Friday, October 17, 2014

Jenny's Library Books October Edition


For the Time Being by Annie Dillard
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard
Always Apprentices: the Believer Book of Even More Writers Talking to Writers
To Show and to Tell by Phillip Lopae
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
An American Childhood by Annie Dillard 
Firebird by Mark Doty
Heaven's Coast by Mark Doty
How to be Both by Ali Smith
The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee

I previously mentioned that I am auditing a class on creative non-fiction, and my stack of books is a clear reflection of that!  I needed to re-read how David Foster Wallace writes about tornadoes, and I was trying out Mark Doty for a muse but went with Annie Dillard (for a class assignment. I liked Doty but he was too death-based for my current family situation!).  Always Apprentices came up in passing in one of the readings for the class, and the Lopate is assigned reading as well.

The bottom three books are from the Booker shortlist! I did finish the Flanagan before he won the prize this year.  I did not end up finishing the Mukherjee and returned it to the library.

2 comments:

  1. Annie Dillard is one of those writers I've ALWAYS meant to read and somehow never got round to.

    Though I haven't read it, I think 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again' is one of the best titles of all time.

    What did you think of the Flanagan?

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    Replies
    1. You must read Dillard!

      That title essay, 'A Supposedly Fun Thing....' is about going on cruises and is hilarious.

      The Flanagan - it was not really my thing. I liked the story idea and the bits about the relationship but the majority of the novel is about the use of POWs in WWII to build the Thai-Burma railroad. It gets pretty gruesome.

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