The Stone Reader

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 via Barnes and Noble.

• A Fan’ 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