A few things:
First, I'm going to be moving over to wordpress soon I think, largely because it's easier to use and also more convenient, as I am going to also start music blogging there (www.waitingforthetrain.wordpress.com) with Mackenzie soon. Also, the book log on the side of this page is not correct. I think the box got too full or something because it's eaten part of the list and duplicated other parts of it. I am going to start keeping a separate list in Word.
Second, I posted my Best of 2007 list below and also on Facebook, so please take a look at it and then go read the books! They're all fantastic.
Third, I've been getting a bit of a head start on my 2008 reading challenge. I finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy during finals week (meaning I've now read five and a half of the 27 Pulitzer Prize fiction winners since 1980). It was fantastic and I might blog about my feelings on McCarthy later, as I also read No Country for Old Men on the plane ride home. I also bought a few other books on the list. As far as my Booker Prize challenge goes, I also finished Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty a few weeks ago (which, like The Road, makes an appearance on my Best of 2007 list), meaning I've now read three and a half of the 18 winners since 1990 (I just picked that year arbitrarily, but I think I'll stick with it rather than attempting the whole list in one year). I've read a lot more of the shortlisted ones than the actual winners, but ah well.
Fourth, I've acquired a number of new books. I'm going to see if I can remember them all without having to get up and look.
The Sea - John Banville (also on my Booker list)
White Noise - Don DeLillo
Underworld - Don DeLillo
The End of the Affair - Graham Greene
After This: A Novel - Alice McDermott (which was a finalist for the Pulitzer! so that kind of counts)
Fire from Heaven - Mary Renault
One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson (already finished)
The Emperor's Children - Claire Messud (also already finished. Should have included it in my best of 2007 list but I read it after I finished the list)
Shit, I bought at least two more but I can't remember what they were now. I'd go check but I'm far too lazy. Anyway, I'm making another Half Price run later today (last day of the 20% off sale!) and am aiming to pick up about 10 more. The one I usually go to was pretty picked over so I'm going to trek out to the one at 91st and Metcalf with Lanie, which I think is bigger and will hopefully have some of the books I'm looking for. I'd like to pick up Pale Fire (which I've been meaning to read forever), some more Fitzgerald, Amsterdam or Enduring Love by McEwan, and... well, actually, I have a list of about 20 authors I'm looking for. I have got to find a good used book store in New Haven.
Fifth, after reading an article on the subject (which of course I can't seem to find now), I've started keeping a notebook with two different kinds of lists. The first is a list of words I am unfamiliar with and their definitions and the second is a list of words I know already but would like to start using more in my writing. Also pretteh words, because there are so many of them.
Finally, I've almost settled on a schedule for next semester (pending my impressions during shopping period and advisor/professor approval for some of the upper level English courses):
FREN 115 Elementary French
ENGL 291 The American Novel Since 1945
ENGL 265 The Victorian Novel
HIST 218 Intro to Roman History: The Empire
I'll also be taking one more class. Right now I'm hoping to finagle my way into a junior seminar, either ENGL 206 Shakespeare and His Dramatic Contemporaries (with my favorite prof, Brian Walsh) or ENGL 259 Jane Austen. If that fails, I'll try and get into a freshman literature seminar (Mortality and Immortality), but I'll be honest, I'd sort of prefer not to do that.
So it should be pretty novel-heavy, which I'm delighted about. I also feel like I'm cheating a little because surely I shouldn't enjoy the reading lists this much. Isn't school about taking courses you don't really want to take but feel obligated to? Ah well. Also, after seeing my history grades from first semester, I've decided to stick with the history/English double major after all despite my initial reservations.
That's it! It's so late (er, early), but my sleep schedule is so off lately that I'm not even tired. I think I'll go read for a bit (I really want to get a move on Portrait of a Lady, which has been in my "currently reading" pile for weeks).
Also, I want to post pretty soon about my feelings regarding marking in books. I'm writing this here to remind myself.
Showing posts with label new books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new books. Show all posts
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Thursday, August 2, 2007
John Irving and end-of-summer reading.
I love John Irving so, so much. And in the light of having finally decided that my FAVORITE BOOK is Irving's The Cider House Rules, I thought I would write a post about him.
First, though, I would like to describe why choosing a favorite book is such a momentous occasion. I despise people who have favorite books, largely because their favorite book is usually something appalling like The Notebook. People are always asking me what my favorite book is (well, sometimes asking me, as most people do not care about books, much less what books I like to read) and I am always at a loss for what to say. I have different favorite books for different moods and sometimes for different months (for example, I feel differently about Michael Cunningham in the winter than I do in the spring - I always love him but I seem to love him more passionately when it's cold out). I have favorite books in many different genres and all of them are so wildly unlike the others that it is impossible to make any kind of comparison.
Yet I realize it is important to have an answer to this question, especially if people are asking you for recommendations (though you should know I try to tailor my recommendations to each individual person, which is also important). If you don't have an answer, then people assume not that you are widely read and thus cannot choose from the many books you have read, but rather that you do not actually read and instead sit in your house accumulating large stocks of books for show purposes. As both of my younger brothers have taught me, non-readers who are flirting with the idea of becoming readers are like very nervous birds. You have to be careful not to make any sudden or threatening movements (i.e. not knowing your favorite book, which is something they assume should be simple) or they will take flight and then you will have lost them forever! I spend a lot of time trying to subtly lure people into becoming readers, so I know that it's best, on the whole, if they wind up thinking it happened mostly by accident.
I spent way more time discussing that than I thought I would. But anyway, onto Irving. I wrote out this huge paragraph about why I love John Irving and why I chose The Cider House Rules, but then it just devolved into this frenzy of superlatives and wild praise and I hate writing things like that, so I will spare you by turning it into a conveniently numbered list (I am limiting myself to 5 general things). Sorry if I'm slightly inarticulate - I'm also watching the Daily Show while I write this.
This is why I like John Irving:
1. He writes the best characters. Period. Homer Wells from The Cider House Rules is my favorite male character in fiction.
2. His writing is so very much a boy's writing, if that makes sense, which means that the unexpected moments of tenderness and heartbreak are all the more poignant.
3. His books are comfortingly familiar (they almost always include some or all of the following: boys' prep schools, wrestling, New England, writers, and European whores) without ever becoming predictable.
4. He does his research. Particularly for The Cider House Rules, which centers around illegal abortions in 1940s Maine.
5. Homer Wells. Seriously. I love him.
Okay. Now let's move on to other things, namely my impending departure for the hallowed halls of Yale. I got a giant cardboard box to put my books in and I am going to tape it up and check it with my other luggage at the airport. Unfortunately we had to take back the bookshelf we originally bought because we had no way to get it to New Haven and downgrade to a smaller one, so I can only fit probably about 40 books. I'm not sure yet how many books will fit in the box, so that might actually determine how many I take rather than shelf space. Anyway, during the course of making this list (which I won't post here as it is much too long), I made a second list of books I need to read before I leave. Most of these I own, though some I will need to borrow from other people. Here it is!
1. Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller (I just bought this yay)
2. Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin (also just bought it)
3. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
4. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (seriously, it's about time, I've been meaning to do this forever)
5. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
6. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (I read a "young classics" version of this when I was like eight but seriously, it's time for the real thing)
7. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
8. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
9. The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
10. Atonement by Ian McEwan
11. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
12. At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill
13. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
14. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (I have seriously started this at least three times and have never been able to get into it, but Sarah loves it so I might give it another try)
16. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (I am really excited for this one)
As you can see, I have a lot to do in the next four weeks. I'll keep you updated on my progress. There are a few on that list that I doubt I'll finish - some of them I've already started several times and have never been able to finish, which doesn't bode well for them this time around. But I think I can get through 10 or so if I just read at a moderate pace and restrain myself from rereading old books, which I've found myself doing a lot this summer.
Also, on a final note, I got Jasper Fforde's latest Thursday Next book and it is no good at all. Don't waste your time with it. I got halfway through and quit in disgust.
First, though, I would like to describe why choosing a favorite book is such a momentous occasion. I despise people who have favorite books, largely because their favorite book is usually something appalling like The Notebook. People are always asking me what my favorite book is (well, sometimes asking me, as most people do not care about books, much less what books I like to read) and I am always at a loss for what to say. I have different favorite books for different moods and sometimes for different months (for example, I feel differently about Michael Cunningham in the winter than I do in the spring - I always love him but I seem to love him more passionately when it's cold out). I have favorite books in many different genres and all of them are so wildly unlike the others that it is impossible to make any kind of comparison.
Yet I realize it is important to have an answer to this question, especially if people are asking you for recommendations (though you should know I try to tailor my recommendations to each individual person, which is also important). If you don't have an answer, then people assume not that you are widely read and thus cannot choose from the many books you have read, but rather that you do not actually read and instead sit in your house accumulating large stocks of books for show purposes. As both of my younger brothers have taught me, non-readers who are flirting with the idea of becoming readers are like very nervous birds. You have to be careful not to make any sudden or threatening movements (i.e. not knowing your favorite book, which is something they assume should be simple) or they will take flight and then you will have lost them forever! I spend a lot of time trying to subtly lure people into becoming readers, so I know that it's best, on the whole, if they wind up thinking it happened mostly by accident.
I spent way more time discussing that than I thought I would. But anyway, onto Irving. I wrote out this huge paragraph about why I love John Irving and why I chose The Cider House Rules, but then it just devolved into this frenzy of superlatives and wild praise and I hate writing things like that, so I will spare you by turning it into a conveniently numbered list (I am limiting myself to 5 general things). Sorry if I'm slightly inarticulate - I'm also watching the Daily Show while I write this.
This is why I like John Irving:
1. He writes the best characters. Period. Homer Wells from The Cider House Rules is my favorite male character in fiction.
2. His writing is so very much a boy's writing, if that makes sense, which means that the unexpected moments of tenderness and heartbreak are all the more poignant.
3. His books are comfortingly familiar (they almost always include some or all of the following: boys' prep schools, wrestling, New England, writers, and European whores) without ever becoming predictable.
4. He does his research. Particularly for The Cider House Rules, which centers around illegal abortions in 1940s Maine.
5. Homer Wells. Seriously. I love him.
Okay. Now let's move on to other things, namely my impending departure for the hallowed halls of Yale. I got a giant cardboard box to put my books in and I am going to tape it up and check it with my other luggage at the airport. Unfortunately we had to take back the bookshelf we originally bought because we had no way to get it to New Haven and downgrade to a smaller one, so I can only fit probably about 40 books. I'm not sure yet how many books will fit in the box, so that might actually determine how many I take rather than shelf space. Anyway, during the course of making this list (which I won't post here as it is much too long), I made a second list of books I need to read before I leave. Most of these I own, though some I will need to borrow from other people. Here it is!
1. Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller (I just bought this yay)
2. Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin (also just bought it)
3. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
4. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (seriously, it's about time, I've been meaning to do this forever)
5. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
6. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (I read a "young classics" version of this when I was like eight but seriously, it's time for the real thing)
7. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
8. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
9. The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
10. Atonement by Ian McEwan
11. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
12. At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill
13. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
14. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (I have seriously started this at least three times and have never been able to get into it, but Sarah loves it so I might give it another try)
16. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (I am really excited for this one)
As you can see, I have a lot to do in the next four weeks. I'll keep you updated on my progress. There are a few on that list that I doubt I'll finish - some of them I've already started several times and have never been able to finish, which doesn't bode well for them this time around. But I think I can get through 10 or so if I just read at a moderate pace and restrain myself from rereading old books, which I've found myself doing a lot this summer.
Also, on a final note, I got Jasper Fforde's latest Thursday Next book and it is no good at all. Don't waste your time with it. I got halfway through and quit in disgust.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
I am way behind on book blogging.
But in my defense I have been out of town for three weeks. And now finally I am back and very exhausted but it is important that I at least begin to catalogue the books I have read before I forget them entirely!
In the past seventeen days, I have read the following:
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason - Helen Fielding
Stardust - Neil Gaiman
No god but God - Reza Aslan
A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton
Prep - Curtis Sittenfield
Theft - Peter Carey
And half of The Historian, which is devastatingly good (and creepy, in a Shadow of the Wind type way) so far.
I have also made several new acquisitions, in addition to several of the above books, including:
The Twenty Seventh City - Jonathan Franzen, Freddy and Fredericka - Mark Helprin, and one other that I can't remember or find right now. I am putting a freeze on all book buying activities for the next week weeks until I can catch up on my reading. Plus I am starting to work full time, so the buying and reading will all be slowing down. This is excellent news on the financial front but also just good in general
I am not going to talk about any of them tonight because I have to go to work tomorrow (gainful employment!). But you can look forward to hearing about some Jonathan Frazen, a bit of Kate Atkinson, and probably Jane Hamilton as well.
Also, I have got to come up with a more efficient way of tagging my posts.
In the past seventeen days, I have read the following:
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason - Helen Fielding
Stardust - Neil Gaiman
No god but God - Reza Aslan
A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton
Prep - Curtis Sittenfield
Theft - Peter Carey
And half of The Historian, which is devastatingly good (and creepy, in a Shadow of the Wind type way) so far.
I have also made several new acquisitions, in addition to several of the above books, including:
The Twenty Seventh City - Jonathan Franzen, Freddy and Fredericka - Mark Helprin, and one other that I can't remember or find right now. I am putting a freeze on all book buying activities for the next week weeks until I can catch up on my reading. Plus I am starting to work full time, so the buying and reading will all be slowing down. This is excellent news on the financial front but also just good in general
I am not going to talk about any of them tonight because I have to go to work tomorrow (gainful employment!). But you can look forward to hearing about some Jonathan Frazen, a bit of Kate Atkinson, and probably Jane Hamilton as well.
Also, I have got to come up with a more efficient way of tagging my posts.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
I graduate very soon.
On Sunday, to be exact. I don't feel very sentimental about it; I just am ready to be done.
I am about forty pages into No god but God, which is wonderful. Reza Aslan is definitely my new political pundit crush (sorry, Fareed Zakaria). He is really cute. And I am so impressed by the fact that he has an M.F.A. in fiction writing from the University of Iowa in addition to his graduate work at Harvard and UCSB in religion. You can tell that he writes fiction from the way his book flows. It is bea-u-tiful. Unfortunately, I'm getting dangerously close to my "nonfiction stumbling point" (usually around page 50 or so), where I begin to rapidly lose interest with the dryness of academic writing and eventually give up entirely. I wish sometimes I had read more nonfiction as a child, because I think I would have an easier time with it now. Facts are all very well, but I need plot, you know? And lovely characters and beautiful imagery.
Books I bought today, because I have a disease:
Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon (I keep getting told how much I am going to like him)
Resurrection, Tucker Malarkey. I am thinking I will probably take this one back. It got decent reviews on Amazon and looks really interesting (it is a fictionalized account of the discovery of the Gnostic gospels), but I think it might be too religious for me. But maybe I will skim through it before I decide.
I have to write about fifteen thank you notes to teachers, etc. now, but then I am going to read some more of the lovely Reza Aslan and perhaps some Nathan Englander. Yes, yes.
I am about forty pages into No god but God, which is wonderful. Reza Aslan is definitely my new political pundit crush (sorry, Fareed Zakaria). He is really cute. And I am so impressed by the fact that he has an M.F.A. in fiction writing from the University of Iowa in addition to his graduate work at Harvard and UCSB in religion. You can tell that he writes fiction from the way his book flows. It is bea-u-tiful. Unfortunately, I'm getting dangerously close to my "nonfiction stumbling point" (usually around page 50 or so), where I begin to rapidly lose interest with the dryness of academic writing and eventually give up entirely. I wish sometimes I had read more nonfiction as a child, because I think I would have an easier time with it now. Facts are all very well, but I need plot, you know? And lovely characters and beautiful imagery.
Books I bought today, because I have a disease:
Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon (I keep getting told how much I am going to like him)
Resurrection, Tucker Malarkey. I am thinking I will probably take this one back. It got decent reviews on Amazon and looks really interesting (it is a fictionalized account of the discovery of the Gnostic gospels), but I think it might be too religious for me. But maybe I will skim through it before I decide.
I have to write about fifteen thank you notes to teachers, etc. now, but then I am going to read some more of the lovely Reza Aslan and perhaps some Nathan Englander. Yes, yes.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Finally, I've settled on the purpose of this blog.
My reasons for creating this in the first place were rather vague. I don't want to review books; I think I just want to keep track of what I read and what I did or didn't like about it. To that end, I want to also include great passages or lines so I can remember them later (I always find myself digging through books I read months or years ago, searching for one bit of dialogue or one particular description that I found especially entrancing). Special Topics really inspired me to want to memorize large chunks of poetry and prose so I can recite it at the drop of a hat, but I don't have time for that, what with working full time this summer, attempting to read every book on my freshman year reading list before the year actually starts, and also covering a good deal of contemporary fiction at the same time. Oy vay.
In actual reading news, Emma is really picking up. Hooray for Jane Austen. I am enjoying it, despite the fact that lately, what with finals and graduation and so on, I've been reading it at a snail's pace (twenty pages or so a day, not a bit more and often less). I adore Mr. Woodhouse; I think he is my favorite character. He is so fretful and old and charming and so hell-bent on convincing everyone else of how healthy gruel is (ew). Emma, though, is a little obnoxious, even though the back of the book describes her glowingly as "irresistible."
In "reading planning" news (I think I enjoy planning almost as much as reading itself), I am finding it difficult to decide what to read next. I'll continue with Emma, but it's definitely one of those books that can be read alongside several others. I need to establish some sort of structure in my reading, but I am SO BUSY right now I can't find time to sit down and do it. The problem is that I recently ordered all of these books from the library and I can only renew them a certain amount of times before I have to turn them in and then check them out again. I think I need to prioritize library books and then move on to the ones I own (last night I went through my bookshelf and pulled out nineteen books I hadn't read yet but desperately wanted to). I can actually feel myself developing an unhealthy obsession with Reading Lists and Summer Challenges. At least I can acknowledge that I have a problem, right?
Library books I have checked out and am really looking forward to reading:
A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia by Anna Politkovskaya. The author was shot to death in the elevator of her apartment building in a contract killing after allegedly receiving repeated threats from the Russian government. The book is supposed to be awesome and tragic.
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. I adore Rushdie's writing, even though I've only read a few chapters of a different book. But I have really been looking forward to this one for a long time.
No god but God by Reza Aslan. This guy is so awesome. He was on The Daily Show last week and was so clever and handsome and young. The book is a history of Islam, which is something I'm ashamed to say I've not read enough about.
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander. Short stories, which I'm so fond of. And I've heard such good things.
I feel like I put in a few more holds, but I can't quite recall (I guess I'll find out, right?). I'm debating whether or not it would be too risky to take a library book (or two) to Europe. OH, and my mom just bought A Map of the World, which I have been wanting to read for a long time. I read the first two pages of it yesterday but made myself stop (even though it was really good so far!) because I have TOO MUCH ELSE TO READ AND I WILL NEVER FINISH ANYTHING AT THIS RATE. Oh god and I also started reading The Corrections, which is so terribly witty and funny. But I am taking it to Europe with me, so I will have time to devote to it just a week!
I didn't realize until I wrote this post how absolutely random and scatterbrained my reading habits have been lately. Forgive me, for I have sinned, and will probably continue sinning for the rest of the summer. I fear that working full time is really going to interfere with my full time reading habit. But this entry is reaching epic proportions, so I will save my fears for another time.
In actual reading news, Emma is really picking up. Hooray for Jane Austen. I am enjoying it, despite the fact that lately, what with finals and graduation and so on, I've been reading it at a snail's pace (twenty pages or so a day, not a bit more and often less). I adore Mr. Woodhouse; I think he is my favorite character. He is so fretful and old and charming and so hell-bent on convincing everyone else of how healthy gruel is (ew). Emma, though, is a little obnoxious, even though the back of the book describes her glowingly as "irresistible."
In "reading planning" news (I think I enjoy planning almost as much as reading itself), I am finding it difficult to decide what to read next. I'll continue with Emma, but it's definitely one of those books that can be read alongside several others. I need to establish some sort of structure in my reading, but I am SO BUSY right now I can't find time to sit down and do it. The problem is that I recently ordered all of these books from the library and I can only renew them a certain amount of times before I have to turn them in and then check them out again. I think I need to prioritize library books and then move on to the ones I own (last night I went through my bookshelf and pulled out nineteen books I hadn't read yet but desperately wanted to). I can actually feel myself developing an unhealthy obsession with Reading Lists and Summer Challenges. At least I can acknowledge that I have a problem, right?
Library books I have checked out and am really looking forward to reading:
A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia by Anna Politkovskaya. The author was shot to death in the elevator of her apartment building in a contract killing after allegedly receiving repeated threats from the Russian government. The book is supposed to be awesome and tragic.
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. I adore Rushdie's writing, even though I've only read a few chapters of a different book. But I have really been looking forward to this one for a long time.
No god but God by Reza Aslan. This guy is so awesome. He was on The Daily Show last week and was so clever and handsome and young. The book is a history of Islam, which is something I'm ashamed to say I've not read enough about.
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander. Short stories, which I'm so fond of. And I've heard such good things.
I feel like I put in a few more holds, but I can't quite recall (I guess I'll find out, right?). I'm debating whether or not it would be too risky to take a library book (or two) to Europe. OH, and my mom just bought A Map of the World, which I have been wanting to read for a long time. I read the first two pages of it yesterday but made myself stop (even though it was really good so far!) because I have TOO MUCH ELSE TO READ AND I WILL NEVER FINISH ANYTHING AT THIS RATE. Oh god and I also started reading The Corrections, which is so terribly witty and funny. But I am taking it to Europe with me, so I will have time to devote to it just a week!
I didn't realize until I wrote this post how absolutely random and scatterbrained my reading habits have been lately. Forgive me, for I have sinned, and will probably continue sinning for the rest of the summer. I fear that working full time is really going to interfere with my full time reading habit. But this entry is reaching epic proportions, so I will save my fears for another time.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Finished Gatsby, yay!
I finished The Great Gatsby last night and almost cried. What a wonderful book. And such clear, succinct writing. I can't wait to read more Fitzgerald - I almost picked up Tender is the Night at Half Price Books last night but decided I could probably get it from the library. I need to be better about not buying books that are available at the library. But sometimes I just really want to own them, you know? So I can reread them or just look at them. Or put them in my LibraryThing.
But anyway, these are the books I bought:
Emma, Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Prep, Curtis Sittenfield
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Kate Atkinson
Yayyy. I am very excited about all of them and am currently reading Emma, which is okay so far but it always takes me a while to get into these kinds of books. I need to make a list of the books I want to read in order so I don't keep buying new ones and skipping around and half-starting a lot of them and then moving on, etc. That is messy. I don't want it to be.
Also I am going to change my sidebar from "book recs" to "books completed in summer 2007". That way I can keep track of what I have read. It is going to be great.
I have some sort of terrible cold thing that has rendered me mostly unable to breathe. I really, really have to finish my chem stuff tonight so I can focus solely on my calc final. And I need to email my professor about my summer research paper, which is going to be really daunting because I also have to read 3-4 books (at least) for
I started Herodotus's Histories in Borders last night and it is pretty good (he is actually pretty funny), but it is definitely slow going. And I despair at the thought of having to read something like that AND write a paper on it (what would you even WRITE about? Seriously?) every single week. I am really worried Yale is going to be a lot harder than I think it is. I mean, I know it is going to be hard, but I also feel like it will be manageable. I hope it is not a terrible surprise.
Also, they had no Nabokov at Half Price last night, which was devastating. I really liked Lolita and wanted to read Pale Fire or something along those lines.
But anyway, these are the books I bought:
Emma, Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Prep, Curtis Sittenfield
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Kate Atkinson
Yayyy. I am very excited about all of them and am currently reading Emma, which is okay so far but it always takes me a while to get into these kinds of books. I need to make a list of the books I want to read in order so I don't keep buying new ones and skipping around and half-starting a lot of them and then moving on, etc. That is messy. I don't want it to be.
Also I am going to change my sidebar from "book recs" to "books completed in summer 2007". That way I can keep track of what I have read. It is going to be great.
I have some sort of terrible cold thing that has rendered me mostly unable to breathe. I really, really have to finish my chem stuff tonight so I can focus solely on my calc final. And I need to email my professor about my summer research paper, which is going to be really daunting because I also have to read 3-4 books (at least) for
I started Herodotus's Histories in Borders last night and it is pretty good (he is actually pretty funny), but it is definitely slow going. And I despair at the thought of having to read something like that AND write a paper on it (what would you even WRITE about? Seriously?) every single week. I am really worried Yale is going to be a lot harder than I think it is. I mean, I know it is going to be hard, but I also feel like it will be manageable. I hope it is not a terrible surprise.
Also, they had no Nabokov at Half Price last night, which was devastating. I really liked Lolita and wanted to read Pale Fire or something along those lines.
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