Nick Hornby’s memoir Fever Pitch is about Hornby’s love of soccer and of being a committed fan of the Arsenal Gunners specifically. I’m an Arsenal fan, though I was not destined to grow up in North London and have it become a part of my genetic make-up. Hornby’s introspection of being a soccer fan of the team I favor was my introduction to the writer. It was while reading this book that I discovered Hornby wrote a regular column for Believer magazine titled “Stuff I’ve Been Reading.” Each month Hornby summarizes the books he purchased and the books he read over the previous month.
Inspired by this, I started doing my own monthly purchasing/reading summary since September, 2012. Certainly not on the level of deep analysis that Hornby puts in his column, I have privately kept track of the books I purchased and the different writings I’ve read during the course of a given month, with brief commentary.
Well, now that I have this blog here, my thought was to share what writings I’ve read over the previous month for those who are interested, and to engage in conversation, if you feel so moved. The writings will not just be books, but also short stories, comic books, graphic novels, and the number of articles read within a specific magazine (most of which will be writing-related magazines). This does not necessarily mean I read the entire book in the given month, but rather, it’s the month I completed reading the book. Some books just take me longer than thirty days to get through.
After that long introduction, here’s the Writings I’ve Read in January, 2014.
NONFICTION BOOKS
The Art of Intimacy by Stacey D’erasmo
NOVELS
Stop Here by Beverly Gologorsky
Twelfth and Race by Eric Goodman
SHORT STORIES
Running Alone by Halima Marcus (One Story)
Rain by W. Somerset Maugham (The Collected Stories of Somerset Maugham, Volume One)
COMIC BOOKS
The Movement (DC Comics) #5 and 6.
The Shadow Now (Dynamite Comics) #1, 2, 3
Buck Rogers (Hermes) #1, 2, 3
Dark Horse Presents (Dark Horse) #31
Shadow/Green Hornet (Dynamite) #4 and 5.
12 Reasons to Die (Black Mask) #5
Satellite Sam (Image Comics) #1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Quack (Star-Reach) #1
ARTICLES
Writer’s Digest (7 articles)
Poets & Writers (4 articles)
Bookforum (2 articles)
The Writer’s Chronicle (1 article)
The Writer (1 article)
Do Haeng Michael Kitchen 