In his 2002 documentary, Mark Moskowitz “The Stone Reader” follows his quest to find Dow Mossman, author of a long out-of-print book, The Stones of Summer. Years after first buying a copy of the novel, Moskowitz reads it and is stunned to find that Mossman has vanished without a trace. With a passion that puts that behind this site to shame, he pursues the fate of Mossman–and other writers, like Marcus Goodrich, who suffered from massive writer’s blocks or faded into obscurity without notice. In what is certainly cinema’s most book-rich film, numerous titles are mentions, including dozens of other neglected books like The Stones of Summer.

Moskowitz started The Lost Books Club even before the film was released, but that effort has stalled somewhat after bringing Janet Hobhouse’s The Furies to print via the New York Review of Books Classics series and, of course, The Stones of Summer”>The Stones of Summer via Barnes and Noble.

 


A Fan’s Notes, Frederick Exley
Ancient History: A Paraphase, Joseph McElroy
The Blindfold, Siri Hustvedt
Call It Sleep, Henry Roth
China Wind, Dan Guenther
The Darkened Sky, John Frederick
Delilah, Marcus Goodrich
The Fan Man, William Kotzwinkle
The Fifth Season, Robert C.S. Downs
Five Seasons, A. Yehoshua
Fourth Mansions, R.A. Lafferty
Fremont, Ferol Egan
The Furies, Janet Hobhouse
The Kid, John Seelye
The Man Who Cried I Am, John A. Williams
Michael Joe, William Cotter Murray
Molly Companion, Maura Stanton
Mr. Roberts, Thomas Heggen
My Uncle Dudley, Wright Morris
Northern Borders, Howard Mosher
Picasso and Dora, James Lord
Point of No Return, John Marquand
Raintree County, Ross Lockridge
The Recognitions, William Gaddis
Red Dirt Marijuana, Terry Southern
The Stones of Summer, Dow Mossman

The Territory Ahead, Wright Morris
The True Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, John Seelye
The View from Pompey’s Head , Hamilton Basso
Unstrung Heroes, Franz Lidz