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Birthday Books 2008
My parents, in their infinite wisdom regaring gift giving, have made it an annual practice to give me a bookstore gift card for my birthday. I nearly let the month go by before I shared my purchases this month with you.
This year, my selections were heavy on the Shakespeare, probably due to the fact that I took a class on teaching Shakespeare through the Folger Shakespeare Library in June.
I only hope I get a chance to read it all soon.
I started a reading group at my school. I was surprised by the reception! We have a good 15 interested teachers, which at my school is approaching half the faculty! We are reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I need to get started on that one or I won’t be ready for our first meeting.
Georgia Writers
Omnivoracious, the Amazon Book Blog, has recently posted about Georgia writers as part of a series on the election and electoral votes.
The post has an impressive list of recommendations (though erroneously names the author of the Uncle Remus tales as Joel Chandler rather than Joel Chandler Harris.
Georgia has a rich literary history, as does much of the South. When I was in undergrad, I took a course in Southern Literature, and it was a really excellent learning experience.
One or two suggestions I might add some of the following lesser known works to the list in the Omnivoriacious post:
- Augustus Baldwin Longstreet’s Georgia Scenes: my Southern Lit. professor wrote the introduction to the version I had in college
- Coleman Barks‘ Gourd Seed (poetry): my UGA poetry professor and a wonderful poet mostly known for translating the poetry of Rumi (in fact, the New Georgia Encyclopedia article recounts him sleeping through his last final exam — that was my class — he wrote a poem about us*
- Judith Ortiz Cofer’s The Line of the Sun
Check out some of the other Georgia authors in the New Georgia Encyclopedia.
* Here is a link to the poem. He gave us all a copy of Gourd Seed, and I remember being so scared to ask him to sign it. I worked up my nerve and brought it to the final exam, and then, well as the poem says, he didn’t come. So, I mailed it to him with postage and asked that he sign it and send it back. He did. And he told me I would be a wonderful teacher with students who would be blessed to have me.
Related posts:
Free Audio Book: Persuasion
Through the Internet Archive’s audio offerings, I found LibriVox has a free audio version of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, which some of you might remember I’m currently reading. The reader is Moira Fogarty.
Visit the site to download the book, or check out this embedded version:
Criticism of the Twilight Series
My husband sent me a couple of articles on the Twilight series written by Kellen Rice for PSA:
- ‘Twilight’ Sucks… And Not In A Good Way
- Twilight: A Follow-Up and a Promise
The articles are actually well-written critiques of the books, and I agree with many of Rice’s points about both the writing and the characters in the books. Rice should have expected the teenage girls to freak out over any criticism of the books they love, and I felt her second article — an answer to those critics designed to belittle them for their taste in reading — really could have remained unwritten. It’s hard not to respond to the critics, but it would have been wiser, in my estimation. One of the commenters she responded to in her second article insisted (albeit ungrammatically) that the main problem Rice seemed to have is that she forgot it was “This is a BOOK a FICTIONOUS BOOK” and another said, “YOU JUST THINK TOO MUCH JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE !” Yeah, I was cringing, too, but I think what these two commenters meant to say and couldn’t articulate for who knows what reasons, is that they understand the books are not a role-model for conducting relationships, that they don’t take them seriously, and that they understand they’re literary junk food. I, too, cringe at Bella’s “I’m-so-not-worthy-of-Edward” attitude. For reasons my own daughter can’t articulate, she thinks Edward is a jerk, and she is right. She is a fan of Jacob, who is a bit more realistic despite being a werewolf, and Bella’s relationship with him was slightly more healthy. I think what these readers were trying to say to Rice is that yes, we understand these stories are not models for our lives. We like them anyway because they’re like cookies or chocolate. I don’t think we really need to worry that an entire generation of girls is going to idolize the men in their lives or accept abuse at rates any more alarming than they currently do. Rice’s comparison to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (also not the most well-written read) are somewhat alarmist and, I believe, baseless. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Stephenie Meyer wrote for different purposes and audiences entirely. I can’t fathom the notion that Meyer is hoping to turn a generation of girls into Bella Swan in the same way that Stowe was hoping to examine the evils of slavery.
I had a student in my class who wouldn’t read. I pointed her to these books, and now she does. If you need to use cake as a lure, then I say why not let them eat cake? Will it always lead to Nabokov, Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare, and the like? Certainly not. But reading nothing at all won’t lead there either, whereas reading a little, even if it light, fun fluff, might lead somewhere. And if nothing else, that purple prose is good for vocabulary development. I think what Rice didn’t understand in her criticism is despite the fact that lots of impressionable teens are fans of the books, they fully understand it might not be a good idea to live the books. After all, despite fears by the Christian right, we don’t have an entire generation of readers thinking they’re wizards and abandoning Christianity for Wicca.
I think Rice needs to let the criticism of her opinion roll off her back and rest assured that she is right about a great deal, but she missed the big picture: sometimes folks like to read junk food books like romance novels, horror, pop fiction, and the like, and it’s okay. Even if it’s a steady diet, in my opinion. Because, as the commenter so astutely noted, we understand they are just fictionous books.
Update, 1/9/09: I appreciate some of you do not like the books. This is not really an “I Hate Twilight” Vent Forum. I see legitimate reasons not to like the book, but you know what, I enjoyed it anyway, and so do a lot of other folks. You don’t have to, and that’s really fine. What I am seeing is people who do not regularly read this blog chiming in on this one topic alone, and keeping up with the comments is proving onerous. I suggest you all start a forum where you can vent (or join one — I’ve seen one personally, and I would bet there are more). I am closing comments on this post. Thanks for visiting.
Breaking Dawn: I Need Junk Food
The subtitle of my post refers to my current need to read something light and fun that I don’t have to think about too hard. And Breaking Dawn has just been released. One of my students has been after me to read it already, so I’m running out right now and buying it. I still want to finish Persuasion and Who Murdered Chaucer? However, as I inferred, my brain is fried, and I need to take a break from the serious reading.
Speaking of Persuasion, it strikes me as I read that my favorite parts of Austen’s books often involve her most annoying characters: Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet, Miss Bates, the Thorpes, and now Mary (Anne Elliot’s whiny sister). She just cracks me up.
I have had good response to a query about a book club at work, so perhaps my quest to find grown up with whom I can discuss literature may be fulfilled soon.
See you on the other side of the latest vampire romance. Oh, and as usual, blogging will be light due to the fact that I return for my Master’s degree on Monday, and I’m already so busy with work that I’m wondering how that will work out. Wish me luck and send good time management vibes in my direction.
Well, I’m Persuaded… To Read Another Austen Novel
I spent this morning watching Becoming Jane, and even though I know I might get my Janeite card taken away for saying this, I liked it. Oh, I know it’s inaccurate, but it made for a good story. Of course, I just love watching Austen-related movies because of the clothes. I was surely born at the wrong time. Take a look at some of the stills in this movie.
I just love, love, love Jane Austen. At this point, I have read all but two of her novels: Persuasion and Mansfield Park. I have started Persuasion twice and set aside for reasons I can’t remember. I suspect it might be partly due to the fact that I’ve seen the excellent adaptation starring Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds. I loved that movie, and it didn’t surprise me when I took a recent quiz and discovered Anne Elliot is the Austen heroine I am most like. I felt that when I watched the movie, too. Still, it’s shameful not to have finished the book, and I am turning back to it again. I plan to read Mansfield Park as well, but I’m not sure when. I’m definitely due for re-reads of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility.
I love immersing myself in her world, and if you do, too, you might check out Jane Austen’s World and Austen Blog. Of course, there are many more wonderful Jane Austen’s blogs in their blogrolls, too, but I have to get going and that means I need to wrap up this post.
Terry Jones: Chaucer Scholar
Not many of his fans know it, perhaps, but Terry Jones is a medievalist. In my Medieval Literature course in college, my professor told my class he had actually written a fairly interesting argument that Chaucer’s fabled knight was probably a mercenary. If you enjoy history, perhaps you managed to catch an episode of Medieval Lives or Crusades on the History Channel (or its International cousin).
My next book is Terry Jones’ Who Murdered Chaucer: A Medieval Mystery. Was Chaucer really murdered? Well, he did sort of vanish from the historical record. I am hoping that Jones explores even this weighty topic with his usual sense of humor and interest in the trivial (but) fascinating details of the subject. Perhaps I can finish the book before I begin teaching Chaucer this year and have some interesting tidbits for my students.
I just thoroughly enjoyed my re-read of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Of all the books I’ve read, it’s the Harry Potter series that I return to time and again and always glean something new from each time. These books have enriched my life in so many ways, and I will always be grateful I had them during what was otherwise not a very happy time in my life.
The Mother Tongue
The biggest problem I had with the book, however, is that it is now dated in the age of the Internet. The book was published in the early 1990s. Since the book was published, English has become even more essential for world business as it has become the language of most of the Internet. As I read the book, I couldn’t help but feel it needs to have a new edition with Bryson’s analysis of the Internet’s impact on the development of English. Without such an analysis, it doesn’t feel complete.
New York Times Review of The Lace Reader
The New York Times posted a review of Brunonia Barry’s novel, The Lace Reader. I thought the review was very fair and quite accurate, particularly about Towner’s creative writing stopping the forward motion of the plot, which was something I couldn’t articulate when I wrote my own review. Still, I think the book is well worth a read. Check it out!
When I have an opportunity, I’ll post my review of Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue, which I finished reading last night. I am embarking on a re-read of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before I turn back to new literature.