Catching Up with Books Read

The Tempest (Norton Critical Edition, Second Edition). The play that makes me feel closest to Shakespeare. This superb critical edition provides very useful sources, criticism, and creative responses to the play. An essential tool for teaching the play.

Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman. Caliban speaks and shows that he can do more with the English language than to curse. The Norton Critical Edition has a terrific essay by Kwane Anthony Appiah about the disingenuousness of Soyinka's claim that the play is not about a clash of cultures. 

Roberto Bolaño's The Spirit of Science Fiction. An entertainment. When we were young and heroes to ourselves, if to no one else.

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Brutally hilarious. The run-in with the Communists is a powerful warning never to allow oneself to become a System man.

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