My lecture library.

Today while I was slinking around the internet, trying to find out if Kate Bernheimer's book of new myths is out yet (it's not--this fall, apparently), I found this: an account of her current bookshelves, from the Sonora Review.

Here are some books on my shelves at the moment:

Metahistory
Hayden White


"In this theory I treat the historical work as what it most manifestly is: a verbal structure in the form of a narrative prose discourse." (Preface)





The Truth About Stories
Thomas King

"But don't say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You've heard it now."

Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory
David Herman et al

"...the disnarrated comprises those elements in a narrative which explicitly consider and refer to what does not take place (but could have)."

Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights

Marina Warner

"The power of stories to forge destinies has never been so memorably and sharply put as it is in this cycle, in which the blade of the executioner's sword lies on the storyteller's neck: the Arabian Nights present the supreme case for storytelling because Shahrahzad wins her life through her art."

The Silent History
Eli Horowitz, Russell Quinn, Matthew Derby, and Kevin Moffett

"I guess the first element was that I wanted to create a novel that you could somehow explore."






 
In conclusion, I think we can all agree I need a detective novel to read, and not a moment too soon.