In this program, we have to pick a “personal bibliography”: twenty books we plan to read in a few months that will either inform our writerly existences or directly influence the manuscript upon which we are working. The following is a rough draft of my personal bibliography, just for kicks:
D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths
Beloved childhood classic, and one of the best customer reviewed books on Amazon I’ve ever seen. If you are even a little educated in these classic plot lines, you will realize how much Western culture descended directly from them.
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
The Pulitzer Prize winning effort by Ernest Becker to evaluate all human behavior in light of fear of death.
Her Husband by Diane Middlebrook
I’m reading this now, in my breaks from Infinite Jest; story of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath’s marriage.
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
DFW!
Appetites by Caroline Knapp
What I’m up against, I think.
A Writer’s Life by Gay Talese
Self-explanatory.
Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy by Irving Yalom
Part of my manuscript deals with the potentially negative effects of group therapy, and so I’m going back to one of the pioneers of the practice, Irving Yalom. He wrote quite a few seminal books on therapy but this one feels most relevant.
Girl, Interrupted by Susannah Kaysen
This will be a re-read. It relates to my MS as well. I don’t want to give too much away, otherwise you won’t buy it on Kindle!
Can Somebody Shout Amen!: Inside the Tents and Tabernacles of American Revivalists by Patsy Sims
Patsy Sims runs the program here, and she’s the sweetest little old Southern woman who, in her youth, infiltrated such potentially hostile, male-oriented spheres as prison, the Klu Klux Klan and snake handler’s churches. I myself have a fetish for communities on the fringes of society (I’ve expressed this before, I’m sure, a million times) and am really interested in how these groups operate. She’s given me driving directions to a snake handler’s church, which ought to be pretty interesting, when I’m ready…
Diary of a Genius by Salvador Dali
Anyone who has the balls to title his book so deserves to be worshiped. (I jest. Infinitely.)
The Next American Essay edited by John D’Agata
I met John D’Agata in California last year…he’s considered one of the pioneers of the “lyric essay”, and this volume (apparently, I obviously haven’t read it) attempts to showcase some of the new, inventive forms of the essay.
Faces in the Water by Janet Frame
Frame is one of New Zealand’s most famed writers. This is a fictionalized account of her eight year on-and-off stay in a mental hospital for schizophrenia, a diagnosis that was later reneged. Like Kaysen, she’s interested in the lines we’ve drawn that demarcate “crazy” from “sane”, and how it was that she came to be in the first group for a time. Her Autobiography, which I have read, is superb, as is Jane Campion’s film version, An Angel at my Table.
Peeling the Onion by Gunter Grass
The formidable German writer examines his past and the fallibility of memory.
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealey
I’ve always wanted to read this. I’ve heard it’s just stunning, and it works because I’m trying to study the way people construct the narratives of their lives.
Play of Consciousness by Swami Muktananda
This is the “spiritual autobiography” of the guru of the guru I occasionally visit when I’m “home” in order to chant and calm the eff down. I’ve heard parts of it read aloud at “services”, and am curious to hear more of it, and to learn more about the teachings of “Baba”, as he’s called.
Architect of Desire by Suzannah Lessard
This is the memoir of a former mentor of mine, a fiercely smart writer with a history at the New Yorker and an eye sharper than a scalpel. The book is about her grandfather, famed New York City architect Stanford White, and his many dalliances, bad habits, and eventual demise.
Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag
I haven’t read a lot of Sontag, and I really want to. There was something else of hers I wanted to read, but I forgot which…this seemed thematically appropriate, as I’m also interested in catharsis via observation…Aristotelian tragedy, I guess. I have to work on unpacking this subject, and building up my vocabulary/knowledge of it. I once read that Susan Sontag directed a production of Waiting for Godot in a ruined church during the War in Bosnia, and the concept of this has been lodged in my brain ever since.
The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
The New York Times Book Review calls it a “hectic, gaudy saga.” Kickass.
The Story of O by Pauline Reage
French erotica. Done.
Strangeland by Tracy Emin
The “autobiography” (diaries?) of a visual artist. I don’t know too much about this one. I found it on an old reading list I made while living in Paris. I’m not entirely sold on this choice…
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