On the Pile and In the Works

Since my Bookman manages a bookstore he frequently comes by advanced reader's editions of books--review copies. The latest one of interest is About Grace by Anthony Doerr. Doerr is the author of the short story collection The Shell Collector. I haven't read The Shell Collector, but it won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award for 2002. About Grace is a novel that begins when David Walker is a boy in Alaska. David sometimes dreams about things before they happen. Eventually he dreams about his infant daughter drowning in a flood while he tries to save her. He flees his family in an attempt to save his daughter from the fate he dreamed. The letter from Simon and Schuster accompanying the book says that they believe Anthony Doerr to be as important to the Scribner imprint as Annie Proulx, Don DeLillo, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. Hi praise. The book is going in my bedside reading pile. And a heads up to a great sale, The Practice of Reading by Denis Donoghue can be had for $1 at BarnesandNoble.com. I love reading books about books and reading. This one was published in 1998. According to the back of the book it is the "nature and importance of literary interpretation" and argues "that we must read texts closely and imaginatively rather than merely theorizing about them." And finally, in the currently reading pile:

• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. It's a slow read, but I'm enjoying it.
• The Pornography of Meat by Carol J. Adams. Not exactly what I expected and not very well written, but I've decided to stick with it anyway.
• A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That by Lisa Glatt. I didn't like the way this started--very depressing--but it has gotten better and I have decided to stick with it.
• Diary of Virginia Woolf, 1920-1924, Vol. 2 by, of course, Virginia Woolf. Need I say more?
• Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Still reading this one.
• Writing and Being by Nadine Gordimer. This still has the marker in it but the book is way on the back burner. If I decide to pick it back up I will no doubt have to start it over again it has been so long since I've looked at it. Oh well.