End of Semester Reading Roundup

Greetings, fellow readers! Freedom from academic reading is nigh, and with the summer comes my return to my job at the bookstore, where I can borrow any book I want from work for free--such bliss! I have several titles I cannot wait to read, including:

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, which I have dipped into on and off over the past two weeks or so. It's about a group of post-apocalyptic traveling Shakespeare actors, so of course, it's right up my alley. I'm not very far into it, but I find the characters' arguments about whether to perform comedies or tragedies when everyone's dropping dead from the superflu particularly prescient. So much of the discourse in English and humanities circles right now centers on the utility of these disciplines in a world where concrete production is often prized over abstract reasoning. The traveling players are literally enacting the current Great Struggle of my field right now, and I'm excited to see where they go with it. Of course, I'm also looking forward to picking apart all the Shakespeare references.

The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen. This is the much-anticipated sequel to The Queen of the Tearling, a fantasy novel which I discovered at work last summer and loved. This is one of those books which cries out to be made into a series, and when the new installment comes, it'll be like Christmas in July.

City of Thieves by David Benioff. I found this book randomly on Goodreads (yes, I redownloaded the app, after much internal conflict), and it seems like the perfect way to continue my Russian literature kick. By the way, if any of you have good Russian lit recommendations, do let me know. It's mostly new terrain for me, aside from obvious titles like Anna Karenina, etc.

Also, if you want to follow me on Goodreads and share your recs that way, you can do so here.

The Complete Tales by Edgar Allan Poe. This one is slightly work-related, since it's very likely I'll be writing my senior thesis on Poe this spring. Still, I've been a fan of his stories ever since "The Tell-Tale Heart" scared the bejeezus out of me at the ripe old age of eight. It's going to be fun to go back and reread some old favorites, as well as discover new ones, and if I get any good thesis ideas, well, you won't hear any complaints!

This last one isn't really a reading book per se, but The Essential New York Times Cookbook edited by the incomparable Amanda Hesser has recently joined the literary tomes on my shelves. I picked it up for $5 at the Friends of the Library booksale this weekend, and it's chock full of so many good things to cook, I don't know where to start! I'm moving out of the dorms and into an apartment this year, so I'll finally be able to do some real cooking, and summer is the perfect time to practice.

Until next time,

Anna