Tag Archives: lists

Some lists

Every so often, I return to McSweeney’s Lists for a good laugh. Here are some of my favourites of the ones I read today:

SPOILERS I’VE DELIVERED TO ENGLISH LIT MAJORS.

~By Gladstone

Godot never comes.

Bartleby is a lot like humanity in his preferring not to.

Peyton Farquhar sure has an active imagination at Owl Creek.

Your close reading skills and knowledge of symbolism will not be rewarded in your job as a lawyer or coffee barista.

* * *

PHILOSOPHER FINISHING MOVES.

~By Pravasan Pillay

The Aristhrottle

The Wittgenspine Buster

The Figure Four Ankle Locke

The Reverse Spinning Kickegaard

The Top Rope Over-the-Shoulder Thoreau

The Pulling Down of the Lyotard

The Feuerback Breaker

The Unemployment Clothes Line

* * *

RADIOHEAD AT THE CULINARY INSTITUTE.

~By Jimmy Chen

“Everything in Its Mise en Place”

“Fritter, Happier”

“All I Knead”

“Bones”

“My Waffle-Iron Lung”

“High and Dry Rub”

“Knives Out”

“Caramel Police”

“Black Star Anise”

“Weird Fishes”

“Crepe”

* * *

PALEOLITHIC BRYAN ADAMS: A PLAYLIST.

~By Josiah Lindsey

“Cuts Like a Hand-Sharpened Piece of Flint”

“Run to You Across the Bering Land Bridge”

“Hearts on Fire (Which Few of Us Can Make)”

“(Everything I Do) I Do It for Scavenged Mammoth Meat”

“Summer of 6″

There is more fun over at McSweeney’s Lists.

Summer Reading Revisited

I don’t know why I bother posting reading lists. I don’t remember ever following a reading list beyond maybe two books. It’s fun to discuss what I want to or should read, but I should never presume to set it in stone. One of the joys of owning books is perusing them over a time and simply choosing one that feels right to read at that moment. It means, too, that one week my list might look like this and the next it might look like that.

The list I made up for this summer was not only heavy, but premature and too rigid. Plus, I made it up off the top of my head without a glance at my bookshelves.  Ignoring for the moment possibilities in theology and spirituality, where are Kafka, Paley, Dillard, Buechner and Berry? What of Leacock, Findley, Achebe, Faulkner, Austen, Stegner? How about In Praise of Slow and In Defense of Food? What about Amusing Ourselves to Death or Prairie: A Natural History?

Let’s be realistic. My summer reading will look like what it looks like. Sure, I could use some structure in my life–but not in my reading. Not in the summer, anyway.