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01/19/2004 Archived Entry: "5 books"

Some colleague inspiration:
A Book Listography (I'll save the "Hate" one for later):
1. Greg Ulmer's Heuretics: The Logic of Invention. The summer of 1997 I was an instructor of writing at Santa Fe Community College and a post-bac student at UF (when I came back to the States, it was too late to apply for graduate school, thus the post-bac status). I was scheduled to take a course with Greg Ulmer in the Fall, and a co-worker at Santa Fe (who studied with Ulmer as an undergrad) told me to read this book. Even after being out of school for five years, I got it. It was serious writing theory. It was about technology. It was about riffing. It was funny and it made me think about rhetoric and writing. It probably is what made me change from lit to composition. Oh yeah. And Ulmer ended up my MA and PhD director.
2. The Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy. There was this used bookstore on University Avenue in Gainesville that was a mess. Books were everywhere. You could also find toys, old posters, retro stuff, etc. But nothing was put in any kind of order, and half the stock was on the floor. The store really didn't even have a name. I bought this Dick Tracy collection there. When I got home, I noticed it was one of Robert Ray's old books. His name was written on the inside cover. I eventually ended up with a lot of his books, including Vygotsky's Thought and Language, which was the basis for my MA thesis on Vygotsky and computer classrooms.
3. The Art of Horror Stories. This is a hardback collection of horror illustrations that I don't think I've ever read. I bought it at the Gainesville Friends of the Library bookstore one year for probably a quarter. I used to just buy stuff there if it looked the least bit interesting. That's why I have so many Phillp Roth novels. I'd guess about 1/3 of my books came from going to that sale every year, twice a year, for five years.
4. Kittler's Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. A great book for writing theory. But even greater: it's one of the many books I've gotten for free by requesting exam copies. Sometimes I use those exam copies in my courses. Sometimes I don't. This one I never did.
5. Amos Oz's To Know a Woman. Once, yes once, I read a lot of literature. I discovered Oz during the five years I lived in Israel. Probably the greatest Israeli novelist, Oz is also one of the best contemporary writers. This book had a strong affect on me when I first read it (maybe in my early 20s) for how it treated failed relationships of all kinds - as long as they dealt with women. I always wanted to teach it in an intro to lit course. But I seldom teach literature. When I did have the chance in such a course at UF, I chose Oz's Black Box instead because of how it plays with narrative structure. The students loved the book, but somehow I feel I missed my chance to teach the novel I really wanted to do.