September 2, 2011

September Reading Plan

Next up on the to-read list:

JANE EYRE by Charlotte Brontë - I'm a quarter of the way through. I'm enjoying Jane as a narrator well enough, and it's interesting to read about what life was like in the mid-1800s, but I could use a little more plot. I have high hopes that the story will get more plotful soon.

BLUE MARS by Kim Stanley Robinson - All sorts of intriguing developments happened toward the end of GREEN MARS, so I'm curious to see what's next.

THE SUBMISSION by Amy Waldman - This book has been receiving a lot of buzz due to its well-timed publication close to the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and unveiling of the Ground Zero memorial. Waldman's novel concerns a fictional contest to design the memorial for a 9/11-like event. In the book, the submission process is anonymous, and one of the finalists turns out to be an American-born Muslim, which leads to the expected sort of uproar. THE SUBMISSION has been reviewed well, so I'm expecting a story that's strong as well as timely.

THE TASTE OF SALT by Martha Southgate - I read an essay by Southgate in The Millions, and the title and cover of her just-published novel intrigued me. When I discovered that the story involves siblings, addiction, and oceanography, I had to buy it.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Necee Regis at Beyond the Margins recounts the lessons of downtime in Everything I Learned About Writing I Learned On My Summer Vacation: "Sometimes you need to take a break from your manuscript. A sign this might be necessary is if you can recite vast tracks of your book from memory without pause and yet you have no idea what you're saying. Plus you think it’s the worst piece of drivel ever written. When that happens, try putting it in a drawer and letting it rest while you distract yourself with other projects. When the time is right you'll return to it, refreshed."

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