Research, Reference, and Reading List

This post is largely a forcible effort to cheer myself up from some job work. It's also hopefully something to engage some others in posting as well.

I’ve been working on Dog Days Are Over for just over two years now - two years and one week, according to my notes. It’s the most ambitious project I’ve ever dedicated myself to. And in these past two years, I’ve done the typical research long writing projects call for, from burn care to regional slang to writing techniques themselves. Most of these books came from the library; some ended up on my bookshelves because I knew I needed a copy to call my own. Some were more useful than others. I’m still writing, which means I’m not done reading.

And if anyone wants to post their own writing project reading lists - present or past, in part or completely - by all means, go right ahead.

- In A Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson
- Greater Nowheres, Dave Finkelstein and Jack London
- The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson
- The Art of Eating, M.F.K. Fisher (omnibus)
- Cloudstreet, Tim Winton
- Burn Unit, Barbara Ravage
- Thumbs-Up Australia: Hitchhiking the Outback, Tom Parry
- Dirt Music, Tim Winton
- The Baseball Anthology: 125 Years, Joseph Wallace and Sparky Anderson
- What It Felt Like, Henry Allen
- Fatale, Jean-Patrick Manchette
- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John le Carré
- Snuff, Terry Pratchett
- Why Spy? : Espionage in an Age of Uncertainty, Frederick P. Hitz
- Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France During the German Occupation, Robert Gildea
- The Algeria Hotel, Adam Nossiter
- Suite Française, Irene Nemirovsky [translated by Sandra Smith]
- City by the Bay: San Francisco in Art and Literature, various authors
- Silent Warfare, Abram N. Shulsky and Gary J. Schmitt
- Tales of the City, Armistead Maupin
- Mr. Norris Changes Trains, Christopher Isherwood
- Lethal Warriors, David Philipps
- When The War Never Ends, Leah Wizelman
- Baseball, George Vecsey
- Flashback, Penny Coleman
- Eyewitness: Baseball, James E. Kelley
- The Beet Fields, Gary Paulsen
- Fire In The Blood, Irene Nemirovsky [translated by Sandra Smith]
- On Writing, Stephen King [reread]
- Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion
- A Book of Migrations, Rebecca Solnit
- Love Is A Dog From Hell, Charles Bukowski
- The Wild Places, Robert MacFarlane
- Trout Fishing in America, the Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar, Richard Brautigan [omnibus]
- Telegraph Avenue, Michael Chabon
- On Killing, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman
- Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott
- Easter Rising, Michael Patrick MacDonald