Books I’ve Read: 2006-2019
Alexie, Sherman - Flight
Anderson, Joan - A Second Journey
- An Unfinished Marriage
- A Walk on the Beach
- A Year By The Sea
Anshaw, Carol - Carry the One
Auden, W.H. - The Selected Poems of W.H. Auden
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
Bach, Richard - Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Bear, Donald R - Words Their Way
Berg, Elizabeth - Open House
Bly, Nellie - Ten Days in a Madhouse
Bradbury, Ray - Fahrenheit 451
- The Martian Chronicles
Brooks, David - The Road to Character
Brooks, Geraldine - Caleb’s Crossing
Brown, Dan - The Da Vinci Code
Bryson, Bill - The Lost Continent
Burnett, Frances Hodgson - The Secret Garden
Buscaglia, Leo - Bus 9 to Paradise
- Living, Loving & Learning
- Personhood
- Seven Stories of Christmas Love
Byrne, Rhonda - The Secret
Carlson, Richard - Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Carson, Rachel - The Sense of Wonder
- Silent Spring
Cervantes, Miguel de - Don Quixote
Cherry, Lynne - The Greek Kapok Tree
Chopin, Karen - The Awakening
Clurman, Harold - The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre & the 30s
Coelho, Paulo - Adultery
The Alchemist
Conklin, Tara - The Last Romantics
Conroy, Pat - Beach Music
- The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son
- The Great Santini
- The Lords of Discipline
- The Prince of Tides
- The Water is Wide
Corelli, Marie - A Romance of Two Worlds
Delderfield, R.F. - To Serve Them All My Days
Dempsey, Janet - Washington’s Last Contonment: High Time for a Peace
Dewey, John - Experience and Education
Dickens, Charles - A Christmas Carol
- Great Expectations
- A Tale of Two Cities
Didion, Joan - The Year of Magical Thinking
Disraeli, Benjamin - Sybil
Doctorow, E.L. - Andrew’s Brain
- Ragtime
Doerr, Anthony - All the Light We Cannot See
Dreiser, Theodore - Sister Carrie
Dyer, Wayne - Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life
- The Power of Intention
- Your Erroneous Zones
Edwards, Kim - The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
Ellis, Joseph J. - His Excellency: George Washington
Ellison, Ralph - The Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Essays and Lectures
Felkner, Donald W. - Building Positive Self Concepts
Fergus, Jim - One Thousand White Women
Flynn, Gillian - Gone Girl
Follett, Ken - Pillars of the Earth
Frank, Anne - The Diary of a Young Girl
Freud, Sigmund - The Interpretation of Dreams
Frey, James - A Million Little Pieces
Fromm, Erich - The Art of Loving
- Escape from Freedom
Fulghum, Robert - All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
Fuller, Alexandra - Leaving Before the Rains Come
Garield, David - The Actors Studion: A Player’s Place
Gates, Melinda - The Moment of Lift
Gibran, Kahlil - The Prophet
Gilbert, Elizabeth - Eat, Pray, Love
- The Last American Man
- The Signature of All Things
Ginsburg, Ruth Bader - My Own Words
Girzone, Joseph F, - Joshua
- Joshua and the Children
Gladwell, Malcom - Blink
- David and Goliath
- Outliers
- The Tipping Point
- Talking to Strangers
Glass, Julia - Three Junes
Goodall, Jane - Reason for Hope
Goodwin, Doris Kearnes - Team of Rivals
Graham, Steve - Best Practices in Writing Instruction
Gray, John - Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
Groom, Winston - Forrest Gump
Gruen, Sarah - Water for Elephants
Hannah, Kristin - The Great Alone
- The Nightingale
Harvey, Stephanie and Anne Goudvis - Strategies That Work
Hawkins, Paula - The Girl on the Train
Hedges, Chris - Empire of Illusion
Hellman, Lillian - Maybe
- Pentimento
Hemingway - Ernest - A Moveable Feast
Hendrix, Harville - Getting the Love You Want
Hesse, Hermann - Demian
- Narcissus and Goldmund
- Peter Camenzind
- Siddhartha
- Steppenwolf
Hilderbrand, Elin - The Beach Club
Hitchens, Christopher - God is Not Great
Hoffman, Abbie - Soon to be a Major Motion Picture
- Steal This Book
Holt, John - How Children Fail
- How Children Learn
- Learning All the Time
- Never Too Late
Hopkins, Joseph - The American Transcendentalist
Horney, Karen - Feminine Psychology
- Neurosis and Human Growth
- The Neurotic Personality of Our Time
- New Ways in Psychoanalysis
- Our Inner Conflicts
- Self Analysis
Hosseini, Khaled - The Kite Runner
Hoover, John J, Leonard M. Baca, Janette K. Klingner - Why Do English Learners Struggle with Reading?
Janouch, Gustav - Conversations with Kafka
Jefferson, Thomas - Crusade Against Ignorance
Jong, Erica - Fear of Dying
Joyce, Rachel - The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy
- The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Kafka, Franz - Amerika
- Metamophosis
- The Trial
Kallos, Stephanie - Broken For You
Kazantzakis, Nikos - Zorba the Greek
Keaton, Diane - Then Again
Kelly, Martha Hall - The Lilac Girls
Keyes, Daniel - Flowers for Algernon
King, Steven - On Writing
Kornfield, Jack - Bringing Home the Dharma
Kraft, Herbert - The Indians of Lenapehoking - The Lenape or Delaware Indians: The Original People of NJ, Southeastern New York State, Eastern Pennsylvania, Northern Delaware and Parts of Western Connecticut
Kundera, Milan - The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Lacayo, Richard - Native Son
Lamott, Anne - Bird by Bird
Word by Word
L’Engle, Madeleine - A Wrinkle in Time
Lahiri, Jhumpa - The Namesake
Lappe, Frances Moore - Diet for a Small Planet
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
Lems, Kristin et al - Building Literacy with English Language Learners
Lewis, Sinclair - Main Street
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Lowry, Lois - The Giver
Mander, Jerry - Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
Marks, John D. - The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control
Martel, Yann - Life of Pi
Maslow, Abraham - The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
- Motivation and Personality
- Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences
- Toward a Psychology of Being
Maugham. W. Somerset - Of Human Bondage
- Christmas Holiday
Maurier, Daphne du - Rebecca
Mayes, Frances - Under the Tuscan Sun
Mayle, Peter - A Year in Provence
McCourt, Frank - Angela’s Ashes
- Teacher man
McCullough, David - 1776
- Brave Companions
McEwan, Ian - Atonement
- Saturday
McLaughlin, Emma - The Nanny Diaries
McLuhan, Marshall - Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
Meissner, Susan - The Fall of Marigolds
Millman, Dan - Way of the Peaceful Warrior
Moehringer, J.R. - The Tender Bar
Moon, Elizabeth - The Speed of Dark
Moriarty, Liane - The Husband’s Sister
- The Last Anniversary
- What Alice Forgot
Mortenson, Greg - Three Cups of Tea
Moyes, Jo Jo - One Plus One
- Me Before You
Ng, Celeste - Little Fires Everywhere
Neill, A.S. - Summerhill
Noah, Trevor - Born a Crime
O’Dell, Scott - Island of the Blue Dolphins
Offerman, Nick - Gumption
O’Neill, Eugene - Long Day’s Journey Into Night
A Touch of the Poet
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Owens, Delia - Where the Crawdads Sing
Paulus, Trina - Hope for the Flowers
Pausch, Randy - The Last Lecture
Patchett, Ann - The Dutch House
Peck, Scott M. - The Road Less Traveled
- The Road Less Traveled and Beyond
Paterson, Katherine - Bridge to Teribithia
Picoult, Jodi - My Sister’s Keeper
Pirsig, Robert - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Puzo, Mario - The Godfather
Quindlen, Anna - Black and Blue
Radish, Kris - Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral
Redfield, James - The Celestine Prophecy
Rickert, Mary - The Memory Garden
Rogers, Carl - On Becoming a Person
Ruiz, Miguel - The Fifth Agreement
- The Four Agreements
- The Mastery of Love
Rum, Etaf - A Woman is No Man
Saint-Exupery, Antoine de - The Little Prince
Salinger, J.D. - Catcher in the Rye
Schumacher, E.F. - Small is Beautiful
Sebold, Alice - The Almost Moon
- The Lovely Bones
Shaffer, Mary Ann and Anne Barrows - The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Shakespeare, William - Alls Well That Ends Well
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Romeo and Juliet
- The Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- Twelfth Night
- Two Gentlemen of Verona
Sides, Hampton - Hellhound on his Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin
Silverstein, Shel - The Giving Tree
Skinner, B.F. - About Behaviorism
Smith, Betty - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Snyder, Zilpha Keatley - The Velvet Room
Spinelli, Jerry - Loser
Spolin, Viola - Improvisation for the Theater
Stanislavski, Constantin - An Actor Prepares
Stedman, M.L. - The Light Between Oceans
Steinbeck, John - Travels with Charley
Steiner, Peter - The Terrorist
Stockett, Kathryn - The Help
Strayer, Cheryl - Wild
Streatfeild, Dominic - Brainwash
Strout, Elizabeth - My Name is Lucy Barton
Tartt, Donna - The Goldfinch
Taylor, Kathleen - Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control
Thomas, Matthew - We Are Not Ourselves
Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
Tolle, Eckhart - A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
- The Power of Now
Towles, Amor - A Gentleman in Moscow
- Rules of Civility
Tracey, Diane and Lesley Morrow - Lenses on Reading
Traub, Nina - Recipe for Reading
Tzu, Lao - Tao Te Ching
United States Congress - Project MKULTRA, the CIA's program of research in behavioral modification: Joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the ... Congress, first session, August 3, 1977
Van Allsburg, Chris - Just a Dream
- Polar Express
- Sweet Dreams
- Stranger
- Two Bad Ants
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
Waller, Robert James - Bridges of Madison County
Warren, Elizabeth - A Fighting Chance
Waugh, Evelyn - Brideshead Revisited
Weir, Andy - The Martian
Weinstein, Harvey M. - Father, Son and CIA
Welles, Rebecca - The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood
Westover, Tara - Educated
White, E.B. - Charlotte’s Web
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorien Gray
Wolfe, Tom - I Am Charlotte Simmons
Wolitzer, Meg - The Female Persuasion
Woolf, Virginia - Mrs. Dalloway
Zevin, Gabrielle - The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Zusak, Marcus - The Book Thief
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April Favorites
Here’s what I enjoyed in April.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3WbeAjSRqOfrT5QTeWFzcI?si=6qChvQEXRaCP3Ze2ZkkVvA
NEW MUSIC:
Bob Dylan “I Contain Multitudes”
I’ve enjoyed all of the singles he’s been releasing. Folk epics.
Cowboy Junkies “Ghosts”
An elegiac record for the Timms siblings’ mother, from a band that’s always made the mournful sound sublime. I finally went to see Cowboy Junkies a few years ago. The first set was their 2018 album “All That Reckoning,” the second set was to be the hits. During the intermission the building next door caught on fire and that was it. Hope to see them again someday, but if that’s the story then so it goes. So close.
Danzig “Sings Elvis”
Glenn Danzig’s fully embracing his non-Satanic muse. It seems overdue but he’s really going for it and I’m glad he’s having fun.
Fiona Apple “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”
It’s a masterpiece, as advertised. As uncompromising and fully realized as Rid of Me or Exile In Guyville.
Flat Worms “Antarctica”
Excellent garage punk.
Hazel English “Wake UP!”
A solid dream pop album and a step up from her other records, though those are good too.
Jackie Lynn “Jacqueline”
Originally Jackie Lynn was Haley Fohr’s country music alter-ego outside of Circuit Des Yeux. The Jackie Lynn records seem to be a bit looser and playful, but honestly I’ll check out anything Fohr does regardless of the name on the sleeve.
Laura Marling “Song For Our Daughter”
It’s one of her best.
Marisa Anderson and Tara Jane O’Neill “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To”
I’m a fan of both of these artists and this collaboration is inspired.
Purity Ring “WOMB”
Twinkling body fascination.
RVG “Feral”
“Perfect Day” is on the playlist and it’s such a sweet, funny song. The whole record is a winner.
Samantha Crain “Holding to the Edge of Night”
A stunning song. Can’t wait for the record.
Seazoo “Joy”
Impeccable indie pop.
Thundercat “It Is What It Is”
Got that right.
Yves Tumor “Heaven to a Tortured Mind”
Incredible record. Everything about it: the cover, the title, and the unpredictable music.
OLD MUSIC (reissues) :
Caspar Brötzmann Massaker “Koksofen, Home”
Southern Lord started reissuing CBM on vinyl last year; this year they put out Koksofen and Home, both of which I was fortunate enough to hear when they were initially released.
I grew up in a small town in Iowa. In high school we knew a guy who’d graduated ahead of us and worked at the public library. This one guy singlehandedly introduced dozens of teens to the glory of Amphetamine Reptile Records. He championed noise rock across the board, including more high minded sounds like those of Caspar Brötzmann Massaker. Dissonant and monstrous. Great stuff. RIP, Tim, I would have missed out on so much.
OLD MOVIES:
The American Astronaut (2001)
If you crossed Eraserhead with Ice Pirates and added musical numbers you might end up with something like this.
The Bride (1985)
I was eleven years old when this came out. Around this age I was beginning to connect the dots in entertainment in terms of identifying performers across projects. I loved fantasy films (80’s!) and “Synchronicity” by The Police. I’d seen Sting as Feyd Rautha in David Lynch’s Dune. I was excited to see The Bride, but there was no exhilaration when I watched it and I felt disappointed. Watching it years later, I can see why I was disenchanted as a kid: it’s a pretty bleak film. That being said, the production design and cinematography are gorgeous, and I think Clancy Brown’s performance is excellent, especially when viewed in contrast to his performance as the Kurgan in Highlander, which came out that same year.
The 400 Blows (1959)
I know there are more films that follow the life of the character Antoine Doinel, but I just want to think of him as running on that beach for awhile.
Blue Thunder (1983)
Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
Seeing the posters for these movies as a child left permanent marks on my brain. Because they occupied that space for so long, I felt like I had a relationship with these films, when honestly, I’d never seen them and simply knew that they existed.
When I was six years old I was horrified and transfixed by the poster for Happy Birthday to Me. The actual film is over-plotted and ridiculous and culminates with a Scooby-Doo-worthy reveal but I admire how ambitious it is. I associate slasher films with low-budget fare but in the first ten minutes a character jumps an elevating drawbridge in a car.
In the case of Blue Thunder, the darkness of the poster was captivating. When I found out it was about a technologically advanced helicopter it only raised more questions. Was it like Megaforce? Was it fun?
Watching it today, when police regularly use military-grade equipment, the plot’s privacy concerns seem quaint. The helicopter duel over Los Angeles is amazing, though, especially in the pre-CGI era.
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