Summer reading, with a DFW slant

My summer reading stack comprises three books, all at least tangentially related to David Foster Wallace:

Oblivion is Wallace's first collection of short fiction since Brief Interviews with Hideous Men in 1999. While still employing clever turns of phrase and an almost autistic level of descriptive specificity, Wallace shifts away from comedy to document the underside of human existence. As Salon put it, "The oblivion in this collection's title is what most of his characters are after. They have a past they want to forget, a future they'd prefer to avoid, and things about themselves they'd rather not think about at all." He previously published the first story, "Mr. Squishy," under the pseudonym "Elizabeth Klemm" in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Vol. 5.

Which brings us to its latest issue, McSweeney's No. 13. As the discussion at Design Observer points out, it's remarkable not only for its content, but also for its design. A 263-page exploration of the history and current state of comics by both example and prose, it also succeeds as an object, with a beautiful gold overlay on both the book's hardcover and comics-page dust jacket (which has two additional mini-comics tucked inside). For anyone who cares about the medium, the book feels like something powerful and historic to hold in your hands, and the comics and essays themselves are superlative as well. Jason Kottke is floating the idea of a group discussion on the book, which, if anything like his Matrix Reloaded / Revolutions discussions of last year, should be worth checking in on.

Finally, I'm thumbing through the new Garner's Modern American Usage, the second edition of what used to be A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. I bought the first edition after reading Wallace's compelling review / essay in 2001 (the copious endnotes of which begin at page 11). This is the book you want at your fingertips, as either a writer trying to evoke the right shade of meaning or an office worker trying to sound professional in an email. Every one of its 800+ pages carries friendly but authoritative discussions, with citations, of usage issues like the common admonishment not to end a sentence with a preposition (which it dismisses as a "superstition") or which of several alternate spellings of given words is prevalent, or preferable, or both. I can't recommend it highly enough to anyone who cares about language or about expressing themselves well.

What have you been into lately?