Summer Reading: The Initial Foray

Goals: Expand my knowledge base in several areas deemed deficient, including contemporary Middle-Eastern literature, urban theory, Marxian anthropology, and US History. Also, I like science fiction.

Results: This summer, I read the following books:

Bodies of Work -- Kathy Acker 
The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States -- Paul Avrich
The Last Unicorn -- Peter Beagle
The Mafia of a Sicilian Village: 1860-1960 -- Anton Blok
City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles -- Mike Davis
Neveryona -- Samuel Delany
Time Square Red, Time Square Blue -- Samuel Delany
Four Novels of the 1960s -- Philip K. Dick
Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals turn to Lenin, Mao and Che -- Max Elbaum

Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 -- Eric Foner
Neverwhere -- Neil Gaiman
The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a 16th Century Miller -- Carlo Ginzburg
The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist -- Emile Habiby
Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression -- Robin D. G. Kelley
The Story of O -- Pauline Reage
Salvation Army -- Abdellah Taia

Law in a Lawless Land: Diary of a Limpieza in Colombia -- Michael Taussig

Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century -- Eric Wolf

Evaluation: I read a lot of books. No huge revelations, but I feel much more informed about past attempts to create interracial left-wing political movements in the US, the social structure of peasant societies, and why certain cities are the way they are. I'm thinking about posting my thoughts on some of these books later on. If you have a request for a review of a particular book, holla at yer boy.