Speaking of Suggested Reading

Suggested Reading: What does that mean to me?

Before there were ebooks, I often added to my personal suggested reading list by slowly walking up and down the aisles at the local Big Box Bookstore. Using this technique I would be attracted by the name of the author, the splashy cover art, the brief synopsis on the inside cover, or whether the book was on too low a shelf for my rapidly aging body to comfortably reach.

When local public libraries went online, I lost most of the triggers a book in my hand provided. But the online library allowed me to have a month full of reading waiting for me with a rubber band around it sitting on a will-call shelf near the front door of the library. Generally I heard about an author or a new title, checked if the library had obtained the title, and scheduled a quick visit in the next few days.

Nowadays I can discover a new book on the internet, possibly even with the cover art and other triggers. Then I download or purchase it, catalog and store it, and ultimately read it on my iPhone or iPad.

Here are last month’s daily reading suggestions. I wonder if I would still recommend them after I read them? It’s at least fifty-fifty I expect. I’m usually quite adept at avoiding clunkers.

07-01-18 – Empire of the Senseless — Kathy Acker
07-02-18 – Transit — Rachel Cusk
07-02-18 – Energy — Richard Rhodes
07-03-18 – San Miguel — T. C. Boyle
07-04-18 – Adjustment Day — Chuck Palahniak
07-05-18 – Warlight — Michael Ondaatje
07-06-18 – No Is Not Enough — Naomi Klein
07-07-18 – Demi-Gods — Eliza Robertson
07-08-18 – Convenience Store Woman — Sayaka Murata
07-09-18 – The Chandelier — Clarice Lispector
07-10-18 – American War — Omar El Akkad
07-11-18 – Who Is Vera Kelly? — Rosalie Knecht
07-12-18 – Becoming Kareem — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
07-13-18 – Appetites — Anthony Bourdain
07-14-18 – The Only Story — Julian Barnes
07-15-18 – A Place for Us: A Novel — Fatima Farheen Mirza
07-16-18 – A Taste of Honey — Jabari Asim
07-17-18 – Asimov’s Guide to the Bible — Isaac Asimov
07-18-18 – Ecstasy — Mary Sharratt
07-19-18 – The Oracle Year: A Novel — Charles Soule
07-20-18 – The Decagon House Murders — Yukito Ayatsuji
07-21-18 – The Sky Over Lima — Juan Gómez Bárcena
07-22-18 – Injury Time — Beryl Bainbridge
07-23-18 – The Farfarers — Farley Mowat
07-24-18 – Less: A Novel — Andrew Sean Greer
07-25-18 – The Garden of Light — Amin Maalouf
07-26-18 – This Little Art — Kate Briggs,
07-27-18 – The Overstory — Richard Powers
07-28-18 – The Unpublished Vice: A Life of Reading — Edmund White
07-29-18 – The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein— Peter Ackroyd
07-30-18 – Richard II — William Shakespeare
07-31-18 – The Battle of Borodino: Napoleon Against Kutuzov — Alexander Mikaberidze