Daniel Shank Cruz

Books Acquired Recently: Mostly Vacation Edition

I have acquired sixteen books over the past two weeks, most as a result from visiting various bookshops during my recent vacation to England and Scotland, which was an amazing trip! The rundown of these books is below, with the books separated into sections based on where they were bought. The sections are listed in chronological order.

Hatchard’s, London, England

Hatchard’s is the oldest bookshop in London, having opened in 1797. It was walking distance from my hotel and it was an awe-inspiring experience to be in a space that has been used for the same purpose for over 200 years.

Clare, John. Major Works. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.

I have been looking for a selection of Clare’s works since reading about his escape from a lunatic asylum in a book on psychogeography about a year ago. This volume has a large selection of his poetry as well as some of his prose, which is what I am most interested in.

Kureishi, Hanif. Something to Tell You. 2008. London: Faber, 2009.

Kureishi is one of my favorite British authors and thus I thought it would be appropriate to buy one of his books while I was in England.

Topping & Company, Bath, England

This was a fantastic bookstore, my favorite on the trip. Bath is a lovely little city.

Bashō, Matsuo. The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches. Tr. Nobuyuki Yuasa. London: Penguin, 1966.

I really enjoy Bashō’s haiku, thus when I discovered this slender volume on the shelf I thought it presented a good opportunity to read some of his prose. I also like the idea of buying a book about travelling whilst travelling.

Lee, Hermione. Biography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009.

I am considering doing some scholarship on memoir and thought this little book would be helpful for understanding some of the theoretical issues surrounding the genre.

Peter Bell Books, Edinburgh, Scotland

One of the things that impressed me about Edinburgh was its large number of bookshops–I discovered seven of them just wandering about a half-mile radius from my hotel. All but one of these (Blackwell’s below) were independent stores, tiny holes-in-the-wall. This included Peter Bell Books. Its website (linked to above: “We have been bookselling in Edinburgh since 1980, and are reliable and professional in our business dealings.”) is a good digital manifestation of the shop itself.

Spark, Muriel. The Bachelors. 1960. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963.

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I was hoping to buy an old British Penguin paperback because I love their design, and this book fit the bill. I love the little notice on the back cover letting buyers know that it “is not for sale in the U.S.A.” I paid £4.00 for it, more than its original price of three pounds and six shillings (it’s so old that they were still using shillings!).

Blackwell’s, Edinburgh, Scotland

It made me happy that all of Edinburgh’s small bookshops are able to coexist with this larger chain shop.

London, Jack. The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009.

The shop was having a two-for-one sale on Oxford World’s Classics, so this is the book that I got for free.

Zola, Émile. The Ladies’ Paradise. 1883. Tr. Brian Nelson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.

I have never read any of Zola’s work despite his importance to the genre of the novel. I recently read a bit about this particular book and thought its portrayal of urbanization and gender sounded interesting, so I decided to buy it.

Oxfam, York, England

Butler, Bryon. The Official Illustrated History of the FA Cup. London: Headline, 1996.

There was an Oxfam used bookshop just down the street from Yorkminster Cathedral, which is one of the sites I visited during the trip. I found this coffee table book and decided to buy it because Manchester United were playing in the FA Cup final later in the day and I thought buying it would bring them luck, and it did! It cost £3.45.

WHSmith, Gatwick Airport, London, England

Ferguson, Alex, with Michael Moritz. Leading. 2015. London: Hodder, 2016.

Despite all of the other better bookshops on the trip it was still impossible to resist a quick walk-through of the airport bookstore, and I ended up purchasing this book because it was half-price.

The Strand, New York City

On the morning after arriving back in the U.S. I stopped at the Strand, my favorite bookstore, before taking the train back to Utica.

DeLillo, Don. Zero K. New York: Scribner, 2016.

I am incredibly excited to read DeLillo’s new novel because he is one of my favorite authors. I exclaimed with delight when I saw it on one of the front tables.

Heti, Sheila. How Should a Person Be? 2012. New York: Picador, 2013.

I love Women in Clothes, the book that Heti co-edited about women’s experiences with clothing, but have never read any of her writing itself. A stack of How Should a Person Be? was on a table labelled “The Future of Fiction” and I decided it was time to check it out.

Mukherjee, Neel. The Lives of Others. 2014. New York: Norton, 2015.

I read Mukherjee’s first novel, A Life Apart, in England and loved it. I decided that I will teach it in one of my courses this coming fall, and thus that it would be helpful to read The Lives of Others sometime this summer to give me more context for his work.

Nelson, Maggie. The Argonauts. Minneapolis: Graywolf, 2015.

I read a review of this book in the New Yorker a few months back and it sounded fascinating for three reasons: it deals with queer issues, it blends genres, and, as noted above, I am thinking about doing some scholarship on the memoir genre and thought it would be helpful to read this book since it is all the rage. Nelson has also published a book about one of my favorite poets, Frank O’Hara, that sounds interesting, so she seems like a fascinating person.

Amazon.com

The Chicago Manual of Style. 16th ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2010.

I am currently working on a bibliography that I plan to submit to a journal that uses Chicago Style, which I am not familiar with, so I decided to buy this book to help with the project. I am also seriously considering switching to Chicago Style as my primary style because I am not fond of the new version of MLA style (note that I am still using the older version of MLA style to format the entries for the books in this post).

Darling, Ron, with Daniel Paisner. Game 7, 1986: Failure and Triumph in the Biggest Game of My Life. New York: St. Martin’s, 2016.

Like many Mets fans I am obsessed with the 1986 team and will buy any book associated with them. This book promises to offer a fascinating perspective on the team. Many people forget that Darling started game 7 (and did not pitch well, leaving trailing 3-0) because Sid Fernandez ended up being the pitching hero and there are all of the iconic images of Jesse Orosco throwing his glove into the air after the final out. Even though the Mets scored eight runs, everyone talks about how the pitching was what won the Mets the game, and I look forward to reading Darling’s analysis of why this is the case.

The last of the sixteen books is

Pashley, Jennifer. The Scamp. Portland: Tin House, 2015.

Pashley gave a reading with several other authors in Utica last night that was quite enjoyable. I have her two excellent short story collections and decided to buy her recent novel in part because I like her writing and in part because it is important to support local authors and independent presses.

Books Acquired Recently: Dallas Wiebe Plus One

Morrison, Toni. God Help the Child. 2015. New York: Vintage, 2016.

I was browsing at the Green Toad Bookstore last weekend and saw that the paperback of Morrison’s latest novel is out. She is an important enough writer (and I also really enjoy much of her work) that it is mandatory for me to read everything she writes, so I figured it was time to buy this book.

Wiebe, Dallas. Going to the Mountain. Providence: Burning Deck, 1988.

—. Skyblue’s Essays. Providence: Burning Deck, 1995.

—. The Vox Populi Street Stories. Providence: Burning Deck, 2003.

I decided it was time for me to finish reading Wiebe’s fictional oeuvre now that it is summer. I acquired these three books from amazon.com’s network of independent sellers.

Books Acquired Recently

Barker, Elizabeth Jackson. Poems in Passage. Utica: North Country, 1988.

There was a stack of new copies of this book on the free table at school earlier this week. Apparently someone had them stashed in their office and was doing some cleaning. I’m always excited to encounter new poets, so I look forward to checking Barker’s work out.

Hogan, Kristen. The Feminist Bookstore Movement: Lesbian Antiracism and Feminist Accountability. Durham: Duke UP, 2016.

I got an exam copy of this book from the publisher. It looks quite fascinating, as I love bookstores and enjoyed my visit to the one feminist bookstore I’ve been to, Bluestockings in Manhattan. Of course when most people think of feminist bookstores now they think of the Women and Women First Bookstore from Portlandia, but they have had real social significance, and I am eager to learn more about their history.

Books Acquired Recently

Funk, Wes. Baggage. Regina: Benchmark, 2010.

I was very excited to be able to track down a copy of this rare book, which I found for sale on the Read Saskatchewan website. While all of Funk’s books are now technically out of print, his others are available as ebooks (which of course I eschew), so in a sense they are much less rare. I am happy to now have a complete set of Funk’s works.

Renker, Elizabeth. Poems: A Concise Anthology. Peterborough: Broadview, 2016.

I received an exam copy of this book from the publisher today. It looks like a very good teaching anthology because it includes poems from different time periods and cultures, and while nearly all of the poets included are canonical, some of the selections of individual poems are not. The book holds more than one could ever teach in a semester (it’s 789 pages, which believe it or not is actually fairly “concise” for a teaching anthology), but it is the kind of book that would be lovely for a student to keep on their shelf and dip into over the years. I hope I get a chance to teach a course where it would be appropriate to use sometime.

Books Acquired Recently: Mennonites Plus One Edition

My recent book-buying binge has included a number of Mennonite authors. Aside from the Wes Funk books, which I ordered from Laird Books in Regina, Saskatchewan (and who provided excellent customer service), I acquired all of the Mennonite-related books from amazon.com’s network of independent sellers.

Birdsell, Sandra. Agassiz: A Novel in Stories. Minneapolis: Milkweed, 1991.

I haven’t read much of Birdsell’s work though she was one of the influential Mennonite writers at the beginning of the “Mennonite miracle” in Canadian writing during the 1980s. I decided that this summer would be a good time to remedy this lack.

Funk, Wes. Cherry Blossoms. Regina: Your Nickel’s Worth, 2012.

—. Dead Rock Stars. Illus. Kevin Hastings. Regina: Your Nickel’s Worth, 2015.

—. Wes Side Story: A Memoir. Regina: Your Nickel’s Worth, 2014.

I recently heard about Funk’s work. It is apparently explicitly queer, which is exciting because queer Mennonite literature is a major research interest of mine. I bought copies of all of his books that I could find (there’s one more that I haven’t been able to find anywhere).

Janzen, Jean. Elements of Faithful Writing. Kitchener: Pandora, 2004.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I haven’t read much of Janzen’s work, but am trying to remedy that. This book is one that gets cited often in metacritical discussions of Mennonite literature, and thus feels essential for me to read.

Waltner-Toews, David. One Foot in Heaven. Regina: Couteau, 2005.

I love Waltner-Toews’s poetry and am excited to read some of his fiction.

Yaguchi, Yorifumi. The Wing-Beaten Air: My Life and My Writing. Intercourse: Good, 2008.

I also really enjoy Yaguchi’s poetry, and look forward to reading this memoir.

The “plus one” referred to in the title of this post is the new Modern Language Association style manual, which I received free because I am an MLA member:

MLA Handbook. 8th ed. New York: Modern Language Association, 2016.

Once I get a chance to read this I will have to write a post about how I feel about the changes, but just flipping through it and seeing some of the different formatting I am flipping out, and not in a good way. Double-plus ungood. I will have to decide whether or not to use the new formatting for my citations in future posts.

Books Acquired Recently

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve gone a little wild buying books lately. Here’s what’s come in over the past week or so.

Campbell, W. Joseph. 1995: The Year the Future Began. Oakland: U of California P, 2015.

I received this book as a birthday gift. I am excited to read it because I remember 1995 quite clearly, and it’s weird to me that I am old enough now to be having history written about times when I was alive. I look forward to seeing why Campbell argues that it was 1995 specifically that began a new era in America rather than, say, 2001.

Frank, Arthur W. Letting Stories Breathe: A Socio-Narratology. 2010. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2012.

I have been interested in the theory of narrative since taking a course on narrative theology my last year of college nearly fifteen years ago. I’ve been looking to incorporate more of this theory into my own scholarship, and in doing some research on the subject came across this book, which sounds intriguing. I purchased it from one of amazon.com’s network of independent booksellers.

Loeppky, Lynette. Cease: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Desire. Fernie: Oolichan, 2014.

I read a review of this book in Rhubarb magazine, and decided to buy it because it is in a genre, queer Mennonite writing, that is a primary focus of my scholarship. I bought it from one of abebooks.com’s network of booksellers, which is where I end up buying a lot of books that have been published in Canada, but not the U.S. Sadly, this is often the case for Canadian Mennonite writing.

Plimpton, George. One More July: A Football Dialogue with Bill Curry. New York: Harper, 1977.

I read about this book a few months ago in Nelson Aldrich’s oral history of Plimpton’s life, George, Being George. There was an interesting story told by Curry about how he made Plimpton take out the story of Curry learning about how to use the word “motherfucker” from Bubba Smith. Last weekend I was browsing at the Rose and Laurel Bookshop in Oneonta, New York, and found this copy in good condition for just a dollar, so I decided to buy it. I’m really sad that it does not have the motherfucker chapter, though.

Books Acquired Recently

I’ve been letting my book-buying addiction get the best of me lately, as I’ve ordered about ten books in last week or so. Here is what has come in thus far:

Clare, Eli. Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation. 1999. Durham: Duke UP, 2015.

Halberstam, Judith. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham: Duke UP, 2011.

I have been wanting to read more queer theory lately, and then I received an email from Duke University Press (the premier academic publisher of queer texts) that they were have a 30% off sale. Both of these books sounded interesting and relevant to some projects that I’m working on, so I decided to buy them.

Mukherjee, Neel. A Life Apart. 2008. New York: Norton, 2016.

I read a review of this novel in the New Yorker last week and it sounded quite fascinating (apparently much of it takes place in men’s restrooms as the narrator tries to find partners for sex). A few days ago a friend took me book shopping for my birthday, and this is what I chose.

Samatar, Sofia. The Winged Histories. Easthampton: Small Beer, 2016.

Samatar is one of the few Mennonite writers writing speculative fiction. Her new novel just came out and I can’t wait to read it!

Books Acquired Recently: Mostly Mennonites Edition

I’ve gone a little crazy (even for me) buying books the past few weeks. The primary reason for this is that I’ve been reading a lot of literary criticism (primarily from the Journal of the Center of Mennonite Writing), and whenever I do this I find out about books (both primary sources and other works of criticism or theory) that sound fascinating and that I have to buy. All of the Jean Janzen books, the Dallas Wiebe collection of stories, the Thomas King novel, and the Dominique Chew and Kolton Nay chapbooks were purchases stemming from this recent reading. The other two purchases were helped by the fact that I was in book-buying mode, which is a dangerous state! Unless otherwise noted, all of these books were purchased from amazon.com’s network of independent sellers.

Chaudhuri, Amit. Odysseus Abroad. 2014. New York: Knopf, 2015.

I have not read any of Chaudhuri’s work before, but was intrigued by a review I read of this novel because it takes place in London and involves wandering around the city, a topic that I find fascinating in general. I decided to buy it now (and will read it over Spring Break a week from now) because I am going to London for the first time this coming summer and thought it would be helpful to read a story about it.

Chew, Dominique. The Meaning of Grace. Goshen: Pinchpenny, 2015.

I read about this and Kolton Nay’s book in Ann Hostetler’s recent article about teaching Mennonite literature (which, incidentally, references my 2001 edited collection [that was also published by Pinchpenny], How Julia Kasdorf Changed My Life: Reflections on Mennonite Identity). Both sound interesting because they deal with issues of Mennonite identity, an issue that I think and write about frequently, and Chew’s book is especially intriguing because she, like me, has one ethnic Mennonite parent and one non-Mennonite, person of color parent. I bought both books directly from Pinchpenny Press, which is a chapbook publisher run by the Goshen College English Department.

Erdrich, Louise. The Master Butchers Singing Club. 2004. New York: Harper, 2005.

I love Erdrich’s novels about the Ojibwe community, and recently watched an interview with her where she talked about this novel, which is about the German-American community that her father was from. It sounds fascinating, and since I am also German-American on my mother’s side (though I usually speak of her heritage as Mennonite, which in our case is a very specific kind of German-American) it seems like a book I should read.

Janzen, Jean. Paper House. Intercourse: Good, 2008.

—. Piano in the Vineyard. Intercourse: Good, 2004.

—. Snake in the Parsonage. Intercourse: Good, 1995.

—. The Upside-Down Tree. Winnipeg: Henderson, 1992.

—. What the Body Knows. Telford: DreamSeeker, 2015.

Along with Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Jeff Gundy, Janzen is one of the Big Three of Mennonite poets, but I’ve only ever read one of her poetry collections. I’ve decided that it is necessary to remedy this situation.

King, Thomas. Truth & Bright Water. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1999.

I loved the other book of King’s that I read (Green Grass, Running Water), and Truth & Bright Water sounds interesting because it is about the U.S.-Canada border, which is something I think about a lot now that I live relatively close to it.

Nay, Kolton. Imbalance. Goshen: Pinchpenny, 2015.

Hostetler’s article notes that Nay read part of this memoir at the 2015 Mennonite/s Writing Conference, which I also attended, but he and I did not get to meet. I look forward to encountering him on the page instead.

Wiebe, Dallas. The Transparent Eye-Ball and Other Stories. Providence: Burning Deck, 1982.

I really enjoyed Wiebe’s novel Our Asian Journey and have plans to eventually write about his work because he was an important early voice in Mennonite fiction, but I had not realized that he also published this collection of stories (he also published some poetry that I have not read yet). I look forward to reading it. Despite being over thirty years old the volume is in excellent condition; the pages haven’t even begun to yellow.

Book Acquired Recently: Robin Coste Lewis’s Voyage of the Sable Venus

Lewis, Robin Coste. Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems. New York: Knopf, 2015.

I received this book as a Valentine’s Day present. It is Lewis’s first poetry collection, and it won the National Book Award, an impressive feat. It is also a lovely physical object, with a dark maroon cover and an intriguing cover photograph on the dustjacket.

Books Acquired Recently: Haiku Edition

As I continue to indulge my newfound passion for haiku (incidentally, February is National Haiku Writing Month, which you can read more about here), I have continued to purchase books in and about the genre.

Gurga, Lee. Haiku: A Poet’s Guide. Rev. Ed. Lincoln: Modern Haiku, 2013.

As I have begun writing haiku I have been feeling the need for more formal instruction aside from what I can glean from simply reading a lot of them. From what I’ve read of Gurga’s work in journals and anthologies his innovative aesthetic is similar to mine, thus I think reading his guide will be helpful. I bought the book directly from Modern Haiku Press, and I am impressed with their customer service because it took less than a week for the book to get to me.

Janeczko, Paul B., ed. Stone Bench in an Empty Park. New York: Orchard, 2000.

This is an anthology of city haiku. While I have been enjoying the way that getting into haiku has helped me to think more about nature and my relationship with it, I consider myself a city person at heart, and thus I look forward to learning more about how urban space can be portrayed in the genre. I was able to find a copy of the book in good condition for a penny from one of amazon.com’s network of independent booksellers.

Ketchek, Michael. Who I Am. Ed. Tom Clausen. Rochester: Free Food, 2015.

I read a review of this book, Ketchek’s greatest hits, in Modern Haiku and really liked the sample haiku reproduced there, so decided to buy it. I read through the collection last week and enjoyed it immensely. I especially appreciate the wide-ranging subject matter of Ketchek’s work. There are very traditional haiku about nature as well as more innovative poems about subjects such as baseball, chess, sex, and social activism. I bought the book directly from Free Food Press.

Ketchek, Michael, and David Tilley. Buzzard Haiku. Rochester: Free Food, 2013.

This small chapbook of haiku about vultures was sent to me free along with my order of Ketchek’s collection. I appreciate the slight, ephemeral nature of the volume–I almost threw it out with the large envelope that Who I Am came in, thinking it was a packing slip. The book’s form asserts that no poem is too insignificant to be immortalized in print.