Gene Wolfe rocks. I read the Latro books every few years. Always find something new.

If you get onto a cyberpunk binge (and there really is some excellent stuff out there), I highly recommend this anthology.
http://www.amazon.com/Rewired-Post-C.../dp/1892391538

Also check out China Mieville sometime if you haven't already (if you're in the mood for fantasy/scifi authors with serious literary chops.).

I'm teaching Freshman Comp II right now (which is the literature semester), so we're reading good stuff. Doing a tour of the Jim Crow South right now: Faulkner, O'Conner, Ellison and about to move into more modern stuff. I've been starting every morning off reading a good short story. I think I'm finally developing an authentic fondness for Faulkner. "Barn Burning" just kicked my ass this morning.

I'm teaching a Brit Lit survey this semester. Right now we're going breakneck through the Romantic period

Burns to Blake, to Wordsworth. Monday is Coleridge...

I have to teach Brit. Lit for my 11th grade English Curriculum. It's not my bag. I'd be all for some modern and contemporary (which isn't part of the curriculum... we're doing beowulf and chaucer)... but that old shit just doesn't do it for high school students (or me for that matter). I've always had a soft spot for Blake, though. He's just such a weird genius bastard.

Just finished The Passage by Justin Cronin. It was interesting at first, but once it got to the Colony, it really hit a brick wall. I liked the concept of the colony, but the characters were extremely stale and I really didn't care about any of them.

Overall, a boring read that I kept reading and thinking "It's got to get better", but it never did.

Oh man. I disagree entirely. I started that book, and I didn't put it down for 2 days until I was finished. My only complaint is that it's such an obviously contrived series and movie script.

From where I'm sitting, going breakneck through the Romantic period is the way to go. So that you can take some sweet time with the kick-ass Victorian period.

There is a lot of redundancy in the period, that's for sure. More than anything, the important part is just to talk about the philosophical shift in what type of literature they were trying to create.

That said, I always appreciate something more after I teach it.

Later this semester I'm going to start throwing some crazier shit at them. We'll read Things Fall Apart, and The Wasp Factory, which is one of my five favorite novels.

I could have chosen a section from Ulysses, but I'd sooner overseed my backyard with cultivars from the Alomar genus.

Faulkner is like Joyce, to me. I really like their short stories but I'm not wild about their novels.
I love O'Connor. I have a book of almost all her short stories that I got for like .25 at a used book store.

O'Connor has been blowing my mind for the last couple of years (I've taught at least two of her stories each year as of late). I discover something new each time, and she never ceases to make me laugh my ass off, scare the shit out of me, and make me deeply ponder the nature of humanity.

The point in Revelation where Mary Grace launches herself across the waiting room to dig her hands into Mrs. Turpin's neck had me spitting out my coffee the morning I read it. So perfect.

Right now I'm only really "reading" Mayflower by Philbrick for a writing class... so far it's well worth it.

It's funny, because I almost wrote that one of the characters she uses in a few of her stories, that I find funny, is the angry fat acne-faced kid. She will say their face is purple with acne.
And she always writes "oncet". I get a kick out of that for some reason.