Friday, January 11, 2008

Books I Will Not be Reading in 2008


So I just started reading Pierre Bayard's How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read and am a little perplexed. Will I discover on having read it that I need not have done so? If so, will I feel a deep sense of regret about the hour or two of my life--it's short book--that I have wasted? For the moment, I shall read on, though I feel as if I am betraying some kind of principle here, though I am having trouble enunciating what that principle might be. I am not unaware that this seems very po-mo (and, worse yet, that postmodernism is so uncool). Perhaps we'll revisit this topic when--or if--I finish reading How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read.

In other news, I recently finished reading Michael Chabon's Jews with swords book, Gentlemen of the Road. During the first few pages, I felt like I had gotten lost in the Sunday Times crossword puzzle. (Chabon is an obscure word junkie.) But once I got my bearings, I really enjoyed it. It had me hoping that he might publish more such books--what might be described as genre books that manage to transcend their genre. (In my mind, Alan Furst is an exemplar of this.)

Lots of new books coming out in 2008. Among the books I will be reading are: Furst's The Spies of Warsaw, Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, and the new Inspector Montalbano mystery.

Among the many books I definitely will not be reading in the new year are: the $7 million doorstop from Tom Wolfe, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, and anything by Jodi Picoult.

What books will you not be reading in 2008?

Posted by jwb at 9:43 AM   

5 Comments:

Blogger Bram said:

No time to worry about all the books I'm not going to read.

I've had my eye on that Chabon for a while, and now I'm convinced. From the new releases, we've now got The Real All Americans and The World Without Us out for 14 days. I've started on the former, M_. on the latter, now we'll see if we can each finish them both off before they're due.
at 6:10 PM     

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at 7:21 AM     

Blogger Marty said:

Hey John,

Just in case you missed it, the Economist has been covering the persecution of Mark Steyn by the Canadian Central Committeee:

http://www.economist.com/world/la/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10499144

Steyn also has some hilarious links and commentary on his website on the subject. Enjoy the foibles of our frozen Dominion to the north!
at 8:08 PM     

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