Art Garfunkel Memorial Reading List (July - December 2008)

With only about a week left in the year, it's time for another summary of the books I have completed in the last six months (which worked out nicely symmetrical: 35 books for each half-year)

1. the Quick and the Dead - Joy Williams (July 4)

2. the Collected Stories - Amy Hempel (July 6)

3. Labyrinths - Jorge Luis Borges (July 16)

4. Other People's Children - Lisa Delpit (July 15)

5. Midnight Movies - Jim Hoberman (July 18)

6. American Pastoral - Philip Roth (July 27)

7. the Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (July 24)

8. Snows of Kilimanjaro - Ernest Hemingway (July 28)

9. the Killer Inside Me - Jim Thompson (Aug 3)

10. the Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith (Aug 11)

11. My Sister's Hand in Mine (Collected Works) - Jane Bowles (Aug 12)

12. Pick-Up - Charles Willeford (Aug 16)

13. Down There - David Goodis (Aug 24)

14. the Real Cool Killers - Chester Himes (Aug 27)

15. the Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born - Ayi Kwei Armah (Aug 27)

16. Jakob von Gunten - Robert Walser (Sep 3)

17. Zazie in the Metro - Raymond Queneau (Sep 11)

18. Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin (Sep 17)

19. Hopscotch - Julio Cortazar (Sep 28)

20. the Widow - George Simenon (Sep 28)

21. In Youth is Pleasure - Denton Welch (Oct 5)

22. In Dreams Begin Responsibilities - Delmore Schwartz (Oct 7)

23. Wonderful Wonderful Times - Elfriede Jelinek (Oct 12)

24. Franny and Zooey - JD Salinger (Oct 19)

25. the Ruined Map - Kobo Abe (Oct 23)

26. Amok - Stefan Zweig (Oct 26)
27. Up Above the World - Paul Bowles (Oct 29)
28. Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson (Nov 9)
29. Best African American Essays: 2009 (Nov 15)
30. Tidewater Tales - John Barth (Nov 19)
31. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: an Introduction - JD Salinger (Nov 28)
32. 2666 - Roberto Bolano (Dec 14)
33. Whatever It Takes - Paul Tough (Dec 14)
34. Nine Stories - JD Salinger (Dec 20)
35. the Glass Bees - Ernst Junger (pending)

Highlights for the year: Raise High the Roof Beam... (Salinger), If on a winter's night a traveler (Calvino), Snows in Kilimanjaro (Hemingway), Zazie in the Metro (Queneau), the Sheltering Sky(Bowles), the Killer Inside Me (Thompson)
Favorite Nonfiction: Against Interpretation - Susan Sontag; Women, Race, and Class - Angela Davis
Total Books read in 2008: 70; approx. 216,000 pages