If Twitter is to be believed (and when has it ever done us wrong?), many of you have already begun reading your copy of Infinite Jest. And that’s okay. As we’ve said in the past, doing so is perfectly permissible under the rules. Ya big cheaters.
The rest of us, meanwhile, are frantically trying to finish whatever currently sits on our nightstand, in anticipation of the big event.
We asked The Guides what they are reading, and if they would recommend it to an Infinite Summer participant who was looking to pick up something on, say, September 23rd. Here are their replies.
Kevin Guilfoile: The book I’m finishing (with Infinite Jest on deck) is The Great Perhaps by one of my favorite Chicago writers Joe Meno. It’s probably Meno’s most ambitious book to date, a chronicle of a barely functioning family of Chicago liberals around the time of the 2004 election with generational flashbacks going back more than a hundred years. A terrific book to wind down with in September.
Eden M. Kennedy: I am currently finishing up More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman. I would heartily recommend it to people who like funny books full of made-up facts (“lies” in other words).
Matthew Baldwin: I just completed the 2004 novel Body of Lies by David Ignatius, about a US spy stationed in Jordan who cooks up an elaborate Trojan Horse-style scheme to take down an al-Qaeda faction from the inside. The plot is by-the-numbers espionage stuff honestly, but Ignatius (a mild mannered Washington Post columnist by day) clearly knows a metric ton about the subject matter, and his portrayal of post-9/11 CIA agents railing against the bureaucracy that they perceive as soft and restrictive is fascinating in juxtaposition with the conversation we are currently having in this country regarding the use of “enhanced interrogation.”
Avery Edison: I must ashamedly confess that I’m not actually reading anything in the run-up — and haven’t for a while. Reading the Internet has kind of replaced regular old book reading for me, and that’s something I’m hoping to address with this project. It’s sad that I’ve gotten to the stage where I need a weekly writing commitment to force me to read, but I guess we’ll just chalk me up as one of those “Facebook generation” people who knows how to hack into the Pentagon, War Games-style, but can’t make a slice of toast.
Seriously, I miss toast. I have a P.O. Box address if someone would like to mail me a slice. Buttered, please.
The comments are open. Let us know what you are wrapping up, and if it’s worthy of a recommendation. And you may want to bookmark this thread as well, to revisit in a month or three.
Comments
42 responses to “The Book Before”
I just finished Michael Chabon’s The YIddish Policeman’s Union. It was good, but not on the same level as The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (which I would recommend to everyone).
I’m finishing up a novel by my New Mexico State University professor Robert Boswell a.k.a. Boz called “Geography of Desire.” Also, my friends and I have started a book club and plan on reading Denis Johnson’s “Jesus’ Son” in the next two weeks. I’m hoping to finish both in the next week or so in order to prepare for Infinite Jest. I have a book club friend who also wants to join the adventure and read “Infinite Jest,” but we have a friend not too fond of DFW who we need to sway in order that we can all partake in the challenge. I still haven’t ordered a copy of the book, but I will do so soon to get as early a start as possible.
I’m working on Middlemarch, part of a group read project similar to this that started in May and thus was dubbed “Middlemay.” It’s a big book of classic literature, but I’ll tell you, George Eliot was funny as hell. She also had a lot of liberal ideas for Victorian England…no wonder she wrote under a pseudonym that was a man’s name! I’m also reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, which is anything but short, but it’s really interesting. I don’t know if I’ll finish it in time for my next book club meeting, though – it’s quite long! And just to top it off, I’m working my way through the comic book series Scalped, which is awesome. Life on an Indian reservation, lots of fightin’ and murderin’ and duplicity and even a bad-ass prophet-type figure…way fun. That’s it for me!
The problem with working in a used bookstore, is what am I NOT reading. I’m hoping that Infinite Summer will force me to settle down, and focus on ONE BOOK for the long haul.
I have 40 books on my to read shelf, and am currently flitting between:
*Wrecking Crew by John Albert – about a recreational baseball team in L.A. populated by punk rockers, junkies and addicts who are finding their way (and I am LOVING IT). I am a sucker for baseball books.
*Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste (33 1/3) by Carl Wilson – I love the 33 1/3 books. They are tiny and concise and give a perspective on music I usually hadn’t considered. I picked this one up because I kept hearing how fantastic it was. Not wrong. The only other book in the series I have enjoyed this much was John Darnielle’s book about Black Sabbath.
*The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke – the followup to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. Short stories. Drags in a few places but I would recommend it without hesitation.
*This is Water by DFW – I grabbed this lightning quick when it came into the shop. I’d read it a few times already, but was happy to have my own copy.
There is one other, but I’m going to abandon it (yes, unnamed) because I had heard it was quite good and funny but I am finding the writing forced, precious and not to my taste. I’m disappointed, but I think it’s a matter of my taste as opposed to the book actually sucking.
I need to quit buying books at work, is *my* problem. I have to call a moratorium for a while. heh.
Before the solstice, I’m in the thick of Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: another book that I “should” have read long ago. I consider it a wonderful double feature at a small, persistently, run-down theatre in one of those towns off the Old National Road.
I am getting my easy breezy summer reading in before before the density. Glass Castle by J Walls (somehow I had missed the whole story when it came down) Shakespeare by B Bryson (wasn’t going to read it but went to hear him speak and he convinced me, so glad he did) Born Standing Up by S Martin (haven’t started yet but I think an afternoon at the pool should do it)
I’m frantically trying to finish Roberto Bolano’s 2666 before the start of the summer. Other than that for pleasure, I’m finishing up some texts on Situationalism. Woo hoo!
Right now I am finishing The Ruins by Scott Smith. I haven’t seen the movie so I can’t really compare book and film, but the novel is excellent. Perhaps someone should start a thread about how well Infinite Jest would be as a film or, you know, a 10 part miniseries. 🙂
Just finished The Book of Dave, by Will Self – wonderful, weird, freaky fun; almost done with Jimi Hendrix Turns 80 by Tim Sandlin – my future opens up before me! both scary and fun; and slogging through Agincourt by Bernard Cornwell – gory and slow, but once I start something I feel obligated to finish it.
My likely-impossible-to-finish list (which seems to grow as IS approaches, rather than shrink):
-‘Either/Or’ by S. Kierkegaard (complete with groovy paperback cover designed by Edward Gorey)
-‘Rabbit at Rest’ by J. Updike (finished the first three parts of the tetralogy in between bouts with S.K.)
-‘Pop Apocalypse’ by L. Konstantinou (reading his blog more or less got me into DFW in the first place)
I’m nearly finished with Curry by Lizzie Collingham, which is about the history of Indian food. The subject matter is fascinating, and it has connected a lot of dots on how Indian cuisine got to be the way it is, but it’s been a slow read.
I may try to squeeze in Joe Scarborough’s new book — relax, he’s my token conservative! — before the Infinite Summer festivities begin.
Rabbit Run by John Updike. . this certain puts a dent into me trying to finish the Rabbit series. Heh.
I work in news, and I write and read so much of it I rarely take the time to read fiction. But I lucked into having a flight last weekend and almost finished DeLillo’s Cosmopolis. Not crazy about it.
But I enjoy that I’m following a 200-page novel with a 1,000-pager. It reminds me of that Vatican saying: “Always follow a fat pope with a skinny one.”
Yesterday I finished “Rails Under My Back” by Jeffrey Renard Allen, an epic novel that does for trains what “Moby-Dick” did for whaling. The day before I finished “Venus Envy” by L. Jon Wertheim, a terrific book about women’s tennis, a subject that DFW has written about. So now I’m ready to go.
Do you mind if I post this April, 1996 interview he gave Michael Silverblatt on KCRW’s “Bookworm”? It begins with a really interesting discussion of the book’s structure and then somewhere in the middle it segues into a discussion of John Barth, but if you listen to it, don’t miss the last part because it’s very revealing.
http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw960411david_foster_wallace
I’m reading BIRDS OF AMERICA, one of Lorrie Moore’s short story collections and I am loving it, but I’m really glad for the motivation to finally crack open INFINITE JEST.
I am finishing up More Information Than You Require as well. Hodgman’s good people.
Really looking forward to starting Infinite Jest; its long overdue for me.
Im currently reading a book of short stories called “Cold Snap” by Thom Jones after finishing another of his collections calle “The Pugilist at Rest” which I strongly recommend.
Hm. When I saw: Book you should finish I thought that meant “book you should finish writing.” That’s tormented guilt talking.
Right now I’m reading John Cheever’s collected stories. I’m not supposed to be reading this, I’m not supposed to be reading anything. So there is no book I should finish reading.
I feel like I need to put in a John Cheever public service announcement though: I re-read this collection because a bio came out about John Cheever followed all these reviews and they all said that John Cheever is not given his due. And I have to say, reading these stories, he holds up. I can’t believe that he is a neglected writer, given how perfect some of those stories are.
Ozma — I’m reading the Cheever bio right now but still haven’t read any Cheever stories.
I’m trying to finish up Bleak House before I tackle Infinite Jest.
I’m finishing up a couple young adult novels, including “Liar” by Justine Larbalestier, which is sort of Wallaceian (?) in its narrative unreliability.
well, i am reading “consider the lobster,” “in the name of friendship” by marilyn french and “maozedong” (a chinese history book) by maurice meisner.
its taking all of my willpower and these three books to stay away from IJ!!!
I like to read several things concurrently, and IJ will be a re-read for me, so I’m not too worried about finishing before the 21st. I’ve been working on Dave Eggers’ What is the What, Marina Lewycka’s A Brief History of Tractors in Ukraine, and Pynchon’s Vineland.
I’ve been reading The Guermantes Way by Proust, part of a long-term plan of reading a volume of In Search Of Lost Time every summer. I guess I may have to put that on ice, as I’m only half-way through. I read Brief Interviews With Hideous Men a few months back and now I’m ready to give IJ a go!
Hodgman’s More Information than You Require, just to get back in the footnote-reading habit.
At only 75 pages or so a week, I don’t plan on Infinite Jest being the only book I read this summer. I’m not usually one to read multiple books at a time either, so this project will be interesting in more ways than one.
That said, I’m reading Mike Resnick’s Stalking the Unicorn and have the sequel, Stalking the Vampire, sitting here as well. Also, I still haven’t gotten around to The Women by T.C. Boyle.
This is the first time I’ve bought a book and had to wait to start it, and the frustration makes me want to gnaw my own face off. I’ve been reading anything and everything to keep myself from peeking at IJ.
In the last week:
The Water-Method Man (Irving) (again)
A Fraction of the Whole (Toltz)
The Notebok of Malte Laurids Brigge (Rilke)
and I got round to finishing Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates (Robbins)
and I’ve finally given up on A Scanner Darkly (Dick) because it’s really boring.
Come on, 21st June, hurry up.
I’m wrapping up The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene and A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful by Edmund Burke, two books that have taken me far too long to finish. Thanks for the push.
John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman.
Recommended for any Beatle/John Lennon fan. I’m endlessly fascinated by Lennon so I’ve plowed through this 700+ pages pretty quickly. I should be done just in time for IJ.
Just finished Matthew Pearl’s “The Dante Club.” IJ will be the novel/fiction I’ve read in at least a year that has not been set in the late 1800s.
Just gave up on Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, which is fine, because I never would have finished it in time anyway. Now reading DFW’s stories in Oblivion. I’d heard they were dark, and they are. I think his stories are harder to grasp than Infinite Jest.
“Gravity’s Rainbow” (for the 3rd time). I probably won’t finish it by the 21st, but that’s fine… I usually have 2 or 3 books on the go. Also half way through “The God Delusion” and Ed Stourton’s “It’s a PC World”.
Just did a thing where I tried to read every Cormac McCarthy novel and got through 6 of them. Then just read Notes From Underground, Dostoyevsky. I saw too much of myself in the Underground Man–that’s not healthy–so good thing I’m joining something social.
What a great idea!
I just finished Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, which everyone should read immediately if they haven’t already. It’s a story within a story, sort of, and actually what drew me to IJ is the alleged ridiculous use of footnotes/endnotes, which is an integral part of House of Leaves as well (I really won’t say any more- just go read it!!)
I had just finished The Broom of the System tonight when I heard about this from Gruber! I’m in.
Just finished “Columbine” by Dave Cullen. Riveting book on the shooting and the aftermath; the parents, the kids and the surrounding community. Impeccably researched and reported by Cullen, a reporter who’s byline has appeared in Slate, among other publications. He’s been on this case for over 10 years. Maybe the best non-fiction I’ve ever read. Reads like a novel.
just read Elizabeth Costello and am currently reading Justice as Fairness by John Rawls. In some weird way I think Rawls’ attempt and DFW’s are one in the same. They both recognize the fix this “postmodern” world puts us in but both arent quite so ready to dump “truth” and “right” out with the bathwater.
Past two weeks I’ve read “Cutting for Stone” by Abraham Verghese,”People of the Book” by Geraldine Brooks and “The Last Child” by John Hart. Highly
recommend all of them. I’ve started “Infinite Jest”
Won’t finish this in such short order!
The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber, about a guy who thinks he’s found a heretofore unknown Shakespeare play in manuscript. Half the length of IJ but full of characters, plot, and ideas to sink your teeth into.
I’m reading The Ten Cent Plague by David Hadju about the comic-book scares in the middle of last century that Michael Chabon fictionalized in Kavalier and Clay. It’s well written and fascinating stuff. I’m going to read it along with IJ, in bits and spurts if I can get the IJ pages read by the deadlines. I’ll see how that goes.
[…] fact I learned from the last book I read: the Dead Sea, with its salt concentration of about 32%, is so saline that it is nearly impossible […]
I just finished Olive Kitteridge with a review on Goodreads.com. Also am reading The Girl with the Curious Hair and Titus Groan. Also finished Plainsong with was an easy and great book as a break. Also reading Doghead. Can’t wait – I’m starting IJ tonight.