Sunday, March 30, 2008

Reading lists

I've started reading Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed. I had to read this book for a college course I took one summer during my undergraduate years. Damn, that was a long time ago. And, yes, I was taking a summer course... for fun. I am that nerdy.
Need more evidence... last night I went to see They Might Be Giants in concert for the third time. Again, Yes I am that nerdy.

Anyway, since I am re-reading Mumbo Jumbo, or reading it for that matter. I believe that week I probably skipped over it, being enmeshed in a couple of other books, and, it being summer, enmeshed in the pursuit of girls. But, being the obsessive listmaker that I am, below are the books that I had to read for that class... not in order of their assignment:

Labyrinths - Jorge Luis Borges (some of the stories)
Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs
Time's Arrow - Martin Amis
Sixty Stories - Donald Barthelme (some of the stories)
Mumbo Jumbo - Ishmael Reed
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon (first section: I have yet to complete this book, 13 years later)

I am convinced there was a seventh book we had to read, but I cannot think of it right now.


Searching through my bookshelves, I stumbled across books that could have been listed in the Postmodern Literature course, but were actually part of a Sports in Literature course I had to take. The books for that class were:

The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. - Robert Coover
End Zone - Don DeLillo
The Natural - Bernard Malamud
Best American Sports Writing 1995 - editor, Dan Jenkins
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner - Alan Sillitoe (film we had to watch)

That's all I can remember for now.
My obsessive brain has had enough.

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