Probably I’m overdoing it, but after perusing the summer course offerings from Graham, I signed up for two more. I was already signed up for the online music class with John Gibbons, but added the in-person Saturday one-day session with John on American music.
And after looking into three or four literature classes, I signed up for one on Nabokov. This will be online, Tuesday evenings ; John’s ongoing music class is Tuesday mornings, so I may start to feel overloaded with these. But time will tell.
My “Nabokov collection” of physical books — about 35 volumes by or about him — has already been packed up and taken by Open Books. So looking at the readings for this class gave me some pangs. But all my books were pretty old, and might not have been the right editions – to find and discuss passages you need everybody to have consistent page numbers. These e-books (I use Kindle app on iPad and sometimes on my desktop, not a Kindle device) have a “locations” system with display-pages that have little to do with the pagination in the solid book. But if derived from the same edition the Kindle display can show what the original page number is for the location you are at. And if people can be convinced to always mention a couple words from the beginning of the passage they want to discuss, it can work out okay.
The books will be:
The Defense (but now bearing the full title The Luzhin Defense)
The Gift
Bend Sinister
Pale Fire
Work on what has been spoiled (Decay) 
Here were the other “literary” oriented classes I was considering:
Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling
https://graham.uchicago.edu/course/kierkegaards-fear-and-trembling/
A First Experience with Finnegans Wake Part One
https://graham.uchicago.edu/course/a-first-experience-with-finnegans-wake-part-one/
Of course the issue of my book-removal process would be, if anything, even more acute than with the Nabokov. There is really only one edition and pagination, and I had it in a firm and trusty hardcover that already had lots of notes. Ah well.
The Black American Novel
https://graham.uchicago.edu/course/the-black-american-novel/
I really enjoyed instructor Paul Cato’s class a while back on Ellison’s Invisible Man, and almost took his class on James Baldwin
Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities
https://graham.uchicago.edu/course/robert-musil-the-man-without-qualities/
This is a book I’ve heard good things about for a long time.
And one I am seeing later and might have thought about. (Though the schedule listing is weird.)
Wittgenstein’s On Certainty: Intensive Reading
https://graham.uchicago.edu/course/wittgensteins-on-certainty-intensive-reading/
“A close reading of what is generally considered Wittgenstein’s most accessible and engaging text.” I agree that it is very approachable!
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