07 Jul 2023 5 min read

Reading plans for the rest of the year

Yes, I am like that

🎶If you don’t know me by now…🎶

I know this is quite the list, but I am always the One with the Big Plans for myself, and, if the harpies Brain Fog and Fatigue don’t interfere, I am an incredibly swift reader. I used to take two or even three books to middle school to make certain the introvert was covered, especially during the dreadfully long bus ride into the country. Granted, young adult books were thinner back then, but I didn’t also take YA, sometimes juggling a Stephen King and a Lovecraft with my North Carolina History textbook. To paraphrase George Carlin, these were the things that kept me from making friends and influencing people.

See, look at those skinny bastards.

I also won’t be upset if I don’t finish this list. It’s a list of intense suggestions and geeky hope. To paraphrase John Lennon, life is what happens when my health is making other plans.

Look, it even has subheadings! She’s so weird.

(Links to all of these The Story Graph Challenges here)

For the podcast:

finish rereading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (podcast series of episodes as it stands now)
Jazz (Beloved trilogy) by Toni Morrison: Harvard University Bookstore Top 100 Books, 12 Classics in 12 Months, and Read the African American Literary Canon
Paradise (Beloved trilogy) by Toni Morrison: Harvard University Bookstore Top 100 Books, 12 Classics in 12 Months, and Read the African American Literary Canon

Beloved episode: 74: “Beloved: The Chaos of the Needy Dead”, embedded at bottom for paid subscribers, or in every podcatcher

quick shift: Coreyography by Corey Feldman: to discuss either on Princess-Jones Curtis’ podcast, Bye, Pumkin, or mine, since we previously discussed The Two Coreys on hers. I have the audio narrated by him.
another quick shift (whiplash): Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento by Maitland McDonagh: in order to complete my own trilogy on the Three Mothers trilogy of movies and on the literature and mythology that informed it (you’d be surprised)

Current Three Mothers episodes on Substack ad-free for paid members. Free everywhere with ads for everyone (embedded at bottom):

Next in The Dark Tower universe:

The Talisman (The Talisman #1) by Stephen King and Peter Straub: Horror Book Challenge, The Dark Tower Extended Reading Order, and Stephen King Reading List
The Wastelands (The Dark Tower #3) by Stephen King: The Dark Tower Extended Reading Order and Stephen King Reading List

Podcast episode (same deal): 61: “Roland and the Dark Tower”

Classics:

with included Story Graph Challenges in which I am participating

Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams by Sylvia Plath: Sylvia Plath Bookclub and 12 Classics in 12 Months
The Collected Stories of William Faulkner: National Book Award Winners for Fiction and 12 Classics in 12 Months
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury: 12 Classics in 12 Months
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty: National Book Award Winners for Fiction and 12 Classics in 12 Months
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov: Harvard University Bookstore Top 100 Books and 12 Classics in 12 Months
Selected Short Stories of Anton Chekhov: 12 Classics in 12 Months: book club/class: currently being taught by
Shakespeare’s Sonnets: FrizzLit book club/class: will be taught by poet April Bernard

My two literature credits in undergraduate psychology were Ancient Literature (O, Catullus) and Shakespeare, but we concentrated on his plays. I always focused on unusual classes for my “other” classes; for my science credits, instead of taking Physics 101 and Chemistry 101 like the rest of my cohort, I took Astronomy and Oceanography. I got to see Saturn and its rings through a telescope. I was high all night. My advisor struggled a little bit with me and my choices. But Saturn on a chilly winter night!

For Writing:

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf: FrizzLit book club/class
On Writing by Stephen King: Stephen King Reading List
Where Nightmares Come From: The Art of Storytelling in the Horror Genre by Clive Barker et al.
The Writing of Fiction by Edith Wharton

Plus,

More books written by Joan Didion and Joyce Carol Oates

Always. I can’t ever catch up with the marvelous , but trying is one of the joys of my life.

Last, but never least,

Books written by my friends:

Jonathan Janz, , Bob Ford (), , , Douglas Clegg, Elizabeth Hand, Bev Vincent, Elizabeth Massie, Grady Hendrix, Mike Bockoven, …so many more. I need to read more by my friends. So should you.

Tell me about your TBR list. Do you (over)plan like me?