What Ed Park’s Students Are Reading

Ed Park, a founding editor of The Believer and author of Personal Days, is currently teaching two classes at Columbia University. He received his M.F.A. at Columbia, and this semester is a lecturer in the graduate writing program. His two courses are The First Person and A Comic Novel. Here’s a look at the required reading for the comic novel class:

Ed Park will be appearing at Book Culture on April 29th with Damion Searls. More info about the event can be found here.

Book Culture’s Staff Picks

Here’s a Friday afternoon treat from our bookshelf to yours. With the last of rush deconstruction well underway, we’ve finally had a chance to update our staff picks reading shelf. Maybe you’ll find something of interest among the titles that our booksellers are currently recommending:

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison: “This is an intense read about a child living in poverty and struggling with sexual abuse. While superficially a novel, it is really a memoir of the author’s childhood.” – Robert

The Bush Tragedy by Jacob Weisberg: “Instead of simply enumerating failures, Weisberg digs into family history (through blood ties and chosen family to ask, how did he (and we) get here?” - Adam

Dead Souls, by Nickoli Gogol: “Great translation, nicely captures Gogol’s wit.” - Nathan