What I'll be reading this summer...

I'm posting this so that I will actually read all of these. Accountability. Also, I'm soliciting suggestions for further additions, since four of these I'm at least halfway through.

Since I've now watched every extant X-Files episode (thanks, Netflix, for stealing horrifyingly many hours of my life), I find myself much more ready to pick up one of the zillions of books I want to read. So, on the list for this summer are:

Born To Run, by Christopher McDougall - I'm halfway done this one, and just need to finish it. It's about the Tarahumara indians of some mountainy part of Mexico and how they run super long distances barefoot and eat chia seeds and corn.

The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan - I'm almost done this one. I read the first three sections (about the industrial food chain, the "industrial organic" food chain, and sane grass-based organic chain, but I got lost in the chapter on hunting and gathering). It's really good though, and it definitely makes you more aware of your food's source, and suggests that the source of your food actually matters.

The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander - I read about this book in some article someone posted on facebook, I think. Or maybe I read the article on the NYT's website and then I posted it on facebook. I forget. But its subtitle is "Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" and it's supposed to be about the tragedy and outrage of the disproportionate incarceration of black males, particularly as a result of the "war on drugs."

Let the Great World Spin, by Collum McCann - I don't remember who exactly recommended this to me. I feel like I saw it pop up on someone's little Facebook "bookshelf" application. I'm maybe two-thirds through but keep putting it down - it has some beautiful parts, but hasn't grabbed me yet. It's good enough that I owe it completion, though, so we'll see what I think when I've finished.

Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Everyone and their brother has told me how gorgeous this book is. I read half of One Hundred Years of Solitude one summer during my lunch breaks at AIG, and although I didn't finish it (okay, so maybe I should add that to my list too) it was beautiful and strange and I loved it. So...thought I needed to give this a shot. I have high expectations.

Little Bee, by Chris Cleave - Another one that was suggested to me by person or persons unknown. I think it might have been one LVD, who has terrific literary taste, but I'm not sure. If I like the book, I'll be sure and thank her anyway, just in case.

Endgame, by Derrick Jensen - Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization. And yes, it's about exactly what the subtitle suggests. Civilization is inherently violent and destructive and unsustainable and destined for collapse. If we care about the future of humanity we should do everything we can to maintain a livable planet and mitigate/stop/repair the damage done to it by civilization, particularly in its current industrial form. And it is as crazy as it sounds. But not actually THAT crazy. He's a fantastic writer, both funny and transparent, and allows (forces) you to think without first having to agree with him. This was a gift from my friend Matt, who also recommended the next item.

Modernity and the Holocaust, by Zygmunt Bauman - I've only just started this one, but his thesis is that our approach to the Holocaust has been to view it as something that happened outside of "normal" society, an aberration, and something that can be understood as a self-contained historical event. It happened because Hitler was evil and crazy, and his henchmen were evil or coerced into evil. This guy's idea is that the Holocaust was not, in face, an event that arose in opposition to civilization, but that it "was born and executed in our modern rational society. . . and for this reason it is a problem of that society, civilization, and culture." It was "an outcome of a unique encounter between factors by themselves quite ordinary and common," and not some bizarre, inexplicable eruption of insanity and isolated evil. At least that what he's said so far. I've only read the preface.

Radical, by David Platt - I think I saw this on some blog or online magazine. I don't remember. But its subtitle caught my eye ("Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream") and so I snagged it. We'll see. That's what happened with Francis Chan's Crazy Love too: I saw it in some Christian article somewhere, and I was disappointed to find it written in really short, really simplistic sentences that repeated the same thing over and over without nuance. I am hoping this one's better.

Any critical omissions? Any suggestions for poetry (as the genre is notably absent from my list)? Things you've told me to read multiple times but I keep not reading?