Tim Singleton, co-chair of the HoCoPoLitSo board, writes ‘On Reading’ for the blog.

So we are at the end of one year and the beginning of another. For many, it’s the time to make a few resolutions. For me, I like to take a look back at what I have read and ponder what to read next. I don’t know which is more of a treat: looking backward at the cache or looking forward, ambitiously. Here’s a bit of both.

Surprise of the year was Jen Grow’s book of stories My Life as a Mermaid. Not sure I have been as excited reading a collection of stories for the first time since Edith Pearlman. Get it; read it. Can’t wait for her next collection. The pressure is on, Jen, the pressure is on.

There were many things I expected to be great and they were. Pearlman’s Honeydew, Toibin’s Elizabeth Bishop, a number of works translated by Ted Hughes (magnificent), The Odyssey (Fitzgerald trans.). There were surprises, things that I wasn’t really expecting to have in my hands, but did and was thankful for them: Zachary Lazar’s first novel Aaron, Approximately, Dinaw Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears, Edmundo Paz Soldan’s The Matter of Desire, to name a few.

This was the year I finally finished Elizabeth Bishop and the New Yorker. It had been sitting bedside for dip-ins every now and then since it was published. It’s been replaced with Words In Air. Wonderful stuff. Thank goodness she was a prolific letter writer – years of joy ahead.

As you would expect for a HoCoPoLitSo-er, I do try to fill they year with a good selection of poetry. I’ll only name drop here as I tend to binge read, going through what I have on the shelf for a particular writer (if you see your name here, time to start publishing a few next books [hint hint Patricia Smith]). Patricia Smith, Bruce Ross, Saigyo, Marie Howe (she’s coming to Columbia in April), Eamon Grennan (he’s here in February), lots and lots of Maxine Kumin, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Breyton Breytonbach, Grace Paley, a Rilke revisit… I’ll stop there or you’ll stop reading as it’s just a list of names.

On to that year ahead: Susan Sontag suggests one should read a book a day. That is a mighty goal, completely unrealistic for a mortal. In fact, I’d find two books a week and a day job to put a roof over those books unattainable. A book and a half a week: more realistic, though probably just as dreamy. (I bet I might bring books into the house some years at one a day on average — I’ll not stop to figure that out, it might get me in trouble – does that count for anything?)

There are a few things already in the pile to read next-ish. I have already started Rebecca Goldstein’s Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away. A couple of years ago I started reading the works of Agatha Christie. In order. All of them. There’s always one to read next-ish. (Why? The story is for a future post.) I know I’ll be reading more Grennon and Howe in advance of their visits. James Hillman’s A Terrible Love of War awaits with its insights into our bellicose behavior. Julian Barnes Keeping An Eye Open was a Christmas gift that won’t be waiting long, as is Rahael Jerusalamy’s The Brotherhood of the Book Hunters. And I do aim to have Jane Kenyon’s A Hundred White Daffodils in the mind soon, long overdue to do. Sontag is also on the list.

The treat I have been saving to start the year is Belinda McKeon’s Tender, though. So looking forward to it. I had wanted to read the copy that crossed the Atlantic for me as summer ended, but I started teaching a semester of Philosophy 101 and that had me reading other things. Lots and lots of other things (Helen Buss Mitchel’s textbook Roots of Wisdom is excellent). I’ll start reading the McKeon after I put down Patti Smith’s delightful M Train. I think it is time to go back to that now. Happy reading, everyone, and Happy New Year!

Tim Singleton
Co-chair, HoCoPoLitSo Board