Monday, December 14, 2009

Lit Randomness: 2010-The Year of Reading Faulkner, Bill Simmons, Moby Dick, Padget Powell, Kirkus

2010: The Year of Reading Faulkner.



Okay, okay, okay, I admit I've never really dug into Faulkner. I've read him here and there, but haven't spent a lot of time with him. That's all about to change. Deckfight has picked out six Faulkner books to read in 2010. Some got left out. And I really wanted to read the whole Snopes Trilogy. But alas, we can probably only stand so much Faulkner in one year.

Call us crazy, call us insane, call us courageous. I'll post thoughts/reviews as we go along. We're going to do this. I don't want to set a time on anything, just an order. This loosely follows the publication schedule and I only picked the ones set in Whatchamacallit County. Here's the order and list:

1) Sound and Fury
2) As I Lay Dying
3) Sanctuary
4) Light in August
5) Absalom! Absalom!
6) The Hamlet

Who's with us? Bring it 2010, bring it! We'll officially get going in January, but no one's stopping you from getting a head start.


And now...some lit randomness you can dig into.

Tackling Bill Simmons' behemoth: At NY Mag.
W/ Sherman Alexie, Freedarko's Shoals, Sam Anderson & more. From these comments, I'm glad I didn't get this book for my dad. Simmons uses a lot of ahem, 'colorful' and 'explicit' metaphors apparently. Still waiting on my copy.

Padget Powell Double:
Ricky Moody on
The Interrogative Mood at The Millions.
Then Jeff Parker on The Rumpus.

Should anyone care about Kirkus? At Jacket Copy.

Moby Dick Illustrations, with Matt Kish: At Vol. 1 Brooklyn.
I may have challenged them in Dave Eggers entries, but they take the cake for Moby Dick.
"These pieces are really immediate and intensely personal reactions to the book and how it has impacted me. A much more fragmented and multifaceted approach to the text."--Matt Kish
Best of 2009: at Salon. (h/t Maud Newton) Some really good book picks from some really good authors.


3 comments:

  1. I'll join in on the Faulkner challenge?/quest?...because ashamedly I've read very little of his work

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm in.

    I found my way here via Google. See, I had made one of my New Year Resolutions reading Faulkner. Must have been drinking from the same jug, because when I put "Reading Faulkner" into the Google Search to see what type of support I could find, this is one of the things that showed up. This and Oprah. A few others. I liked this the best. Seems sincere, but not too heady.

    Just purchased "The Sound and the Fury" today. Since I usually have about five books going on (and several graphic novels that may or may not be part of the five) and since reading Dostoevsky is another of my resolutions, I won't be doing the speed reading version here. But, since I've planned a little trip to Memphis, Arkansas and Mississippi for the Fall, which will include Rowan Oak in Oxford, I hope to get through some of the essentials by then.

    Looking forward to this.

    ReplyDelete

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