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here are some recent additions to my To Be Read (TBR) pile:

"KEATS" by John Keats

no written summary for this as it is a collection of Keats' poetry but here's a vampire weekend tune called "we belong together" mentioning "Keats and Yeats" belonging together. ironically, for those non-English majors that have never seen those two names before, "Keats" (as in John Keats) is pronounced "keets" and "Yeats" (for W.B. Yeats) is pronounced "yates" as opposed to "yeets", so, like, they don't actually belong together except in writing only. that Ezra Koenig fellow is clever as heck.

"The Baudelaire Fractal" by Lisa Robertson

from the back cover: "One morning, Hazel Brown awakes in a badly decorated hotel room to find that she's written the complete works of Charles Baudelaire." 

ooooooooo!

"The Divine Comedy I: Hell" by Dante

from the back cover: "Guided by the poet Virgil, Dante plunges to the very depths of Hell and embarks on his arduous journey towards God." 

you're right. should've read this in european lit class years ago but, uh, it was hard. now i think i'm mentally mature and ready for it. also, one of my characters supposedly has read this so *i* need to read it. that's called being a responsible writer...ha!

"Improv Nation: How We Made a Great American Art" by Sam Wasson

from the back cover: "In this richly reported, scene-driven narrative, Sam Wasson charts the meteoric rise of improv from its unlikely beginnings in McCarthy-era Chicago." 

i love reading ABOUT acting. i read a book last year by David Mamet (called "True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor") and thoroughly enjoyed it. i delight in perusing the film/acting shelves at my local bookstore--it's like a different universe over there, a universe comprised solely of iridescent gemstones. it's how i found the book "Hollywood vs. the Author," which is the reason i've never seen the critically acclaimed sci-fi thriller, "Gravity". 

"Labyrinths" by Jorge Luis Borges

a book apparently so good there's no description on the back cover, just blurbs from David Foster Wallace, John Updike and John Barth (big literary names there...). honestly, i picked it up because DFW praised Borges so much in his review of someone else's book on Borges. Wallace said: 

"I was lucky enough to discover Borges as a child, but only because I happened to find "Labyrinths," an early English-language collection of his most famous stories, on my father's bookshelves in 1974. I believed that the book was there only because of my parents' unusually fine taste and discernment -- which verily they do possess -- but what I didn't know was that by 1974 "Labyrinths" was also on tens of thousands of other homes' shelves in this country, that Borges had actually been a sensation on the order of Tolkien and Gibran among hip readers of the previous decade."

i want my future kids to be "lucky enough" to have access to great literature and discover Borges as a child one day, because i never had that experience. even with an English degree, i'm years behind those who had the privilege of growing up with the likes of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters on their parents' shelves. it's why i advocate for building your own personal libraries, buying books (NOT borrowing them) and watching a lot tv shows/films that introduce you to different writers. i got into Jane Austen because of the Kiera Knightley film version of "Pride and Prejudice", "The Jane Austen Book Club" and "Lost in Austen", was exposed to David Foster Wallace's writing (notably "Infinite Jest") because of "Liberal Arts", which was directed by Josh Radnor (Ted from How I Met Your Mother), and initially read Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" because Cory Matthews from Boy Meets World picked it up for English class one day because he thought it was "a book about baseball" and I'd have never gotten serious about writing without Salinger, SO...yeah. i owe my love for literature to film and tv shows (ironically enough) because i had to navigate the literary seas on my own. you know, now that i think about it, this is probably why i love throwing in literary and cultural references into my own writing... 

writer's tip: if you find an author you admire, find every book they've laid their hands on that has changed their life. you learn by being exposed to the right influences. really, the same goes with any type of "artist" (as in, one that makes art). upon first diving into the music of vampire weekend, for example, i wondered what kind of music were these guys into that they could produce such curious tunes expertly laden with endless literary and cultural references like THAT? a joy-filled rabbit-hole adventure on the history of VW thus followed, which is how i found out that they all went to Columbia which was where Salinger went and i have a Columbia hoodie which i now treasure because of all these connections because we're all strange and human like that, don't even deny it.

"The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life," a collection edited by Andrew Blauner

the title's pretty self-explanatory.

"Confessions of a Bookseller" by Shaun Bythell

from the back cover: "Join Shaun Bythell, owner of the largest second-hand bookshop in Scotland, and experience the joys and frustrations of life lived in books."

this is really funny so far. it also came wrapped in plastic, so i was taking a huge leap of faith when i bought it. had no idea what the price was either. some punks collect expensive flashy cars. i collect books because i don't drive.

"Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton

it's illustrated. and i shall have ALL the fun.

post scriptum: 

basically, i want to keep having fun with my writing, like these guys do with music: