catapult magazine

SARAH,

Coming Through Slaughter is Ondaatje’s first novel, but it’s more a collage of fiction and non-fiction, as well as poetry, prose, lists, quotes, etc. it creates/recreates a rich time period in very appropriate ways. actually, you made me remember a review that i wrote about it a couple of years ago. watch for it in the feb. 14 issue…

Springing off of other conversations, I’m curious to know what books people are reading right now? Books for school don’t count unless they’re so engrossing that you know you’d have picked it up outside of class. For me, in progress right now are:

The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard—philosophy about the relationship between poetry, poets, and the idea of space, especially in the home

Morning in the Burned House by Margaret Atwood (poetry)

Picnic, Lightning by Billy Collins (poetry)

In Natural Light by Michael Anania (poetry—this guy is also my poetry writing prof this semester)

Different Hours by Stephen Dunn (more poetry….)

Russian Women Poets—an Anthology editor Valentina Polukhina (even more poetry)

War and Peace by Tolstoy (what can I say?)

I see my list is a little heavy on the poetry side. But it’s good stuff. Also, it allows me to have several books on the go at once.

Share yours.

Right now, I’m reading

“Glas”, Jacques Derrida
“Jesus and The Victory of God”, N.T. Wright
“History of Europe”, J.M. Roberts
“On Art, Religion, Philosophy”, Hegel

These books are keeping me busy right now, but I am ever and always tempted to start “War and Peace”. Maybe this summer. I tackled “Moby Dick” last summer and it may be the single greatest novel I have ever read. But like I said, I haven’t read “War and Peace” yet. The Russian film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky says he read “War and Peace” when he was 12 or 14 or something and that he was spoiled from that moment on. He just wasn’t satisfied with anything less. So maybe it’s a good thing I’ve put it off so long.

It seems like everyone around me is reading Anna Karenina, but I’m resisting peer pressure. All I’m reading is related to school, but lucky for me I’m at a point where most of the books I read are books I absolutely want to read! Life is good. Here’s a list of the best stuff:

1. “The Great Transformation” by Polanyi (How the ‘free market’ is responsible for the 2nd World War – amazing book)
2. “Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West” by Cronon (history of Chicago’s rise and role in the commodification of grain, lumber, and meat)
3. “The History of the Countryside” by Rackham (refreshing alternative to a guidebook for England)
4. “Rivers of Empire” by Worster (compares Western America’s centralized irrigation regime to those of Babylon, Egypt, and ancient China.
5. “Koba the Dread” by Martin Amis. (great book indicting Europe’s communist inteligensia for supporting Stalin, even while he was busy killing 20 million people)
6. anything Lenin and Tolstoy wrote about agriculture

Yeah, life doesn’t get any better than this.

Over Christmas I got a chance to catch up on some things I’d been meaning to read:

Prodigal Summer—Barbara Kingsolver
Interpreter of Maladies—Jhumpa Lahiri (sp?)
Good In Bed—Jennifer Weimer
Fast Food Nation—I forget…

And now that I’m back in school…

Pedagogy of the Oppressed—Paulo Freire
Bay Area Backroads—Doug Mc Connell

And the two books that never leave my bedside table:

Dakota—Kathleen Norris
Travelling Mercies—Anne Lamott

just finished:

Silence by Shusaku Endo

just started;

Peony by Pearl S. Buck

i’m on a Far East kick. Peony is definitely making me desire a different time and place. i’m also halfway through poetry by Po Chu-I (8-9th cent. China). socially progressive and simple—great stuff.

something else i just finished and really enjoyed was The Problem of Poverty by Abraham Kuyper. it’s a concise and applicable justification of Christian social involvement given as a speech in 1891. definitely worth a few bucks and a few hours (thanks, dan).

also, bridget—i’m curious to know what you thought of Prodigal Summer. i’ve heard mixed reviews from others, but i LOVED it. of course, i have an incurable weakness for Barbara Kingsolver. and Louise Erdrich. finished her Tracks about a month ago.

current reading
Genesis and 2 Samuel
The Calvary Road by Roy Hession
Jesus Freaks by Voice of the Martyrs (& DC Talk)
Surprised by the Voice of God by Jack Deere
Understanding the Bible by Henrietta C. Mears

Last books I finished:
The Beginner’s Guide to Prophecy by Jack Deere
The Sacred Romance by John Eldredge
Wild at Heart by John Eldredge

These are the books currently circulating amongst my reading spots (which would be couch, bathtub and bed):

“Atonement” by Ian McEwan
“Chocolat” by Joanne Harris
“In the Castle of the Flynns” by I can’t recall right now
“Return of the King” by Tolkien
“The New Bungalow” by Cristen and Christian Gladu

Oh! Can’t forget my periodicals – American Bungalow, National Review and Cooking Light. Welcome to the ’burbs!

I’m currently working on several stacks of British Literature papers. Good stuff….
I’ve got a pile of American Lit tests to read after that.

For school (and for fun too ‘cuz I get to pick ’em)
Theban Trilogy: Sophocles
Gulliver’s Travels: Swift
Walden: Thoreau (by the way, I think I figured out how to teach this thing in a public school if any of you were looking at my post in the education forum)

If I ever get back to it, I was reading The Time Machine just for kicks. Luckily it’s a good book to go at sporadically. That and the Barbecue Bible.

Just finished So Big by Edna Ferber (won the 1924 Pulitzer Prize…unfortunately out of print)

Working on Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, and I have three more by him waiting nearby (Rebel Angels, What’s Bred in the Bone, etc…)

Men are from Mars… just kidding.