Christian Bauman (Assistant Editor)Reading "A Pale View of Hills" by Kazuo Ishigruo. My sister, who is in college at Wesleyan, has a different last name than mine, is very much younger than me, but is one my all-around favorite people in the world, recommended it to me. It's a wonderful read so far.
Robert Birnbaum (Editor-at-Large)Record Men - Ric Cohen, about the legendary Chess brothers of Chicago
Sea Change - Robert Parker,
Speak with the Devil - Richard Hawke,
Sunstroke - Jesse Kellerman (three crime stories)
Literature is Freedom - Susan Sontag, her 2003 acceptance speech of the German Peace prize
President Reagan - Richard Reeves, excellent book on the Gipper's presidency
Also,
American Journey - Richard Reeves, his 1982 book retracing and musings on de Toqueville's 1832 wanderings around the US
Thom McGuane's forthcoming short-story collection
Gallatin Canyon, pound for pound the best short-story collection I have read in the past few years
Essays in Cynthia Ozick's forthcoming collection,
The Din in the HeadThe Big Why - Michael Winter is this talented Canadian novelist's first published book in the US, about artist Rockwell Kent living in Newfoundland in the early 20th century
Rebels, Turn Out Your Dead - Michael Drinkard, a novel placed in the American Revolutionary War
Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences - Lawrence Weschler, which is the kind of odd book that Weschler is practiced at, joining discussions of disparate things, mostly in the visual arts
Began the new Anthony Briggs translation of
War and Peace.
Summer Block (Copy Editor)Well, I'm mostly doing required reading nowadays - I'm on a prize committee, so I'm reading through dozens of contenders in the nonfiction category. I'm also reading two books for review for Verse, one for the Observer, and one for the SF Chronicle. But in my free time, such as it is, I'm keeping myself busy with Baudrillard's
The Conspiracy of Art, numerous catalogues, and travel guides to Shanghai, where I'll soon be living. From my Mandarin phrasebook: "How can I explain this to my parents?"
Matt Borondy (Founding Editor)A couple of books that I'm pretty excited about showed up in the mail today, from authors I hadn't read but who seem to have potential:
Rust and Bone by Craig Davidson and
Tin God by Terese Svoboda. The other day I re-read Jack Kerouac's
Pomes All Sizes for the first time since 1998 or so. Also am reading Jeffrey Sachs'
The End of Poverty as part of a book trade and continuing to work through Reb Anderson's
Being Upright.
Jane Friedman (Fiction Editor)On my nightstand or in my messenger bag:
The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt,
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy,
The Best American Essays 2005.
Krissy Haltinner (Social Justice Editor)Starhawk:
Fifth Sacred Thing (repeated reading, it is my favorite novel - a must read for anyone interested in seeing the world become different than it is today [and especially those who aren't])
Davila, Arlene:
Latino's, Inc (Advertisement industry and Latin America)
Dallaire, Romeo and Power, Samantha:
Shake Hands with the Devil (General's story about the genocide in Rwanda)
and a bunch of undergraduate papers and stuff for my classes, but that isn't nearly as interesting...
Mara Naselli (Assistant Editor)I'm dabbling in different things:
The Natural History of Destruction, W. G. Sebald;
The Next American Essay, ed. John D'Agata;
The Wave in the Mind, Ursula Le Guin;
Annals of the Former World, John McPhee (not sure how far I'll get on that one);
Out of Eden, Alan Burdick; a bunch of social and natural history about the South Side of Chicago; and a bunch of stuff on bird behavior. I'm supposed to be reading
The Heart is Lonely Hunter with Kevin Smokler, but he's way ahead of me.
Jesslyn Roebuck (Social Justice Editor)I'm reading Lehman's editorial edition of
Prose Poems;
Great American Short Stories; George Saunders'
Pastoralia; and Richard Powers'
Galatea 2.2.
Plus, writing my thesis so N. Scott Momaday's
House Made of Dawn, and Leslie Marmon Silko's
Ceremony.
Jessica Rowland (Assistant Editor)I'm the underachiever of the literary world.... I just started reading
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. This is my only literary undertaking at the current moment, unless you count the
Wall Street Journal.
Alex Shapiro (Nonfiction Editor)Reading "Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. Johnson" by Jonathan Coe. I don't usually go for biographies, and especially not biographies of writers, but it arrived out of the blue in the mail Saturday, so I started reading it a little, just messing around. And now I'm enjoying it a lot.
Ross Simonini (Assistant Music Editor)The Conversations by Ondaatje
The Lover by Duras
KornWolf by Tristan Egolf
The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
Dance Dance Dance by Murakami
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
Eat the Document by Dana Spiotta
Lisa Szkatulski (Visuals Editor)i'm still working on the same things,
Under the Banner of Heaven (phonemonal);
Living to Tell the Tale (somewhat of a chore, but also somehow very satisfying);
Psalms of David (a gift, a beautiful illustrated version);
The Communist Manifesto (to look smart on the train, confuse my co-workers, and actually learn something);
Citizen Designer (to stay focused while I take on a non-design job at a design firm).
posted by Matt Borondy at 2/28/2006 04:41:00 PM
most of the last several books i've read have been titles i've heard about from neil gaiman. many out of print, cost me a fortune to get them over here from the UK, but all have been very very good imho. just finished his 'anansi boys,' which took me a while to get into -- it's more of a guy's book i think -- but it was ultimately worthwhile as well.
around and about that time:
'jonathan strange and mr norrell,' by susanna clarke
two by colin greenland, married to susanna clarke, 'take back plenty' and 'finding helen'
one i hadn't read by one of my very favorite SF/F guys, tim powers, 'strange itineraries'
two children's books by nicholas stuart gray, 'grimbold's other world' and 'over the hills to fabylon'
'remake' by connie willis (also one of my favorite SF/F writers)
'tea from an empty cup,' not one of pat cadigan's best, but very
imaginative as always and she's a good writer
a little more highbrow, 'little black book of stories' by a s byatt
and although this is way too journalistic/realistic for me, she's a good writer and is now unfortunately deceased at a far too early age -- marjorie williams, 'the woman at the washington zoo'
i've just started to reread oryx and crake, atwood, b/c she's coming to town next week and just found the copy of kazantzakis' 'saint francis' that a friend gave me a year ago and i want to read that too, if that counts. also started to reread 'the quincunx' by charles pallister, really quite a remarkable feat and i'm torturing myself by not starting 'lud-in-the-mist' by hope mirrlees, which gaiman got reissued.
-Denise
Best American Short Stories - 2005 - Loved Lehane,
Saunders, Lennon...not so much Bezmozgis and esp. not
D'Ambrosio.
Ovid -
Selected Poems - yeah, he's good
Anne Lamott -
Traveling Mercies - her, too.
-Ann
What Remains by Carole Radziwill and
The Historian -Dolly
Thomas Cahill's
Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter is a joyous read; any poetry of Szymborska draws me in & I'm trying to finish a novel by Shirley Hazzard,
The Transit of Venus. Poetry accounts for about 65% of my reading.
-Gladys
posted by Matt Borondy at 2/06/2006 11:02:00 AM
It took an unusual amount of effort to get my hands on a copy of
I Looked Alive: Stories by Gary Lutz, but after hearing his name accompanied with glowing approval from various reliable sources (incl.
Kevin Sampsell,
Ross Simonini, and an article in the latest
Poets & Writers) I assumed it would be well worth the trouble--and it was. Upon reading this collection of unusual stories, which contains incredibly well crafted sentences, I immediately wanted to pick up a pen. So, that's a good thing. Now I have to go find Lutz's other effort,
Stories in the Worst Way, somehow.
The other day I had a bunch of discussions in which the word "horse" randomly popped up--conversations that involved the new,
$50k buy-in HORSE (
Hold'em/
Omaha/
Razz/
Stud
Eight or Better) event at this year's World Series of Poker, the Seattle band
Horses (which is now called Band of Horses because "Horses" itself was too confusing), and other scattered topics. In an odd coincidence, the next day I received a book in the mail entitled
Horse: How the Horse Has Shaped Civilizations by J. Edward Chamberlin. Even though I'm not much of a horse person, I'm really into the idea of this book and plan on checking it out this week. It has a neat cover, at least.
Another book I've been dipping in and out of is a new release of Charles Bukowski poems entitled
Come on In! It's been like 12 years since Bukowski died, and this is the ninth collection from the archives he intended to be published after his death. Cool.
-Matt Borondy
posted by Matt Borondy at 2/02/2006 02:17:00 AM 
