David Foster Wallace fans…

I just finished readingA Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, my first book of his, and loved it immensely. What should I read next?

I love reading essay collections during the semester since there’s no plot to keep track of and I can rarely read consistently due to my schoolwork, which is all well and good until you realize you’re in the middle of six of seven of them.

killingcharlemagne:

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down…. Kurt Vonnegut (PDF of above photos)

What a fantastic book this is shaping up to be.

What a fantastic book this is shaping up to be.

Happy Birthday to Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite writers and one of the greatest inspirations I have ever had both as a writer and as a human being. I read Slaughterhouse Five for no apparent reason the summer after my junior year of high school and enjoyed it enough to read another novel of his, Cat’s Cradle. I’ve now read each of those books three times and both are among my favorite books ever written with Cat’s Cradle almost certainly being my favorite work of fiction. I’ve probably read more books by Vonnegut than any other author and while he returns to many of the same themes and characters in many of these books, each one is distinct and perfect in its own way. Vonnegut is not just one of my favorite writers, but one of my favorite human beings. His care and empathy for all of humanity that does not rely at all on religion is a stellar example for both skeptics and Christians alike. His sense of humor has always resonated with me even though many of the times I laugh at his writing it is because it is so resonant and tragically humorous that it is necessary to laugh to keep from crying or being overwhelmed by pessimism. Vonnegut’s consistent optimism and belief in humanity while simultaneously acknowledging every reason to be pessimistic is encouraging and something I wish I could have for myself. Mr. Vonnegut, thank you so much for your life and writing. I wish we could meet for a smoke in Indianapolis and talk about life and religion and politics and humanity and Kilgore Trout. There’s few men I’m happier existed than you. Your writing has made my life better and that’s just what great art does.

Happy Birthday to Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite writers and one of the greatest inspirations I have ever had both as a writer and as a human being. I read Slaughterhouse Five for no apparent reason the summer after my junior year of high school and enjoyed it enough to read another novel of his, Cat’s Cradle. I’ve now read each of those books three times and both are among my favorite books ever written with Cat’s Cradle almost certainly being my favorite work of fiction. I’ve probably read more books by Vonnegut than any other author and while he returns to many of the same themes and characters in many of these books, each one is distinct and perfect in its own way. Vonnegut is not just one of my favorite writers, but one of my favorite human beings. His care and empathy for all of humanity that does not rely at all on religion is a stellar example for both skeptics and Christians alike. His sense of humor has always resonated with me even though many of the times I laugh at his writing it is because it is so resonant and tragically humorous that it is necessary to laugh to keep from crying or being overwhelmed by pessimism. Vonnegut’s consistent optimism and belief in humanity while simultaneously acknowledging every reason to be pessimistic is encouraging and something I wish I could have for myself.
Mr. Vonnegut, thank you so much for your life and writing. I wish we could meet for a smoke in Indianapolis and talk about life and religion and politics and humanity and Kilgore Trout. There’s few men I’m happier existed than you. Your writing has made my life better and that’s just what great art does.

Being the Bob Dylan fan that I am, I cannot believe that I never read this book. I don’t even have an excuse since someone gave it to me as a gift almost for two and a half years ago. Regardless, right now, I am glad I put it off for so long since I am able to experience it and all of its loveliness for the first time right now. It is simply fantastic.

Being the Bob Dylan fan that I am, I cannot believe that I never read this book. I don’t even have an excuse since someone gave it to me as a gift almost for two and a half years ago. Regardless, right now, I am glad I put it off for so long since I am able to experience it and all of its loveliness for the first time right now. It is simply fantastic.

safarizone: No joke, I really want this poster.

safarizone:

No joke, I really want this poster.

So pumped to read this.

So pumped to read this.

What a great, great book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

What a great, great book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The Definitive Reading List to End All Reading Lists

One thing I’ve noticed lately is how I seem to think and talk about reading more than I actually read. I’m always looking for new books even when I have two halfway finished books on my coffee table. As I write this I’m in the middle of, I think, six books with two more arriving in the mail today. It’s pathetic sometimes, but of all the addictions one could have, I don’t think being a bibliophile is really all that bad. My girlfriend, Tracie, also has a really long list of books that she’s hoping to read and has marked off the ones she’s read thus far in 2011 so that’s what this is modeled after. Her list is admittedly more highbrow than mine as she is a psychology major absolutely entranced by neuroscience while I care primarily about basketball and Bob Dylan. Hopefully, this keeps me more accountable in some way, although it probably won’t. Regardless, for some unknown reason, I just like lists.

The italicized books are the ones that I actually own.

1. Loose Balls- Jayson WIlliams
2. Drive- Larry Bird
3. Go Up for Glory- Bill Russell
4. Wilt: Larger than Life- Robert Cherry
5. Past Imperfect- Hoffer
6. Tall Tales- Terry Pluto
7. the Lewis and Clark Expedition- Gunther Barth
8. Wilt- Wilt Chamberlain/David Shaw
9. Thomas Jefferson- R.B. Bernstein
10. Goliath- Bill Libby
11. History and Historians- Mark Gilderhus
12. the Prophets- Abraham Joshua Heschel
13. Wilt, 1962- Gary Pomerantz
14. Undaunted Courage- Stephen Ambrose
15. King of the Court- Aram Goudsouzian
16. A View From Above- Wilt Chamberlain
17. Man is Not Alone- Abraham Joshua Heschel
18. Prophetic Witness- Kaplan
19. God in Search of Man- Abraham Joshua Heschel
20. Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity- Abraham Joshua Heschel
21. Waterlily- Ella Cara Deloria
22. the Rivalry- John Taylor
23. American Sphinx- Joseph Ellis
24. Spiritual Radical- Kaplan
25. Explaining Hitler- Ron Rosenbaum
26. Love Wins- Rob Bell
27. To Set At Liberty- Delwin Brown
28. No Religion is An Island: Abraham Joshua Heschel and Interreligious Dialogue
29. Velvet Elvis- Rob Bell
30. :07 Seconds or Less- Jack McCallum
31. The Advanced Genius Theory- Jason Hartley
32. Sacred Hoops- Phil Jackson
33. Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy- Jane Leavy
34. the Glory of Their Times- Lawrence Ritter
35. Tales from the Dodger Dugout- Carl Erskine
36. Those Guys Have All the Fun- James Miller and Tom Shales
37. Who Is Man?- Abraham Joshua Heschel
38. How We Decide- Jonah Lehrer
39. the Boys of Summer- Roger Kahn
40. Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus
41. Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews- edited by Johnathon Cott
42. Best American Sports Writing of the Century edited by David Halberstam and Glenn Stout
43. Chronicles- Bob Dylan
44. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again- David Foster Wallace
45. the Gay Talese Reader
46. In Cold Blood- Truman Capote
47. A Sense of Where You Are- John McPhee
48. Life on the Run- Bill Bradley
49. Breaks of the Game- David Halberstam
50. Everything They Had- David Halberstam
51. the Last Shot- Darcy Frey
52. the City Game- Pete Axthelm
53. Babe- Robert Creamer
54. Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life- Richard Ben Cramer
55. the Brothers Karamazov- Fyodor Dostoevsky
56. Fraternity- Bob Greene
57. A Well Paid Slave- Brad Snyder
58. Nixonland- Rick Perlstein
59. the Courage to Be- Paul Tillich
60. the Lonely Man of Faith- Joseph B. Soloveitchik
61. the Autobiography of Malcolm X
62. Soul on Ice- Eldridge Cleaver
63. the Unbearable Lightness of Being
64. Pacific Rims- Rafe Bartholomew
65. Woody Allen on Woody Allen
66. Dynasty’s End- Thomas Whalen
67. the Fifties- David Halberstam
68. the Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan
69. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream- Doris Kearns Goodwin
70. Founding Brothers- Joseph Ellis
71. the Wu Tang Manual- the RZA
72. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil- Hannah Arendt
73. Levels of the Game- John McPhee
74. Bob Dylan in America- Sean Wilentz
75. A Passion for Truth- Abraham Joshua Heschel
76. Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention- Manning Marable
77. Mystery Train- Greil Marcus
78. Infinite Jest- David Foster Wallace
79. Baseball’s Great Experiment- Jules Tygiel
80. Philosophical Investigations- Ludwig Wittgenstein
81. Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original- Robin D.G. Kelley
82. John Coltrane: His Life and Music- Lewis Porter
83. The Autobiography of Miles Davis
84. The Devil Problem and Other True Stories- David Remnick
85. Consider the Lobster- David Foster Wallace
86. West by West- Jerry West
87. When the Garden Was Eden- Harvey Araton