Christmas Break Reading List

I love making reading lists.  Those lists don't always translate to actually getting things read, but so be it.  As the end of the fall semester arrives, I am naively and optimistically anticipating a couple weeks of non-course-related reading.  I'll never get all of these works read, but here's the list I'm contemplating.

• Breslin, James E. B.  Mark Rothko: A Biography.  I've been a casual fan of Rothko since encountering a few of his paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago Museum.  I've got a notion for a poem or essay that works with Rothko's paintings as a thread.  I'm not sure the biography is necessary for my own writing, but I hope to find out.
• Karr, Mary.  The Liar's Club. 
• Purdy, Jedediah.  For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today.  I originally encountered W. E. B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk by watching the old TV show Spenser for Hire, where it was quoted by Hawk (played by Avery Brooks).  For Common Things was quoted a couple of time in the HBO series The Newsroom, and I'm planning to take the bait.
• Robinson, Marilynne.  Lila.

Of course, I'll also be planning a new syllabus for ENG 200 in January, which means I'll be reading The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, by Alan Jacobs. 


And, or course, I'll probably be napping a lot.