Sunday Stack

From my table to yours, what are you reading?

How many books are you dating at a time? Do they talk to one another? Here are my current loves. Comment with your Sunday Stack; do we have any in common?

Ink and watercolor drawing of my physical and virtual stack, Sunday, Nov 12, 2023

I’ve linked to the books here primarily using bookshop.org, having selected Andover Bookstore as the recipient of any book sale proceeds. Andover Bookstore is America’s oldest independent bookstore and is one of the indie bookstores I frequent in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts.

The Things That Matter by Edward Mendelson

Subtitle: “What Seven Classic Novels Have to Say About the Stages of Life.” I borrowed this from the local library while searching the LitCrit stacks. I’ve read the chapter on Wuthering Heights which focuses on childhood; in part because it features in the novel I am writing. Mendelson’s essays are full of insight into the author, the book, and the deeper meaning gleaned from both. “The tragedy of Wuthering Heights" is not that Heathcliff and Catherine cannot marry each other, but that they grow into adulthood, in which mere sex and mere marriage are the closest substitutes that anyone can find for the unity that adults have lost forever.” Other books he tackles include: Frankenstein, Middlemarch, Mrs. Dalloway, and To The Lighthouse.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Borrowed from my 75-year old mother who devoured this book in nearly one sitting and handed it off to me yesterday. I haven’t cracked it open yet, but I know when I do, I’ll be rewarded. For additional reading, read Mary Shelley’s Notes from Frankenstein by

Jillian Hess

and “How Queer is Frankenstein” in the New Yorker by

Ruth Franklin

.

Contemporary American Women Writers edited by Rainwater and Scheick

An anthology of essays focusing on late twenty-first century American Women narrative strategies and how they differ (or do not) from the male cannon. A wonderful used book find at Andover Bookstore.

Such Stuff As Dreams by Keith Oatley

Subtitle: “The Psychology of Fiction”. A used book purchase. I’ve been reading this one for months now, returning to it regularly to advance my understanding of how reading and writing molds our mental models of the world, providing fuel for our psychological development.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Purchased at an airport bookstore, this Canterbury Classics Word Cloud version is a favorite as it has engraved on the front and back character names and quotes. “Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended so absolutely?”

Kindle & Audible Selections

My other reads are for in the car or when I’m out and about and just have my phone.

• New Grub Street by George Gissing - I’m listening to this along with

  APS Together
  . Are you reading along too?

• The Common Reader by Virginia Woolf - I’m only through the first three essays in Volume 1. I’m getting acclimated, but don’t have much to say at this point. I didn’t know much about Chaucer; and now I know just a bit more. Have you read The Common Reader?

• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami - thanks to

  TaraShea Nesbit
  for the recommendation.

• The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr - this has been on my Audible listen for a few months now thanks to recommendation from

  Tim Lott
  .

• The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen - thanks to my friend, poet and Bowen expert Heather Corbally Bryant’s recommendation. Read my post “Ahrting in Public” about how I met Heather at the Andover Bookstore earlier this year.

An Invitation

Tell me please what you are reading and whether you have read any of the above books. I’m always looking for new reads (although maybe I have too many going at once?), juxtapositions between texts, patterns, and opportunities to connect.

Happy reading!