Reading Recap: Midterm

Greetings, fellow readers! My sincerest apologies for neglecting you all for nearly a month--I will try to remedy my absenteeism with an especially thought-provoking post today.

We've now reached the midpoint in the semester: everyone's heading home for spring break, and I, for one, cannot wait to curl up on the couch with a blanket and a giant stack of books and a never ending supply of tea. Some titles I'm particularly looking forward to are:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, which I started reading last weekend, knowing full well I would want some uninterrupted spurts of free time to truly enjoy this novel. I'm only about 100 pages in, so take this with a grain of salt, but I really like the novel's structure: its chapters are arranged like Russian nesting dolls or atomic orbitals, each embedded within another, bigger shell, yet all connected as part of an organic whole. I like some of the styles and voices better than others (Adam Ewing's delightfully verbose diary, for example), and while I'm still not entirely sure where the story is going, I have high hopes that I'll enjoy the ride.

Another book I have queued up is The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt. This one is of particular interest to me because it details the rediscovery of Lucretius's De Rerum Natura in manuscript form by an Italian monk during the Renaissance. I had to read Lucretius's book, which is a philosophical discussion of atomic theory and the question of free will, for my Latin Literature class this semester. Also, my Shakespeare professor last semester was constantly citing instances of Lucretius's influence on Shakespeare, which is part of what Greenblatt discusses in his book.

These next few books I haven't started yet, so I'll just stick to my reasons for reading them.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty is one I found at the public library. It caught my eye because of the author's unique perspective within the memoir genre.

The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Modern Science by Armand Marie Leroi is another public library find. It's pretty long, hence I saved it for spring break.

Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with your Favorite Literary Characters by Mallory Ortberg looks to be a fun treat in the tradition of Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook. Not a novel, but seems enjoyable.

Love Cake by Leah Piepzna-Samarasinha. This book of modern poetry is one my friend Sally gave me for my birthday. The author is a queer feminist poet who takes on topics as diverse as terrorism, romance, sexual abuse, and our definitions of beauty. Sally's review made this book sound amazing, and I can't wait to read it.

Until next time,

Anna

Let's Talk Timelines

Greetings, fellow readers! So last week, I went a little Venn Diagram crazy on you, and I thought I'd make it up to you by keeping this post a little more . . . linear, shall we say. I made a timeline of the important moments in my life for a class project; it's not a blog post per se, but it should keep you busy while I get some more reading done. Enjoy!

Until next time,

Anna