It is a daunting task to look over the piles of books around my apartment. There, I said it. Daunting.

Currently as a reader I’ve got my eye on NW, by the crazy talent Zadie Smith, I’m edging towards Annie Wilkes territory now, I know.

What is most intriguing about the current embarrassment of riches stacked up: Jennifer Miller’s ridiculously amazing Year of the Gadfly, (I’m savoring it, a chapter a day, okay, maybe two) a funny, weird, and blistering novel about boarding school, first love and a real page turner that begs you to slow down.

Like everyone else, I have The Middlesteins, and I suspect with the Franzen blurb Jami Attenberg is going big time.

I am thrilled at the prospect of having both The Truth in Advertising by John Kenney, and Dog Stars by Peter Heller sitting side by side in the same pile. The nice folks at S&S hand delivered me The Truth in Advertising, and Michelle Filgate tells me Dog Stars is kick ass.

The new Junot Diaz collection This Is How You Lose Her is patiently standing at attention, and I’m ashamed to say, I have never spent any time with Mr. Diaz, to be corrected soon.

The essays My Heart is an Idiot by Davy Rothbart was secreted to me by Sean McDonald at FSG during BEA. I guess it’s not a secret, but people are telling me this collection is pretty good.

I joined twitter for the third time, seriously this time, and found out that Kurt Andersen has a new novel, that, well, has just been published. Does anyone remember his first book, Turn of the Century…? It is a knock out. True Believers is a big book about the sixties, radicals, and some other stuff.

Christopher Coake has a novel You Came Back, and if anyone remembers his collection, We’re In Trouble, and has not read it, then make that happen post-haste.

The most shocking development to date is the fact that I’ve not read The Angry Buddhist by Seth Greenland. I typically sell Greenland soap on a rope, and loved his first two books, yet, this summer pile has gotten in my way. My apologies. I should be reading it shortly.