Reading Rainbow

OK. These are all of the books that I am carrying over from 2005, and that does not include required reading for my other project.


Reading List

1. Steppenwolf by Herman Heese -- A friend told me to read it. It takes place in Tübingen where I lived for a while and he said it captured that place perfectly. I am not a fan of Tuebingen personally. If I had gone before I went to NYC then it probably would have been OK. But what can I say, I found a room and some work, and got started there. You can’t just quit because other people tell you to.

2. The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst -- Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize for fiction. Have started. Found it intriguing, but just haven’t read that much.

3. Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais -- Bought last year. Only got through the majority of the first book.

4. Vanilla: The Cultural History of the World’s Favorite Flavor and Fragrance -- I like to cook and I like cultural histories and I found this one at a big remainder clearing house full of people who look like the author on the back. You know. Book and cat lovers and plant lovers. I can identify to a certain extent . . . if I can get a little rough and toughness, I could find a perfect mate there. Everybody in that book store was much too gentle for my taste though.

5. General Sun My Brother by Stephen Alexis -- lugged around Europe back to Tennessee. Bought in Germany, in Stuttgart.

6. Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire by Niall Ferguson -- first book that I bought as soon as I landed after reading the reviews in the NY Times at my desk in Cologne. I am wondering about Niall's style of history . . . suppose to be the historical Archangel of my generation in a way.

7. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand -- Same friend from number one tried to strangle me for borrowing it, after he said it took a while for him to read. English is not his first language but it is close enough now. I am a bit unnerved that I have not read it.

8. Black Southerners in Confederate Armies: A Collection of Historical Accounts by Segars and Barrow -- Bought from used book store on Ellingston Place. They keep directing me to the “black book section” and frowned at me when I was looking at other books. First antiquarian bookstore I went to in this country after 4 years of being away. I did not feel very welcome. Still bought this book because it is fascinating to me.

9. Mucho Macho: Seduction, Desire and the Homoerotic Lives of Latin Men by Michael Girman -- Been eyeing this book for some time, but never had the nerve to read it. Bought this summer when I got back from Deutschland. Don't care if mother sees the title on the coffee table (I am starting to feel like Norman Bates, at moments . . . )

10. The Story of the Siege of Lisbon, Jose Saramago -- Ms. Portugal gave me this. We don't talk about this anymore.

11. The Bondswoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts -- Birthday gift from mom last year.

12. The Equality of the Human Races, by Anténor Firmin -- Gotta read it. Period.

13. Ulysses by James Joyce -- Ashamed to say I have not read it, so I gotta read it!

14. The Geography of Perversion: Male to Male Sexual Behavior Outside the West and the Ethnographic Imagination. 1750-1918 by Rudi C. Bleys -- Found on a discount rack. Seems very , very interesting to me. Not for everybody though.