The Bitter Buffalo

I decided I don't read enough. So, in typical fashion, I have assembled a stack of books I'd like to hammer my way through over the next several months. Here is what I have so far. Feel free to amend or suggest order:

Currently reading:

• Beowulf -- Amazingly cool 2000 translation by Irishman Seamus Heaney

• Humans, by Robert J Sawyer -- Sequel to Hominids, a book I read a few months back about a Neanderthal scientist from a parallel universe who slips into our dimension. In the other universe, humans died off and Neanderthals survived.

Books in queue:

• Forever Peace, by Joe Haldeman -- more Hugo-winning SF. I have aborted several attempts to read this over the past several years, but I am determined to make it through (especially if it turns out to be as good as Connie Willis's The Domesday Book, which similarly vexed me for years).

• Everything and More, by David Foster Wallace -- My favorite modern American writer takes on the history of Infinity (as in the mathematical concept, not the car). Seriously.

• Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides -- A recent recommendation by Bill Cross, who damn well knows good books, about a hermaphrodite.

• Days Between Stations, by Steve Erickson -- Last time I visited Cross, he pulled two books off his shelf for me to read. This is one of them, Perfume was the other. I finished Perfume on a plane a few weeks ago, and I wholeheartedly recommend it as one of the most bizarre and beautifully written stories about a serial killer ever translated into English from the German.

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon -- It may very well turn out to be an Oprah Book Club-like suggestion (it's only 200 pages long -- perfect chick book club material), but the cover intrigued me. We shall see.

• Hybrids, by Robert J Sawyer -- The final book in his Neanderthal trilogy.

• The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde -- The first of a series of punny and clever books recommended to me by Beth. I have to admit, it looks interesting on paper.

• Sweet and Vicious, by David Shickler -- I loved loved loved his short story collection, Kissing In Manhattan, and though Beth was ambiguous in her review of this novel, I am nonetheless excited to read it.

• A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby -- Because no Absurdly Ambitious Summer Reading List should be without a Nick Hornby novel.

• Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Mirakami -- I bought it in hardcover, which usually means by the time I actually read the damned thing, it'll be available in paperback for a third the price.

• Drop City, by T.C. Boyle -- This'll be the first Boyle novel I've read since Road To Wellville. Picked it up in hardcover off the bargain rack -- just $4.98.

• Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissinger -- Because the book sounds so much better than the movie, and the movie sounds pretty damned good.

• The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson -- I have had this book for almost 15 years, and I am embarrassed to admit I have never read it. Shame on me.

• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke -- I vaguely recall a recommendation for this book, but from whom I have no idea. It was the only book in my basket that elicited a comment of high praise from the cashier at Barnes & Noble, though.

• The Manifold Trilogy, by Stephen Baxter -- More SF, this time focusing on near future (like Gibson, back in the day). I heard about it when a listener called into a book discussion on NPR last week. How geeky is that?

A conservative estimate of total pages represented here is over 7,000. That's more pages than I have read in all of the last two years. Do you think I can do it?

Hey, Brooks. Welcome to the Buffalo.

I must confess I bought the DFW the day it was released -- I hammered the clerks at the local B & N for a week, until one day they finally had a copy sitting behind the counter for me. I took it home and eagerly consumed about a quarter of it in one night. But, like you, I got bogged down in the math. I put the book on the shelf and haven't attempted it until now.

It's ironic that we're talking about a book wherein one of America's more difficult writers attempts to make simple some very difficult mathematical concepts.