Chill cover. Nice title. We judge books by their covers. But also Haruki Murakami is a contemporary best seller. His work is known for being surreal and for capturing existential themes of human existence and all that lonely sort of stuff. Although he is Japanese, his fiction seems definitively American in style. He may well be the voice of advice for our generation, and this is one of his better-known books. It is worth a read.
Sakuteiki thought to be written by Tachibana Toshitsuna
The Sakuteiki is “most likely the oldest garden planning text in the world.” –Wikipedia. It was written in the 11th century, and to be quite honest, it’s super
confusing. We know about rock n’ roll, but in this book rocks pretty much talk. According to this manual, placing stones is the most important part of gardening. Get your stones in order this summer.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
We don’t know what all the hype is about, but it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, so that’s something. We plan to read it this summer. You should too.
The novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky
We are reading all the novels on the syllabus for LITR 245 this summer, because we were supposed to read them this spring…
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who know the jest, and those who don’t. We don’t know yet. We want to know. We suspect it may have to do with the book’s wacky parabolic structure, or its endnotes, or its references to film etc. But we don’t know yet, and we are going to know, after we read it for four months this summer. It’s 1079 pages.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
This guide is ALMOST as important as the Sakuteiki, because we will have to evacuate Earth pretty soon, leaving our rock gardens behind. The Hitchhiker’s Guide is a science fiction comedy, and it is pretty accurate in terms of its portrayal of the space-time continuum and general relativity, etc. All cool things.
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
This book is about a compulsive cheater trying to find love. It’s supposedly better than The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (which we have read). In any case, Junot Diaz is an important contemporary author. His writing is also super fun to read, which is perfect for the summer.