone upon Stone by Wiesław Myśliwski (Poland)
Rustic Baroque by Jiri Hajicek (Czech)
The Fallen by Juan Marsé (Spain)
Diary of a Humiliated Man by Félix de Azúa (Spain)
The King Amaz’d: A Chronicle by Gonzalo Torrente Ballester (Spain)
Ten Tales by Leopoldo Alas (Spain)
The Moral Tales by Leopoldo Alas (Spain)
A Novel without Lies by Anatoly Mariengof (USSR)
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (USSR)
Revulsion by Laszlo Nemeth (Hungary)
Relations by Zsigmond Moricz (Hungary)
Fateless by Imre Kertesz (Hungary)
Portraits of a Marriage by Sándor Márai (Hungary)
The Transylvanian Trilogy by Miklós Bánffy (They Were Counted, They Were Found Wanting, and They Were Divided)
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis (Greece)

Benito Pérez Galdós (Spain):
The Disinherited
Tristana
The Shadow
The Golden Fountain
Nazarín
Miau
Torment

Pre-ordered:
Harlequin's Millions by Bohumil Hrabal
The Bridge Over the Neroch: And Other Works by Leonid Tsypkin

Nonfiction:
I have a lot of nonfiction which I won’t list, but one that’s important to me to read soon is The Landmark Xenophon’s Hellenika. The other one I want to post on is Carl Kaeppel’s Off the Beaten Track in the Classics, which I think I’ve mentioned in an earlier post. Maybe an essay a month from him, too.

OK, I’m on record now.

Success? And more...

Previously: The Doll by Bolesław Prus—if anyone knows how to get a copy of the 1968 movie Lalka directed by Wojciech Has, please let me know.

Success? I placed an interlibrary loan for a VHS copy I found...wish me luck. It may be a few months before it gets to me but I can be patient. Some times. I'm enjoying the book so much I also have his later book Pharaoh lined up, but I'll probably wait until the end of the year for that.

And I keep adding more I want to read...having planned to watch Ashes and Diamonds I'll probably add Jerzy Andrzejewski's book on which it was based. Not to mention my library just received Satantango by László Krasznahorkai. Once again my appetite is larger than my ability to digest...

There’s a seeker born every minute

A quick post on what I have planned for the upcoming months, with input always welcome on authors, etc. Also, I wanted to float a Fortunata and Jacinta read-along at the end of the post. Also, I can't decide on non-fiction books to listen to (several on my wish list but nothing appeals at the moment), so any recommendations are appreciated.

I have been reading some works by central and eastern European writers and I will be drawing that exclusive focus to a close after a few more books:

·         Job by Joseph Roth and the semi-related 1936 movie Sins of Man

·         The Doll by Bolesław Prus—if anyone knows how to get a copy of the 1968 movie Lalka directed by Wojciech Has, please let me know (I’m tempted to get the 5-disc 1978 Polish TV miniseries, even with no subtitles, but the price is a deterrent)

·         Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass by Bruno Schulz and the 1973 movie The Hour-Glass Sanatorium directed by Wojciech Has (yeah, there’s a theme here)

·         Portraits of a Marriage by Sándor Márai

·         Stone Upon Stone, by Wieslaw Mysliwski

·         Behind the Lines: Bugulma and Other Tales by Jaroslav Hašek (preordered, scheduled for release in June)

·         Harlequin's Millions by Bohumil Hrabal (preordered, scheduled for release in September)

I may add another short book or two along the same lines (another book by Schulz happens to be in the local library) but I’m anxious to move on to other areas, especially returning to works of ancient Greece. I have been eyeing The Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika for a while and I’m determined to start it after these books. While I’m tempted to revisit Xenophon’s Anabasis, that is lined up as an upcoming release in the Landmark series so I’ll probably wait for that version instead. I definitely plan on covering his Oeconomicus and a couple of Plato’s dialogues. I have also wanted to post on Werner Jaeger’s wonderful Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture but I’ll probably save that for the end of the year.

More standard western European fare should follow, with La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas and the massive The Thibaults by Roger Martin du Gard mocking me from my bookcase. I’m uncertain of the timing of The Thibaults since I may be massive-booked-out already. I'm sure there's a technical term for that.

I joked about hosting a read-along of Benito Pérez Galdós’ Fortunata and Jacinta after I finished his Torquemada series but I think it would be a fun idea—is there enough interest in the book for an October event? 

If I get to everything in this list this year I’ll be a happy reader. Strike that…I’m a happy reader already.

Note: I'm receiving notice of comments but nothing is appearing. Having seen several of my comments spiked or not approved  at other websites I'm very sensitive to this situation. If your comment does not appear automatically I will manually add it 24 hours after I've received the notice--I do not delete comments unless they are blatantly spam.

Goals revisited

My thoughts stray to the many books I want to read or themes I want to explore, causing me to lose focus on what I planned on reading. Since the year is half gone, I thought it a good time to refocus on what I want to accomplish by the end of the year. I won’t get to everything I aimed for in this post but I’m OK with most of the ‘substitutions’ (such as participating in the Reading Odyssey group on Arrian in place of Hellenika). If I get to the following books I’ll be content…or satisfied, that is, given time and other resource limitations.

I realize it isn’t a list for most people (who am I kidding…it's not for anyone else), but if you're interested in joining in on any of these books just let me know. As always, I welcome comments now and as I stumble through the books.

July – December:

Plato: Crito, Phaedo, at least 4 more dialogues (maybe Symposium, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno, Ion). The Republic is a goal for next year.

Finish Arrian’s The Campaigns of Alexander (see the Reading Odyssey schedule)

Joseph Roth: The Radetzky March, The Tale of the 1002nd Night

Stefan Zweig: The World of Yesterday

Rudyard Kipling: Debits and Credits (Yep, the odd man out on this list, and won't be the only one I'm sure.)

Xenophon: Memorabilia, Oeconomicus, Symposium, Apology. Next up, whether this year or next, is his Hellenika.

And at some point I want to start working in some books on the Thirty Years War I mentioned here.

Looking forward while looking back

Year-end brings out the list-makers—I’m hoping to use this post to help focus on where I want to go with my reading. In addition, any comments on specific works or the direction I’m going are always appreciated. I’ve mentioned that I have some general plans on what I want to read but I try to remain flexible in order to work in some new “finds” or authors I want to explore. Sometimes my reading progression feels like it was planned by someone with ADHD, but I want to remain open to new (to me) finds as well as never wanting to feel that I have to read something because I said I would.

I felt frustrated that I didn’t get to much of what I wanted to read this year but looking back at 2010’s posts made me realize I achieved more than I thought I had. I ended up with a couple of major projects (one planned, one not) as well as discovered some new (to me) authors. Links to the posts can be found on the sidebar.

Major projects
The Histories, Herodotus (re-read)
Parade's End, Ford Madox Ford

Both highly recommended. I enjoyed Herodotus even more this (second) time through it, possibly because of the wonderful edition I read. Parade’s End was one of those reads I wasn’t too sure about as I started it but came to appreciate and enjoy it. I’m guessing that the upcoming annotated version of it will make approaching this work much easier. I laughed when listening to The Recognitions and the Reverend Gwyon’s father mentions that upon looking up after having fallen down a well he could see stars in broad daylight—shades of Tietjens in the trenches.

Update: Mel u at The Reading Life informs me that the annotated version of Some Do Not... is already available from Carcanet Press. No More Parades should be released next month. This is great news and I look forward to his comments, but I don't think I can return to the book so soon.

Authors new to me
Butcher’s Crossing and Stoner by John Williams
The Struggle for Life trilogy by Pío Baroja, made up of The Quest, Weeds, and Red Dawn
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
Ryszard Kapuściński's Travels with Herodotus
Heart of a Dog, Mikhail Bulgakov
Andrei Bely’s Petersburg

All very different and all highly recommended. I plan on reading more works by these authors soon.

No hesitation in recommending
In the First Circle, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
2666, Roberto Bolaño
The Gambler, Fyodor Dostoevsky (re-read)
The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason
Hadji Murad, Leo Tolstoy
Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization, Richard Miles
The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope(should finish before the end of the year)

First Circle surprised me when I read it. I thought I had read this back in my teens but now I’m not so sure. If I did, it was the excised version—make sure and read the recently released ‘full’ version. 2666 is a sprawling mess that I could not put down. Read some of this out loud—even in translation Bolaño’s prose resonates like his poetry. I’m surprised how much I like the Trollope (well, after the first 75 pages or so) and will want to read more books by him.

Pilgrims and early America
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, Nathaniel Philbrick (re-read)
The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, Mary Rowlandson
Of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford
Mourt’s Relation, George Morton, William Bradford, Edward Winslow and Robert Cushman
Good Newes from New England, Edward Winslow

I’ll blame Philbrick for rekindling my interest in reading the original works/writers…it turns out he did a very good job of consolidating the various works. I picked up the works individually but I see that Penguin has selected writings from much of what I read in an edition called The Mayflower Papers. There are some recent history books on King Philip’s War (or Metacom’s War) that look like they would provide additional information on that important period.

Also
A Hidden Life: A Memoir of August 1969, Johanna Reiss
Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? , James Shapiro
A Summons to Memphis, Peter Taylor

Audiobooks
Too numerous to list, so I’ll link to them


Books I tell myself I will definitely read in 2011
History of the Peloponnesian War , Thucydides (January)
Hellenika, Xenophon (I hope to get to more writings/plays by the ancient Greeks, but will at a minimum commit myself to these two books)
The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton (I have wanted to read this ever since enjoying Tristram Shandy)

New authors (to me) to explore next year
Robert Musil, Arthur Schnitzler, Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth
I briefly commented on these in an earlier post. In addition, after reading a little bit about Curzio Malaparte I want to read Kaputt. I have never read anything by Samuel Johnson…this will change soon, probably starting with Boswell’s biography. While thinking about it, I need to add Anthony Powell to the list.


Authors or books to revisit or explore more
Eça de Queirós
Machado de Assis
Actually there’s a lot here and I’m sure the list will grow as the year passes. Hmmmm, planning is almost as fun as actually reading these. Well, maybe not 'almost'.

Do I really look like a guy with a plan?

My reading plan constantly changes, so I thought I would outline where I think I will be heading the next few months so you can set your interest-ometer accordingly.

I hope to hit several of the ancient Greek works by Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon over the course of the year. Plays from the ancient Greeks will be fair game. In addition to that timeframe, my non-fiction reads will also include early American documents (from Pilgrim memoirs to debates on the Constitution). The era around World War I also holds special interest for me and I hope to read Ford Maddox Ford’s Parade’s End as well as Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday this year. There are a few loose ends I’d like to complete from 2009, but I’ll try to keep those to a minimum.

I would love to attend some night classes on math and science (yeah, I'm weird that way), but between work and home I know that won't happen. So I've set an ambitious goal this year for self-education. Like any good government, expect flowery updates if I succeed and silence if I don't.

Beyond that, I’m going with whatever I feel like at the moment. Other interests I’ve followed lately include Russian novels, Spanish and Portuguese language authors, Shakespeare, and 20th century ‘classics’ (whatever that means). Some areas I hope to get to this year, but more than likely will get pushed, include ancient Roman works, early British novels (Tom Jones and Clarissa for example), satire (especially Swift, Pope and Rabelais), and works based on the Faustus legend (at least Marlowe, Goethe and Mann).

I am always amazed at the volume of reviews and recommendations I find on weblogs, so thanks to those that take the time to post about books…I greatly appreciate it.

Reading plan for 2009

Feel free to skip this...it is essentially me thinking out loud...

This blog originally started as a conversational place for personal finance bloggers who liked to read. It floundered quickly for various reasons, not the least because it was everyone’s second or third place to post on top of having to deal with everyday life. But in the course of trying to get it started, I noticed that reading with the intent to write…to discuss the work with others, made me read much more attentively. But I found that translating my feelings when reading into a logical point or argument was difficult. This was a skill I wanted to work on and improve. So I decided to resuscitate this blog in order to read more carefully and hopefully make writing a little easier.

I use to be very good at setting goals and, not coincidentally, achieving a lot as well. Over the last decade, I have slacked on the former and (not surprisingly) on the latter, too. There are a few secondary goals for this blog besides the ones above, but they all tie back to the primary ones. What the blog will lead to is another matter…I still haven’t thought it through completely (teaching in "retirement" or other things?). As I was trying to figure out what books to read next, I thought some sort of general framework for the next 14 months would be helpful. There are a few general areas I'd like to concentrate on while not restricting myself to only those areas. In addition, I thought laying out a general plan would help me focus on my limited resources (time and money) and generate some input (“If you like xxxxxxx, you’ll love yyyyyyy” or finding overlooked works).

My Modernism reading is about finished for now. But in I would like to revisit a couple of works by Faulkner that I haven’t read since college before “formally” calling it quits on these works for the near future. The quotes are around “formally” since I plan on coming back to at least one work each of Conrad, Woolf, and Ford in the next year. Since I don’t have nearly as much time as I would like to read, I know I am overstating how much I can get to in the next year. Not to mention that as I discover and enjoy new (to me) writers, a Sterne-like digression usually follows. All that being said, the following is a working draft covering the books I want to read and areas I want to explore in the next year or so:

Early 20th century works:
William Faulkner As I Lay Dying, Light in August (both re-reads)
Joseph Conrad The Secret Agent
Virginia Woolf Between the Acts
Ford Maddox Ford Parade’s End

New (to me) authors:
Vladimir Nabokov Lolita, Pale Fire
Honoré de Balzac Old Goriot, and one other work (Cousin Bette?)

Ancient Greece:
Homer The Iliad, The Odyssey (both re-reads)
Herodotus The Histories (a re-read, but I can’t wait to see the new Landmark version)
Sappho, Pindar
Thucydides The Peloponnesian War (partial re-read)
Plays: two or three each from Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes
I’d like to get to some of Plato’s dialogues, but I don’t think that is realistic until the end of next year

Russian literature:
Aleksandr Pushkin Eugene Onegin, other works?
Ivan Turgenev Fathers and Sons, A Sportsman’s Notebook
Nikolay Gogol Dead Souls (re-read), other works?

Satire
Jonathan Swift A Tale of the Tub
Alexander Pope
François Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel

Plays
Two plays by Shakespeare and at least one play by Marlowe

Spanish & Portuguese language literature
Miguel de Cervantes Exemplary Stories
Leopoldo Alas La Regenta
Fernando Pessoa The Book of Disquiet
Machado de Assis Dom Casmurro
Alejo Carpentier Explosion in a Cathedral (or another work?)

Short stories
I would like to do at least six posts on short stories during the year. Considering that some of the writers I've enjoyed recently excel in the shorter format, I don't want to shortchange myself.

Group reading
The Fairie Queene (Heather at The Library Ladder proposed this one and I figured I would give it a try. The schedule looks doable and should be fun with a group.)

Shoot, and I was hoping to include at least one Austen novel, and one work from the Renaissance, and…