An English Major Begs for Book Recommendations

I set a goal this year of reading one nonfiction and one fiction book each month.

So far, I think it's going quite well. The goal reminds me to sprinkle all my detective novels and science fiction with the occasional serious read, and I've learned something about a number of interesting topics so far.

However, I'm already looking ahead to next year, and I think I know what my next reading goal needs to be: to read some of those Classics that I've never read.

I don't mean re-reading books I like or that I maybe read not-so-closely in a rush to get them done for school, though that would be another good list. I mean ones that I really have never read before.

My reading history is pretty erratic, and there are some somewhat surprising holes that deserve filling.

So, I'm taking suggestions. What classics do you think are Must Reads?

Here's a brief survey of some of what I have and haven't read:

American

I feel like I'm fairly well-read here. I've read two or three novels and myriad short stories by both Fitzgerald and Hemingway. My college adviser was a Faulkner scholar, so I've read almost everything he's written. I've read Walden and both Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn (though nothing else of Twain's save some short stories). I've read a fair amount of Poe.

For being an avid science fiction and fantasy reader, I've read very little of the classic authors--Asimov, Heinlein. Any speculative fiction fans out there who suggest I catch up on any of these?

Who else am I missing on this list? Clearly it's a very short one. Who are your favorite (North) American authors?

British

Ok, the big guns: I have most of Shakespeare under my belt, with the notable exception of the histories. Should I remedy that? I've read The Canterbury Tales and The Green Knight and most of what's in the Norton Anthology.

I've got a pretty good grounding in the twentieth century playwrights: Beckett, Stoppard, Orton. I've read Joyce though not Ulysses (my alma mater has a big Joyce collection, for some unknown reason).

This may shock you: the only Jane Austen I've read is Pride and Prejudice. What of her others should I read (choosing just one for the purpose of this challenge).

I've read Defoe's Moll Flanders but not Robinson Crusoe. I've read Jane Eyre but not Wuthering Heights. I've read a number of things by Dickens, though I'll admit that when I think of A Tale of Two Cities I mostly think of the Wishbone episode, even though I  had to memorize that famous first paragraph in the ninth grade.

Who are your favorite Brits? What do I neeeeeeed to read?

German

Maybe I'll lose most of you here, and anyway, I think my German major hit most of the highlights. Though admittedly I never did finish Mann's Joseph und seinen Bruedern, and I really have no excuse because my copy is an English translation.

Would anyone be interested in a German Greatest Hits list? Most things can be found auf Englisch, especially the older stuff. I could do a list on Filme, too, if anyone wanted.

Russian

I'll admit it. I've read pretty much none of those people. Tolstoy and his kin. I got halfway through Anna Karenina and abandoned it because my holds on the Twilight novels came in. *ducks and hides from thrown stones*

What of these should I really really read? Should I go back and finish Anna (I would have to start over from the beginning as this was several years ago).

Rest of World

Kafka is Czech but wrote auf Deutsch, so I've read most of his stuff. I even saw a stageplay of Metamorphosis which was the weirdest freaking thing I ever did see. (This is partly because the Freiburg theater company was weird weird weird).

I've read Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being (and loved it). I've read Inferno but not the rest of the Divine Comedy. I've never read The Three Musketeers or Don Quixote (again, do Wishbone episodes count?).

I'd especially like it if anyone has any suggestions of classics from some of the other parts of the world: Asia, the Middle East, Africa, South America. I've read a few things here and there but definitely would enjoy more.

Ok. Paring this down to just twelve could be pretty difficult. Which is why I need your help. What are  your favorites, your Must Reads? I know you're a well-read bunch out there. Help!

Six Months

Baby Rex is six months old now. What. It's hard to believe but at the same time it's not.

When my sister was born, I was four and my brother was two. We were duly excited for the new baby, and there is grainy home video of us running around excitedly and begging to hold her and watching her get her first bath.

But after a few weeks, we approached our mother, hand and hand, and said, "It's time for Baby to go home now. Her real mommy is missing her."

Mom tried to explain to us that no, Baby wasn't going anywhere, that she was Baby's real mommy and this was Baby's real home. But we were insistent. "No, you're our mommy. She has a different mommy and it's time for her to go to her real home."

Sometimes I feel like that about T-Rex. I'm wondering when his real mommy is going to show up, and if it's time for him to go to his real home yet. Even after six months, it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this is his home, that I am his mother, that he's not going to just go away, that having him around is not going to end (or not for a good eighteen or so years, anyway).

I love him fiercely. He's a funny little guy and a joy to have around most of the time. But I love a number of people--my husband, my parents, my siblings. This is different. Not because the love is greater (maybe it is, I don't know), but because it's less...independent, or something. Maybe that will change as he grows. But right now he's his own person but also kind of an extension of me, all at once.

It's perplexing. That's how I feel about him most of the time. Just sort of confused, like I'm not exactly sure how to feel about him.

He just started crying and I guess no one else is going to come and pick him up, so I will. Because I am his mother and maybe someday I'll feel like I am.

Talk Derby to Me

Did I ever tell you about my Insane Multi-Cultural German Cinco de Derby party?

Let me tell you.

When I studied in Germany, I had a friend also studying there who was from Louisville. I'm from New Mexico. That year, the Kentucky Derby fell on May 5th, aka Cinco de Mayo. We started planning an Epic Party well in advance.

Louisville's father sent a box filled with awesome Derby/Southern Party supplies: white gravy mix, Derby themed toys and shirts, and a bunch of other odds and ends. We raided the local German grocery store for Kentucky bourbon and tequila, and tried to figure out what sort of German cheese most closely resembled the cheese one uses for queso (because Germans don't eat Velveeta, natch).

I'm the one in blue.

We cooked all day, making biscuits and gravy, fried chicken, tacos, and Spanish rice. We made mint juleps and margaritas. We made salsa, to enjoy with the surprisingly tasty German tortilla chips.We also concocted a strange (but delicious) approximation of queso.

We set the table with the Derby party supplies and some random Mexicanish items we found at the Euro Store, which is like the Dollar Store, only weirder as only Europeans can be (there was a large and prominent display of one Euro dildos at this particular store, right next to a bunch of cheap kids' toys. Not even kidding).

The Run for the Mango Salsa.

Our party guests consisted of two other Americans (from Minnesota and Pennsylvania), our septilingual Finnish friend, and a variety of Germans.

We printed off some articles about the race, with lists of the horses running, and everyone bet on a horse. Big stakes here--dishes duty.

The only hitch to the day was that we couldn't find the race streamed live from anywhere. Clearly German tv was too busy airing things like this to air an American sporting event.

Toasting a party well hosted.

We eventually found a replay of the race on ESPN.com. My horse won, because clearly I'm a horse-picking genius.

SO EXCITING.

What I'm Into: April 2013

Is it really the end of April already? I'm not sure why I'm asking that, actually; it seems like it's been April forever. News events-wise, April really was the cruelest month, wasn't it? And it's been alternating a few days of hot and sunny with a week of cold and rainy all month: strange weather. Tired weather.

Here's what I've been up to:


Read and Reading

I've made the goal for the year to read at least one non-fiction and one fiction book each month, because it's too easy to just get sucked in to blog-hopping on my smartphone and never actually read anything of substance (not that blogs can't be substantive, but the brain reacts differently to words on a page versus a screen). I met that goal this month.


I blew through another bunch of the Temperance Brennan novels by Kathy Reichs. I wouldn't say these are stellar detective stories, but they're interesting because Reichs focuses each one on a topic so that it's almost like reading a short non-fiction book on Nascar or the Joint POW/MIA Action Command or diamond mining in Canada as well as a murder mystery. Quick reads, anyway.

I also read The Kingmaker's Daughter  by Philippa Gregory, but it was depressing, because everyone dies. Also: flashbacks to interminable college classes covering the literature of the War of the Roses.

For non-fiction, I slammed through Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber. And by slammed, I mean, I'm not sure it took me an entire twenty-four hours to finish it. I've never read a conversion memoir before, but I found this one compelling, if a bit overwritten (it's clear Weber is an academic. She can't help herself). Good stuff to chew on.

TV

It seems like most of our shows took hiatuses for most of April. Plus, I'm really not into TV these days. I spend too much time staring at screens. It continues to be the DDH's favorite activity, though, so there's that.



Movies

We saw and enjoyed Oblivion (I love weird science fiction movies) and Django Unchained, which was surprisingly funny. I know people are love 'im or hate 'im about Quentin Tarantino. Let's put it this way: both Django and Lincoln are set in roughly the same time period, and I know which one I would rather watch. I don't care if that makes me hopelessly prol; it's true.

Food

My CSA started up a couple weeks ago, and I'm having fun using up the different veggies we get. Also: does anyone know of anything interesting to do with pecans? So far I have about a pound and a half of local ones. The DDH and I don't really like them, but I hate to waste them.

May

T-Rex will be six months in May. This means I can finally go get my eyes tested and get new glasses. Also, that my baby is getting impossibly huge. Sniff.
 

What were you up to in April? What are you looking forward to in May?

A List of Lists: Purchases Edition

THINGS I'M NOT ALLOWED TO BUY
Because I have too many and simply can't justify it

1. Bags. I have closets full of purses, totes, luggage, backpacks...the answer is no. Somewhere we have something that can make do.
2. Baby clothes in sizes from Newborn through nine months. I gave away about half of what we received, and we still have enough clothing to outfit a small army of infants (now there's a scary thought).
3. Dogs. Or any animal, really. Well, except maybe some fish. Oh dear, I have a problem.
4. Body wash. I'm still recovering from a Bath and Body Works binge in my early twenties (ewwww, I'm not in my early twenties anymore!). I sold a lot of barely-used bottles of body wash, lotion, and body spray at a garage sale. I still have enough body wash and lotion to keep me clean and moisturized for another two or three years, at least.

THINGS I SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO BUY
Because I have too many, but I can always justify another

1. Books. Obvs.
2. Shoes. Though I have many shoes, I can always think of situations where I need shoes other than the ones I have. Also, my favorites get worn out, so I go looking to buy replacements, but it takes a long time to find shoes worthy of Favorite status, and so I end up with both ratty-but-well-loved shoes and lots of not-quite-perfect favorite candidates. It's a problem I really need to work on.
3. All-silicone spatulas. I feel this should be just as obvious and self-evident as books.
4. Washi tape. I'm obsessed with the stuff lately.

THINGS I NEED TO BUY BUT NEVER DO
Because I chicken out on spending money

1. Nice jewelry. I want to have sweet or unique quality pieces. But I always end up buying (and getting lots of compliments on ) cheap costume jewelry from Target instead.
2. Rugs. I'm intimidated by buying rugs. I love how they look in other people's houses and on the internet, but I'm afraid of Doing It Wrong. Also, they're expensive.
3. Shampoo. I'm incapable of remembering to buy the stuff. It's a good thing the DDH has so little hair.
4. Curtains. I have purchased curtains for exactly one window in the entire house (the bay window, which is really three windows). The beagle ate those a couple years ago, so I replaced them and hung the chewed ones up in another window. Our bedroom has curtains I cut in half to fit the tiny window. All the other rooms have nothing. Oh, the nursery has the valances that match the crib sheets. Anyway. Curtains that haven't been masticated by a canine would probably be a big step up for my home decor.

THINGS I HAVE TO KEEP BUYING OVER AND OVER AGAIN

1. Carrots. I buy carrots almost every time I go to the store. It's a hazard of owning a bunny.
2. Oatmeal. Because I eat it every day.
3. Ok, if this is a list of foods it's a dumb list. Ok, it's a dumb list. I just wanted to point out that I always need to buy more carrots. When in doubt, stick carrots in the cart.
4. Oh! I thought of something else. Notecards. Like, thank you notes, and the ones that are blank inside. Because mail is awesome.
5. And on a related note (har har): Stamps.

What are some of your entrants to these lists? What other lists should I make?

I love making lists. 

What I'm Into (March 2013)

It was a busy March this year! St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and all kinds of other things going on. The month flew by. Here's some of what I was up to:


Read and Reading

I've made the goal for the year to read at least one non-fiction and one fiction book each month, because it's too easy to just get sucked in to blog-hopping on my smartphone and never actually read anything of substance (not that blogs can't be substantive, but the brain reacts differently to words on a page versus a screen). In February, I didn't finish a single non-fiction book; in March, I don't think I read a fiction one.


I did return Princess Academy by Shannon Hale on March 2, so I guess we'll count that. It was...fine. Not the best YA novel I've ever read, but not the worst. It did not inspire me to seek Hale's other works.

For non-fiction, I finished Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, which I began last month. Maybe I'm naive, but I was not prepared for how devastating this book would be. It's an excellent, excellent book, and Mukherjee does a great job of tracing the history of cancer as seen through the lens of three or four particular kinds of cancer, though he focuses much more on the developments of the last century or so than of any older history of the disease.

But. While I was reading this, one of my good friends at church died of lung cancer. No matter what breakthroughs and success stories Mukherjee found in the treatment of cancer in the last century or so, I know how this story ends: without a cure and, for many, many people, without hope. It was hard to get excited or root for the small successes because I know the ultimate success is still so far out of reach.

Mukherjee is himself an oncologist, which greatly enhanced the book. He conveyed the mixed emotional bag doctors work from--the tension between caring about their patients as people and becoming inevitably, perhaps necessarily, inured to the suffering they see everyday, sometimes not even wanting anymore to fight the temptation to dehumanize their patients. It felt honest because it didn't always reflect well on him, and I appreciated that.

I also sped through In Pursuit of Garlic: An Intimate Look at the Divinely Odorous Bulb by Liz Primeau. While I'm tempted to pick up a copy to have on hand as a reference book (I grow garlic, as does the author), the book was not at all what I expected. I expected some sort of history of garlic, something more...narrative, maybe? But it's actually a garlic reference book (how to grow and cook with garlic) interwoven with a few of the author's personal stories involving garlic, including trips to two different garlic festivals. I don't recommend it as a book to read, but it would be useful if you want a basic introduction into using and growing garlic.

I've said garlic way too many times now in this blog post.

TV

Once Upon a Time, of course, continues to enthrall. Seriously.

Season Two of Game of Thrones came out on DVD, and the DDH, the MIL, and I watched it, having watched Season One together back at Christmas. It may surprise you, knowing what a big fantasy buff I am, but I've never read the books. The DDH has, and has been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to watch the show (we don't have HBO and it's not shown on Hulu or Netflix, so I bought him both seasons for Christmas). Now we have to wait until Season Three is released.

Not for children. Not entirely sure it's for most adults. But it's very, very well done.



Movies

We were so, so disappointed by Oz the Great and Powerful. Yes, I'm one of those people who has read the books, but Oz is really a prequel to the iconic movie and not based on the books, and that's fine. EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT IT WAS TERRIBLE.

Part of what bothered me about the movie is that Oz is weirdly anti-woman, even though it made no sense for the story and in complete opposition to the source material. L. Frank Baum was married to Maud Gage Baum, the daughter of the prominent suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage, and the Oz books are strongly feminist. Almost all of the major characters are female. They are queens and witches (good and bad) and brave little girls from Kansas and sassy, outspoken hens and the adventures are about them and what they do. They rescue others; the rescue themselves--they are never (or rarely) rescued by men. They form close and powerful female friendships and platonic friendships with men (or male creatures, really; think Toto and the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion), but there are no romantic storylines in the books (at least partly because they are books for young children).

I'm not really one to drone on about wanting my entertainment to conform to some feminist ideal; I don't usually think there's some vast Hollywood conspiracy to present movies that aren't feminist enough. But when the industry takes source material that is so rich with powerful women and turns it into a plot-hole-filled farce about catty females waiting around for a man to step in and rescue them--it makes me wonder. Perhaps if the storyline had been compelling enough, I wouldn't be as bothered by the rest. Unfortunately, the story is so bad and nonsensical that I had way too much time to sit and reflect on all the other problems with the movie.

So. Yeah. There's that.


Food

Speaking of garlic, my trademark Easter recipe (or my mom's trademark Easter recipe) is asparagus with lemon and garlic. It was a smash hit at the in-law's Easter dinner.

Also, the DDH bought me a ceramic cast iron Dutch oven for Valentine's Day and I cook almost everything in it now. I love that thing.

April

With Easter over so early, April should be a quiet month. I plan to get the garden going and do some other yardwork once the weather remembers that it's spring. 

What were you up to in March? What are you looking forward to in April?

I am wishing you a happy Easter.

I'm probably jinxing it by telling you, but if he does it again tonight, T-Rex will have slept through the night seven nights in a row.

A full week of full nights of sleep?

I am a new woman. All of the things are clean. ALL OF THE THINGS.

I was going to write something lovely and meditational for Maundy Thursday and/or Good Friday and/or Easter, but. I didn't. Oh well.

I will say that Pope Francis seems like a pretty cool dude. I don't know if you're supposed to call the Pope "dude," but I'm not Catholic, so it's probably okay.

I'm not Catholic, but five years ago, I was in Rome for Holy Weekend (if that's not what it's called, it should be). We went to mass in St. Peter's for Good Friday, then out to the Coliseum for the stations of the cross. On our way out of St. Peter's we bought a loaf of bread and some cheese at a corner store, and all my pictures of us at the stations of the cross involve this GIANT loaf of bread. I think we named it Tony.

On Saturday, we went back to St. Peter's for the Holy Saturday vigil mass thing (I didn't know, prior to that, that Catholics had to go to mass on Holy Saturday, but apparently they do). The line to waiting to be let in to St. Peter's was forever long. We were in line behind a group of nuns from...I want to say Morocco, but I could be wrong there.

Anyway, these nuns were hilarious and very friendly. We shared snacks while waiting (probably the remains of Tony, honestly), and we managed to convince the nuns that it's an American tradition to toast with your food. You know how you clink beer or wine glasses together before drinking? We were doing that with bread.

Then our Catholic friend felt guilty about lying to nuns and told them that wasn't really how the Americans did it, but I insisted that yes, it really was, and continued to toast my food for the rest of the time we were in Italy, because I am good at nothing if not beating a joke to death.

We finally got in to the mass, where I got in trouble with my Catholic friend for talking and spilling candle wax on my pants.

I'm not sure why she was mad at me for spilling wax on MY pants, but there you are.

Rereading this, I wonder that my Catholic friend put up with me at all. I was being obnoxious. Which is weird, because I was actually very excited to have mass in St. Peter's and see the Pope up close and in person (well, I think I was the fourth person in from the aisle when he passed by; that counts). It was all very solemn and ceremonious and moving, but I was trying to explain things to our Non-Liturgical Christian friend and I'm clumsy and I swear I wasn't trying to act like a five-year-old, but not all of us have preternatural sitting-still abilities.

Ok, so we didn't get out of that mass until about one or two in the morning. The trains had long since stopped running, so we and about twenty thousand other people needed to catch taxis home. This was an adventure that perhaps deserves its own post sometime, but it ended with us driving the wrong way down a one-way street, backwards, because every stereotype you have ever encountered about Italian drivers is absolutely, one hundred percent true.

Catholic Friend exacted her revenge on Non-Liturgical Christian Friend and me the next morning. Though we hadn't arrived home until well after three, we had to be back at the Basilica at some ungodly hour, seven or eight a.m., all packed and checked out of our hostel. I'm not entirely sure how we did it, and without coffee, but Catholic Friend did it with a smile on her face.

Non-Liturgical Friend did it grousing like a champion grouse, but she also found us coffee and pastries while Catholic Friend and I saved us seats. Between Catholic Friends manic single-minded slave drivering and Non-Liturgical Friend's liberal provisions of our drug of choice (caffeine), I made it there.

But. It was...I can't even describe how beautiful and perfect that morning was. Sunny and warm, the most perfect, clear spring-morning light. The crowds of tired/happy people in their fancy dress clothes. The sound of myriad languages being spoken. The gleaming white of St. Peter's. The third Latin mass in a row; we were starting to catch on to it a bit. The cardinals and the Pope decked out in red and white and gold.

It was...I'm not Catholic, but it was an experience I'll never forget. For the first time I actually felt the globalness of the faith, the ancientness of it. The bigness of it.  

The joy of Easter was tangible in that moment.

Pope Benedict XVI, good ol' Ratzinger, speaks Latin and Italian with a German accent. My linguist ear loved listening to his papal address, though I have no idea what he said. I didn't need to. I'm a very rational, analytical type of person and do not entirely approve of touchy-feely church experiences, but that day, the emotional experience was enough. "Things from the heart don't have an explanation."

I've always loved Easter, the transformation from the darkness and black of Good Friday to the brightness and white of Sunday morning. The return of the Hallelujahs, said over and over and over again because they've been gone so long and you just can't get enough.

Three masses in a row in Latin and Italian and I didn't understand any of it, except those Hallelujahs. Over and over again. Hallelujah. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed! Hallelujah.

Happy Easter, friends.