Reading Plan: September Through November 2023
I’ve settled on my reading list for the next three months. It’s a varied collection.
May Sarton and Juliette Huxley are two authors on this list that I knew virtually nothing about three months ago. They’re here because I stumbled on a copy of Sarton’s The World of Light in a used book store. The book was inscribed by Sarton to a woman named Evie, and enclosed in the book was a typewritten note signed (in handwriting) by Juliette. With some assistance from Mastodon readers, I eventually learned that the book was a gift from Juliette Huxley to Evelyn (AKA Evie) Ames. I’m hoping to write more about the discovery and the people identified in the book and the letter later. A couple of weeks ago I spent time reading letters from Ames to Sarton in the New York Public Library’s Berg collection, and I hope sometime this fall to read other letters in that collection and also look through materials in the Evelyn Ames papers at a Harvard Library.
So I think of that as a serendipitous exploration of new territory for me.
The other books are more predictable. I’m reading more in 20th century philosophy, with some emphasis on women philosophers. I’m continuing my reading in contemporary fiction, largely following the recommendations of my local bookstore. And I’m reading works that (I hope) will push me to write more, whether in this blog or elsewhere.
As before, I’m allowing myself the freedom to modify this list
- Adrienne Brodeur, Little Monsters
- Claire Fuller, The Memory of Animals
- Cormac McCarthy, Stella Maris
- Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
- Charles Hartshorne, Creativity in American Philosophy
- Karl Sigmund, Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science
- Karen Stohr, Choosing Freedom
- Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman Metaphysical Animals
- Wolfram Eilenberger, The Visionaries
- Joke J. Hermsen, A Good and Dignified Life: The Political Advice of Hannah Arendt and Rosa Luxemburg
- Simone Weil, On the Abolition of All Political Parties
- Robert Zaretsdky, The Submersive Simone Weil
- Richard Sennett, The Craftsman
- Castillo, How to read now
- John McPhee, Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process
- Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
- Robert Gottlieb, Avid Reader
- May Sarton, The House by the Sea
- May Sarton, Dear Juliette: Letters to Juliette Huxley/
- Juliette Huxley, Leaves of the Tulip Tree
- Caitlin O’Connell, Wild Rituals: 10 Lessons Animals can Teach Us about Connection, Community, and Ourselves