Reading Lists

 I have a pile of books here to read, some for personal reasons and some for research, but I keep looking at lists of books for which I lack the time to read. Maybe I can come back to them, and perhaps you can get to them before me.

Midwest: A Regional Spotlight on Independent Publishing (Community of Literary Magazines and Presses)

A Reading List for Jewish American Heritage Month 2026 (Community of Literary Magazines and Presses)

I got two things from 19 Novels You Need to Read This Summer (Literary Hub). First, Téa Obreht has a new novel (about time), and then this that gave me thought about my writing:

But the thing one craves in good fiction is the eye-widening prompt to see things differently. 

Makes me wonder if I do enough of that.

We Should All Be Autodidacts: The Case For Reading the Great Books at Your Own Pace (Literary Hub) is not a list but about reading a particular list that puts the pin into scholarly pretensiousness.

When people ask whether they should read these books, I have two answers. The first is “Why would you not want to read all these old famous books that you’ve heard about all your life?”

The second answer is that the Great Books tend to share one quality. They have a lot of integrity. They tend to be unflinchingly honest about whatever their subject happens to be. And this means that even when they come down on one side of a question, they usually make a fair case for the opposite side.

Books ‘Andy Burnham’s life was changed by the poet Tony Harrison’: writers discuss literature, politics and the 100 best novels is about a list.

The Guardian’s list was topped by Middlemarch, and while it featured many 19th and 20th-century classics, newer novels including The Vegetarian by Han Kang, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante also made the cut.

Asked why older titles are finding popularity among young people, Mosse said that such books “contain a wisdom that is not about the endless revolving door that we live in now”.

“This is a time of transition and it’s a very bewildering moment,” said Shafak. “We’re dealing with so many crises. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re focusing more on 19th-century literature unknowingly. Most of the problems that we are dealing with today are actually still the repercussions, the ramifications of the 19th century.”

I will end with a little Joe Tex whimsicality:

 sch 5/26