GO DOWN, OPRAH

Oprah picks three Faulkner novels for her summer reading club, complete with free online commentaries by scholars... The Vintage box includes AS I LAY DYING, SOUND AND THE FURY, and LIGHT IN AUGUST, which is more like the novelist's broiling core than a 8th-grade educated audience's introduction. Probably don't have time to reread these, but I'll be checking on this... DYING is often used as a primer, but FURY is stone-cold difficult no matter who you are, and AUGUST is a Christ allegory that should get some tooters hooting.

TOP 90s ACTS (randomly)

1. Ride
2. Beck
3. Pavement
4. Portishead
5. Ivy
6. Cardigans
7. Gorillaz
8. DJ Shadow
9. Los Lobos/Latin Playboys
10. Mekons/Langford
11. Pretenders
12. Old 97s
13. Bottle Rockets
14. Dwight Yoakam
15. Bonnie Raitt
16. PJ Harvey
17. Luna
18. Yo La Tengo
19. Iris Dement
20. Nirvana