10th grade reading list

the semester is drawing to a close, and as sad as it is to be on hiatus from the ever-so-inviting workshop environment, it's utterly exhilarating to suspend the workload that comes hand-in-hand when enrolled in an MFA program. spring is here, and the promise of leisure and productivity without hearing any disconcerting voices has me feeling happy to be alive. i want to i want to rope-swing into watson pond, to roll my windows down and blast my father's music on a drive through the chesapeake , to eat clam strips at a seafood shack in tiny maine vacation town, and (most importantly) read and write until the sun comes up.




my favorite AU graduate whose last name rhymes with ertania has this fantastic, masochistic habit of creating a much-too-large reading list over these sorts of breaks and laboring to complete the whole list before school starts again. i've completely hijacked this idea. he's set out to read 50; i'm setting out to read 30. i feel like a very good casual reader, but not a terrible writer-who-reads. so, to combat this, i've decided i'm going to knock a few things off the cannon that i haven't gotten to, and return to the classics that warrant a closer reading than i've given them.

the list! (bold means purchased)
Bread and Wine - Ignazio Silone
The Remains of the Day - Kazu Ishiguro
Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux - John Updike
Damned If I Do - Percival Everett
Lost in the City - Edward P. Jones
The Liar's Club - Mary Karr
Don't Cry - Mary Gaitskill
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Collected Stories - Grace Paley
Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha - Roddy Doyle
Waiting - Jin Ha
Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson
Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth
Independence Day - Richard Ford
Where I'm Calling From - Raymond Carver
A Sport & A Pastime - James Salter
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
1984 - George Orwell
Great Jones Street - Don Delillo
Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson
That Night - Alice McDermott
Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson

i've come up to twenty so far, and even these aren't set in stone. honestly, i'd really like some more suggestions. and some cohorts. really, trying this on my own feels damn near impossible. you should read some, too. it'll give us a reason to see each other and call each other beautiful.