May 2011 Reading List: Micheal Crumney, John Sayles, Wilfred Santiago

A sampling of books we are reading this May...

Robert Birnbaum, editor-at-large:

I have just read Canadian Micheal Crumney's Galore set in Newfoundland and spanning the 19th century. There are shades of Garcia Marquez's Macondo set in the hardscrabble North Atlantic isolation.

Also, I am in the middle of John Sayles's ambitious War and Peace-like opus of nearly 1000 pages, A Moment in the Sun. Set in late 19th century, the novel follows four main characters through the Spanish Cuban American War, the dying embers of Reconstruction, the Alaskan Gold Rush and America's Philippine adventure (which is also the setting for Sayles's forthcoming film Amigo).

And finally, I am marveling over Wilfred Santiago's 21, a graphic novelization of Roberto Clemente's life.

James Warner, fiction editor:

Currently reading: Lush Life by Richard Price, Choir Boy by Charlie Anders, How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson.

Alexandra Tursi, visuals editor:

Holding Company, a new collection of poems by Major Jackson.

Riley Dog, Twitter follower @roo370:

Red on Red, Edward Conlon

Matt Borondy, editor-in-chief:

This is the month I learn to make bread courtesy Edward Espe Brown's The Tassajara Bread Book. I will not be deterred. Also feel like reading some old Alan Watts. Have you read the essay "Beat Zen, Square Zen, Zen" (pdf)? Also need to catch up on some of the recent New Yorkers, and by then there will be a book that comes out of nowhere (or lands in my mailbox) to captivate my attention. Could use a suggestion.

Anna-Lynne Williams, music editor:

I am reading The Corrections. I am way behind the times.

Matthew Tiffany, books editor:

I'm reading The Deal from Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers

What are you reading?

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