18 - The Botany of Desire

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
Random House, 2002
304 pages
Date completed: December 14, 2009


This was an interesting read! It was for my botany class last term, and I have to say I didn't mind reading it at all! Pollan's writing is engaging, and it's full of anecdotes as well as historical notes, so it doesn't get boring. It's actually great to know what exactly is going into certain foods.

For instance...ever hear of a NewLeaf potato? It's a genetically modified potato in which every single cell contains herbicidal DNA to combat a specific beetle. Therefore, the potatoes wouldn't need to be sprayed with herbicides. This potato was never tested by the FDA, nor was it labeled as a GMO so that the public could be aware of it. Luckily it was discontinued, because it literally wasn't even tested on lab rats or anything. Gross.

So there were a lot of useful things in this book, focusing on four different plants and how they correspond to human desires: apples/sweetness, tulips/beauty, marijuana/intoxication, and potatoes/control. Really interesting stuff.

17 - The Magician's Nephew

The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis
HarperCollins, 1955
96 pages
Date completed: December 10, 2009

So the Narnia series always bored me to death in elementary school, which is when I should have been reading it. Around the holiday season in 2005 I found a collection of the entire Chronicles of Narnia on sale at the bookstore for about $10, so I bought it because I feel like these books are a staple I missed out on. In fourth grade, my teacher read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe aloud and I remember loving it, but then I read The Horse and His Boy and loathed it and could never even make it all the way through The Magician's Nephew or Prince Caspian.

Which brings me to 2009. The week before finals. Stressed as hell. But I need something to read before bed. So I look at my bookshelf, which is half full of school books and half full of more complicated/longer novels, and my eyes rest on The Chronicles of Narnia. Bingo. The stories are about 100 pages apiece, so I can easily read them in a night (or a night and 30 minutes of a morning, which is how I read The Magician's Nephew). Also, they don't require much thought.

So The Magician's Nephew was still a little hard to get into for me, but since every 10 pages I could be like "only 90 left, only 80 left, only 70 left" et cetera, it wasn't bad at all. And once I got farther into the story, I actually really liked it. Especially the part about Aslan creating Narnia, and the lamppost/toffee tree growing, and the description of the scenery while Digory and Polly were flying to the tree of life.

Religious allegory aside, I liked it. Religious allegory included, it was cool to relate aspects of the story to Biblical stories. Really really blatantly obvious connections to the Garden of Eden and Jesus and evil temptation, but it's a children's story so I'll let that slide.

I probably won't be blogging about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe unless my opinion of it drastically changes or something, since I've already read it. So you'll probably see me in a few days with The Horse and His Boy. Since the copy I just read is part of one giant book (pictured in the "currently reading" section), I've used an image of the copy of The Magician's Nephew I have at home and received as a child.

16 - Le Morte D'Arthur

Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
Oxford University Press, 1971
811 pages
Date completed: November 15, 2009

So I finished this a long time ago and just forgot to write it down! So technically I should have blogged about it a few weeks ago but oh well. Here we have Malory's Works, which is just a fancy name for Le Morte D'Arthur, which is all he wrote. It is comprised of the following books:

The Tale of King Arthur
The Tale of the Noble King Arthur that was Emperor Himself through Dignity of his Hands
A Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake
The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney that was Called Bewmaynes
The Book of Sir Tristram de Lyones and Iseult the Fair
The Tale of the Sankgreal (the Holy Grail)
The Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthur

I loved basically every minute of this hulking tale of adventure, knights errant, scandal, and, ultimately, destruction. Although some of the tournament and battle chapters were a little dull because they just describe who fought with who, even those weren't bad!

Having finished this entire work, I find it strange that King Arthur and the Round Table are so glorified everywhere. The first time I read some of the tales of King Arthur (in modern English, of course) was in third grade, because I was absolutely enthralled with the idea of Camelot already, at the age of eight! So somehow the legend of Arthur embeds itself into us at a very young age, and from then on (for me, at least), I romanticized the idea and thought Arthur was this great fictional king who did all sorts of amazing things.

In reality, there's a lot of seediness under the surface in Camelot. Right now I'm writing a paper about how withdrawn Arthur was from Britain throughout the last 650ish pages of the book, and how that caused the destruction of the Round Table. Because yes, my friends, the Round Table/Camelot/Arthur all meet their end in this book. It's prophecized by Merlin within the first 15 pages or so, so I don't think that spoils the book for anyone. But again, this is an idea that doesn't really come into pop culture along with the lauding. I think people need to know. Arthur was a great king at first, but he was never, ever the greatest. He was a great warrior and leader, but he was always overshadowed by his knights on the battlefield. He eventually stops taking part in domesticating the kingdom and exploring, preferring to let his knights do all the dirty work while he sits in Camelot on his ass.

Then there's the scandalous affair of Launcelot and Guinevere, the corruption of Gawain and his brothers, and the fact that basically none of the knights of the Round Table (barring Launcelot and a few others) really follow the code of chivalry that has been set before them.

So rather than this mythical, fantasy-esque book about magic and this amazing king and his amazing knights, the real Morte D'Arthur is even better! There is actual human vulnerability exposed all the time! There are conflicts that run much deeper than a clash of swords or lances. There are subplots full of treachery, love stories, kidnappings, the quest for the frickin Holy Grail (which is achieved by Galahad the Boring as well as Bors and Percival), and a ton of humor! Knights wearing dresses over their armor, Lady Hallews with her "poisoned lip gloss" (as my professor calls it), a song written by Dynaden about how crappy King Mark of Cornwall is (Mark = the king from the Tristram and Iseult story who is Tristram's uncle and Iseult's husband. He's probably the seediest, most disgusting character in the whole book), the time Launcelot is sleeping and a knight comes in thinking Launce is his paramour and starts making out with Launce...oh man. I could go on forever.

What I'm trying to say is that this story has it all. It was really written under the pretense of relaying a religious lesson, and in the last 7 pages or so everyone gives up the world and enters nunneries/monasteries and goes to heaven, but the book itself isn't like that at all. It's about the journey: adventurous, thrilling, funny, interesting, and full of characters who are dimensional, vulnerable, and likeable. It's literally a classic (hehe, from the fourteenth century), and reading it in the original early English was a real treat.

And so "he drewe his swerd Excalibur, but it was so bryght in his enemyes eyen that it gaf light lyke thirty torchys, and therwith he put hem on bak and slewe moche people." The epitome of medieval badass right there.

15 - Harry Potter Should Have Died

Harry Potter Should Have Died by Emerson Spartz and Ben Schoen
Ulysses Press, 2009
205 pages
Date completed: November 22, 2009


So someone got this for me as a fun thing, because I have been so into rereading Harry Potter this term (often foregoing sleep and homework to do so). And while it was definitely a fun and interesting little read, several things about it bothered me.

The format of the book was that it addressed specific questions about the series. Some were serious, some were funny. For example: "Which character is most surprising?" Underneath the question, different opinions were addressed in long format (possible choices: Barty Crouch, Jr., Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy, Dudley Dursley) and at the end there was a verdict (Barty Crouch, Jr.).

So it seemed, like I said above, like a fun, light read for pure entertainment. For the most part, it fulfilled my expectations in that respect. However, a lot bothered me in terms of the book's approach to the arguments.

It was often hard for me to choose one argument over another because of the way the authors formulated the arguments. In almost every single instance, defending one opinion meant completely dissing and putting down the opposing opinion, which I totally disagree with! The point of these questions seemed to be that it was very difficult to choose between answers, and the authors often paid absolutely no respect to any other side of the argument in their defense of one side. This often resulted in sentences that made absolutely no sense and were completely incorrect.

One aspect that bothered me was probably when the authors discussed whether the Harry Potter books should be considered among the classics of literature. The opposing argument was ok (though I don't really buy the statement that "Harry is an orphan, which is a cliche of children's stories. That proves that there are no new plots in the world, but tugging at the heartstrings is a great way to sell books" (Spartz & Schoen, 2009). Uh, okay? So just because some books have orphans in them means that there is no originality in the rest of the book?). But the argument that said the HP books should be classics made me want to claw my eyes out. Instead of proving valid points, it went on for two and a half pages attempting to relate Harry Potter to any classic it could possibly think of. It's a coming-of-age story? Oh, so it MUST be just like Tom Sawyer and Anne of Green Gables! Tom Riddle was raised in an orphanage? Must be David Copperfield all over again! Snape somehow resembles The Little Prince?! Purebloods "arrange" marriages (though there is no evidence of this, just that they CHOOSE to marry into other pureblood families), so they must be like the families in Pride and Prejudice! Honestly? I mean, seriously? A classic doesn't become a classic because it has elements of other classics embedded within. And all of those things listed above could have been found in about a million other books that AREN'T "classics" as well.

As an avid HP fan, I really don't think this book did the issues within the series any justice. There were no gray areas; the authors merely tried to sort the issues into black and white, which is not always possible. It didn't work for them. I'm sure it would have satisfied little teeny-boppers who don't delve deeper into these issues, but I was a little disappointed. Yeah, it was ok. Yeah, it was pretty entertaining at times. No, I don't really think it was successful. Especially when the authors made the arguments sound like little kids on a playground. "You're wrong because I'm right!" "No, YOU'RE wrong!" Ugh.

14 - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Vintage, 2003
226 pages
Date completed: November 21, 2009


So much of this book made me feel for the narrator. Christopher is an autistic boy who strikes out to write a mystery novel about a dog who was killed in his neighborhood. However, in the process, his world just becomes more and more complex and saddening; often Christopher himself finds it overwhelming.

This was such a good insight into the mind of an autistic child. When I did fieldwork in a first-grade classroom there was a child similar to Christopher, though obviously much younger. But that was another reason I felt drawn to the story.

At first, it took awhile for me to really get into this book. I thought the beginning was all right, but I wasn't captivated until a bit farther on, when the plot starts to pick up. Though Christopher's insights were truly interesting, I needed something else to keep me into it. But this is one of the few books that actually caused me to gasp out loud-- more than once!-- and also was one of the few lately that I got so lost in that I was honestly surprised to see that it two hours had passed by the time I finished it.

So overall...an insightful, captivating book that drew me in and became a very, very quick read. It probably took me three hours total. But like I said, it made me react physically, which I don't usually do. Occasionally I giggle at things in books, and I've cried once or twice, but I usually keep the story confined in my head and don't outwardly react. Read it.

13 - The Blithedale Romance

The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Norton, 1978
418 pages (228)
Date completed: November 18, 2009


So this wasn't one of my favorite books, but it had its redeeming qualities. Basically my favorite part was that there's a very strong female character, Zenobia. Besides that...well, there's a lot that bothers me.

First of all, the narrator, Coverdale, is an absolute creeper. He practically wets himself at the opportunity to hide and observe other people. He has this special tree in the woods that he calls his "hermitage" and he hangs out in it and watches the other people who live on Blithedale farm, and they have no idea that he's watching. At another point, he hides in his hotel room and stares out the window at his friends in another room; then he hides behind a tree in the forest outside where other characters are having a bonfire so he can watch them. Creepiest of all, though, is when at one point he wishes he could just arrive at the farm unbeknownst to everyone else and watch them through the windows from outside.

So yeah. The narrator is, among other things, basically a sneaky stalker. He doesn't ever form real relationships with other characters because he's always judging them and imposing his own idea of their personality on them.

The other character who bothered me a great deal was Priscilla, Zenobia's long-lost sister who is always likened to a "leaf" or an "airy breeze" or something. Basically, she shows up at Blithedale and throws herself prostrate at her sister's feet, gazing up at her in admiration until it makes everyone else sick. She won't talk, she won't defend herself, she just worships everyone and acts like a little mouse. If she does anything at all, it's always something domestic-- particularly sitting off in a corner and making little purses. And of course, Coverdale the idiot makes stupid observations, the most insane being that he believes that Priscilla will grow up to be a fine young woman because she is so capable of sublimating herself. Uh, ack.

So there isn't much to redeem this novel for me...I think Hawthorne is mocking the idea of a bunch of upper-class people getting together and starting a utopian society for fun. It's impossible t0 be utopian--everyone on the farm is pushing his or her own agenda. Therefore it's satirizing the transcendentalist movement. Also, Zenobia is supposed to represent Margaret Fuller, which I thought was pretty cool. Fuller was also a strong female. Creepy though that Hawthorne has Zenobia meet the same watery end as Fuller did in real life.

Overall, I'm pretty glad to be done with this one.

12 - The Tales of Beedle the Bard

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
Arthur A. Levine, 2008
111 pages
Date completed: November 17, 2009


I could hardly dislike anything from the Harry Potter series, so therefore, it's safe to assume that I enjoyed this little collection of wizarding tales. Much like fairy tales in the "Muggle" world, these stories are the ones told to children before bedtime in the wizarding world.

Because I just finished rereading the entire Harry Potter series, this was a great way to end it. One of these tales plays a huge role in Deathly Hallows, so it was nice to be able to reread it and also read commentary from the perspective of Albus Dumbledore.

It's kind of a sad moment for me, though. I am now completely done with the Harry Potter books, which I first started reading at the age of 11 (the very same age at which Harry Potter receives his letter from Hogwarts). It's been such an amazing experience growing up with Harry, and now I've finally closed the final final book. I never read Beedle when it was first published because I had already basically forgotten the plot of the Deathly Hallows by the time of Beedle's release, so I wanted to wait to reread it. So it's been sitting on my bookshelf for eleven lonely months, but at last it's finished. Not to be melodramatic. I'll never get too old for Harry Potter.

11 - Wide Sargasso Sea

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Norton, 1982
171 pages

Date completed: November 16, 2009


What really spoke to me about this book was that it addressed something that I was aware of, but hadn't really given much thought to: the concept of unhomeliness. Rather than try to explain it, I'll relate it to the book: the narrator, Antoinette, was born and raised in Jamaica. She is white, and therefore she and her family have never been accepted by the indigenous people of Jamaica because whites on the island have always dominated the native people. On the other hand, Antoinette is also not accepted in British culture because of her humble beginnings and the fact that her ideas and culture are so different. Therefore, she has no true home and is suspended instead between two worlds, which is fascinating and heartbreaking.

This reimagining of the story of Antoinette (also known as Bertha, the "mad woman in the attic" from Jane Eyre) is very powerful. It's so interesting to see an explanation for why Antoinette might have gone mad, rather than just distancing her and seeing her as that crazy woman who is locked away. It also made me want to reread Jane Eyre through a new lens. There is a great emphasis upon cultural relativism and the fact that to the English in the early 19th century, people of other cultures were considered "savage." Despite the fact that Antoinette looks just like the English, her background is still capable of tainting her in the eyes of the British.

It was also interesting that not only is Antoinette suspended between two cultures, but she is also suspended between two different personas in Rochester's perspective. He is lustfully drawn to her beauty, but at the same time he hates her and is repulsed by her connotations with "barbaric" raw nature. The oppositions set up throughout the novel were excellent.

Overall, it was a really quick read that I enjoyed delving into. Parts of it didn't make a lot of sense to me at first, but I think upon a second reading (which I'll have to do before I write a paper about it), I'll be able to smooth out my misunderstanding.

10 - The Fall of the House of Usher

"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe
Book Sales, 2004
842 pages (14)
Date completed: November 7, 2009


I won't write too much about this, because technically it's a short story. But the 1001 books to read before you die list counts it as a book, and so do I! haha.

This is one of the less creepy Poe stories I've read. The narrator seems pretty reliable, too, compared to other Poe narrators. It was packed with the usual creepy elements-- the house with windows that looked like vacant eyes, the stormy nights, the tortured souls within, and of course the fact that the Usher woman is buried alive and then comes out of the crypt to die on top of her brother.

So yeah. Creepy. The house is alive, the brother and sister are incestuous (as depicted by the way they die), and the title is both literal and figurative. There is a very quick sketch of what I got out of it.

9 - Written on the Body

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
Vintage, 1992
190 pages
Date completed: November 5, 2009

Wow, this novel was absolutely captivating. Every single page was chocked full of lines and passages that I'd love to underline (except that then the whole novel would be underlined). So much insight and passion packed into so few pages.

So the narrator of this novel is androgynous and bisexual. How interesting. At times I felt myself needing to categorize the narrator: I often read her as female, although the text itself is careful never to give ANY indication of the narrator's sex. What does that say about me and the way I've been taught to read? Why do I feel the need to categorize the narrator? In life things aren't certain. A person's sex can be fluid in a way. But this narrator spoke to me, and he or she definitely seemed female when I was reading. Maybe that's because I'm female. Maybe it's because I know that Jeanette Winterson is a lesbian. Maybe it's because the language was so subtle that it used more feminine word choice and I didn't even notice. So forgive me if I accidentally refer to the narrator as a female...I'll try to stick with "he or she" although it pains me to do so. I just finished the novel and I'm feeling really attached to the narrator at the moment.

So here we have a novel of the deepest love and the deepest loss. A lot of the novel feels like one long love letter (but not in a corny way at all-- in the most genuine way I've ever seen in a text). This passage about death tugged at my heartstrings the most, though. It's about letting a mortician prepare your loved one's body for burial:

"What would you do? Pass the body into the hands of strangers? The body that has lain beside you in sickness and in health. The body your arms still long for dead or not. You were intimate with every muscle, privy to the eyelids moving in sleep. This is the body where your name is written, passing into the hands of strangers."

Winterson is a fabulous author. This is the second book I've read by her, and it's just as powerful as the first. When this challenge is over I'll definitely be seeking out more of her novels. Wow.

8 - Walden

Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Norton, 2008
672 pages (224)
Date completed: November 2, 2009

In a series of meticulous observations, Thoreau chronicles his years living alone in the forest on the shore of Walden Pond. I found the whole premise of this interesting...although I value my alone time, I could never build myself a home and live there alone for years. However, it's more interesting that Thoreau himself continually claims that he didn't do this to get away from people. In fact, he says exactly the opposite: he loves company, whether in the form of humans or animals.

So Thoreau is basically pretty badass. How many people do you know who are comfortable enough in their own skins to just go off and live by themselves for 2 years? And on top of it, he doesn't develop any bitterness toward the rest of humanity and doesn't preach against society.

This isn't to say that Thoreau doesn't have plenty of radical individualistic views. He is also vehemently opposed to the accumulation of material possessions (which is a great premise, but is practically impossible to relate to in this country and century. If he could resurrect himself and just walk into my (or any) dorm room, I'm pretty sure he'd be shellshocked). I really like a lot of his ideas because they're thoughtful and insightful and meant (at least on some level) to improve society as a whole.

What I love most about Thoreau, however, is his complete loyalty to his own beliefs. This crops up in his essay "Civil Disobedience" quite frequently, and to me, it's what makes Thoreau COMPLETELY outstrip Emerson when it comes to transcendentalism. Sure, Emerson's ideas were more complex at times. But Thoreau believes that if you don't like your government, then you shouldn't support it. So what does he do? He refuses to pay his poll tax, gets thrown into jail, and exalts in it! He's actually happy to be in jail because it means that he's in the society of others who are anti-government. Whereas Emerson preaches about solitude yet is this social butterfly in Concord (cough. hypocrite!), Thoreau actually practices what he preaches. So yeah.

To sum this all up...the ending of Walden makes it even more amazing. Basically, Thoreau is like, "Ok, I'm done. I learned shit. Time to move on." He moves out of the forest simply because he has "several more lives to live" (p. 217). Not because he has a particular agenda, but because he wants to explore and live as fully as he possibly can. I adore the man.

Correction

Upon going through my library on Excel and reorganizing, I have a correction to make. There are only about 240 books I have to read, not 300. This is because:

1. The original list included a LOT of duplicate books (e.g. both hardcover and paperback editions of the same book).

2. It also included books I never read as a child (a few in the American Girls series, for example, and some Tamora Pierce). I recategorized most of these children's books because, quite frankly, I'll probably be donating a lot of them to libraries rather than reading them.

3. There have also been a few books I've sold on Amazon. This project has caused me to sift through books and evaluate whether I'll ever read them. For example, I recently sold Philippa Gregory's Wideacre because reading it the first time, I couldn't finish due to the explicit incest going on. Normally I try to keep an open mind, but I just had absolutely zero interest in reading it. So rather than either forcing myself to read it or never truly achieving my goal of reading ALL of my books, I just sold it. Another example: At a harvest festival a few years ago, I bought some ancient Jean Plaidy paperbacks for 25 cents apiece. Some of them were parts of a series. At the time of their purchase, I didn't realize the series were out of print. So rather than purchasing the rest of the series, I just have been selling them.

So the plan remains to keep chugging along. I'll read all the stand-alone novels by themselves first, without buying any new books. Toward the end of this project, however, I have determined that I will indeed have to buy a few books. This is because I have some incomplete (and in print) series that will need to be filled in. For example, I have the first 3 books in the Outlander series. I've read the first. When I finally get around to reading the rest of the series, I'm going to be finishing the WHOLE series, not just the first 3. So I'll need to purchase the other books.

So there's an update for you! I'm still rereading Harry Potter, so there's nothing new at the moment. Next week I'll have finished 2 books, so there will be 2 updates. Until then!

7 - Mrs. Dalloway

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Annotated edition, Harcourt, 2005
225 pages
Date Completed: September 22, 2009

So this is the 28th book I've read this year! So much about this novel absolutely captivated me.

Let's start with the narrative. Although it had a penchant for becoming confusing at first, this version of stream-of-consciousness was by far the most intriguing I've ever encountered. Woolf seamlessly blends the thoughts of various characters throughout the narrative, so that the reader is presented with the thoughts of a variety of characters. We see the action occurring through the eyes of anyone: from Mrs. Dalloway herself to a random woman walking down a London sidewalk. One of my favorite instances of this occurs at the beginning of the novel when Mrs. Dalloway is walking through London. I had to basically approach the narrative in a whole new way because I'd never been exposed to anything written this way.

I fell in love with Mrs. Dalloway's character right from the start, when she decisively declares that she'll "buy the flowers herself." She's not passive; rather, it seems that she has verve and conviction without being a radical. It says a lot for her character.

I like the fact that Mrs. Dalloway is middle-aged (52, I think). According to my professor, it was revolutionary that a novel be told from the perspective of a woman this old, because most stories written in the 1920s from the point of view of a woman focused upon a young woman who was beautiful and would eventually end up with a husband. Mrs. Dalloway, on the other hand, has already grown up: she's no longer beautiful, she's married and is thus no longer "on the market," she's no longer desirable, and this novel is a beautiful depiction of what a typical day is like for her.

Nothing happens. She buys flowers, visits a friend, reminisces, and throws a party.

Throughout the novel, time continues to intrude. Time is unalterable, and it imposes constantly, so there's this kind of eerie undertone of mortality running throughout. Big Ben chiming over and over. Keeping the characters in check.

Attempting to find order in this chaos

I would just like to make it known that I have still been reading! It's just that I'm taking 19 credits of advanced classes this term and thus far have had no time to blog about individual books (or blog at all, really).

The books I've read thus far are:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald (8/31/09)
Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson (9/9/09)
The Tale of King Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory (9/13/09)

I've also reread Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, but since they're rereads, they won't get individual blog posts. Whenever I get a free five minutes, I eagerly snatch at the opportunity to work on Prisoner of Azkaban. Right now, a light dose of Harry Potter is all I can handle when compared to reading Emerson, Malory, literary criticism, gender criticism, Woolf, and botany things.

As I've already had 2 stress-related ice cream emergencies this term, I can't say when I'll be able to return and do full-length blogs. Most of my time is allocated between classes, preparing for classes, stressing about classes, and friends/boyfriend. Probably on a weekend when I'm not in Vermont or at home I'll have time. But I haven't abandoned the blog, nor have I accumulated or purchased any more books. I shall return as soon as possible. In the meantime, all I can do is apologize for the current state of disarray that is Project Bibliophile.

6 - Nature

Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Penguin, 1981
668 pages (43)
Date Completed: September 9, 2009

I'm kind of notorious for a loathing of Emerson. However, the more I read by him, the more I come to a sense of tolerance toward him. Nature is one of the essays that converted me.

There are many ideas he presents throughout the essay that I really liked:

1. Nature should be prized: you should go out into the world and experience the world. It's impossible to experience the world through books alone.

2. Don't closet yourself in a library reading about people in the past and studying their work. Go forth into the world and create your own ideas. Allow some ideas to inspire you, but question everything. Don't just read for the sake of adopting someone else's ideas.

3. The individual is godlike.

4. There is potential in the future. We rely on the thoughts and ideas of the past (see #2), but we should instead be making our own thoughts and ideas. We've become too bound to our past.

5. Nature is everything outside yourself. Remain open-minded about those things that aren't you.

6. Being obsessed with material commodities corrupts you and keeps you away from the spiritual.

7. There is a great sense of individuality in the essay. You can't just get together in a group and say "ok, let's go transcend!" Transcendentalism is an individual quest.

8. It relates a lot to Plato's allegory of the cave.

9. You have to survive and live in the world, but transcend and break away sometimes. Living in the world doesn't mean you're of that world.


Some aspects of Nature seem pretty idealistic, and there's always the annoying fact that Emerson's works are basically compilations of quotes, but I can buy some of what he says.

5 - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Date completed: August 31, 2009

Places I read it: the theatre, the campus center

I had downloaded this precious story onto my iPod (for free!) awhile ago, and it's the first iPod book I completed! So that's cool. I really like that older books are available on iTunes for free...I guess their copyrights are expired or something? But basically all of the older classics are available. Although I will never make the switch from real books to electronic books, it was cool to dabble in electronics for awhile.

So The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a little gem! I was really impressed with it!

Ok. I started this post in August and it's now November, so obviously I won't have time to finish it anytime soon. So here is what I started. From what I remember, this was an insightful story that toyed with norms for both age and gender. Hopefully I'll get around to elaborating at some point.

Preliminary school year plans!

On the 30th of August, I'll be shipping out and heading back to school for my senior year. I don't want to turn this project into a rigid regimen or anything (which would probably take the fun out of it), but at the same time, I need some sort of structure in order to get myself out of this mess of unread books.

So after some quick deliberating, I came up with a tentative goal :

I'm going to read at least one book per week throughout the school year.

Since I start quivering in my boots at the thought of reading so much during a time overflowing with homework, I also added a few clauses (let's call them pansy clauses):

1. This rule does not apply to midterm week or finals week and/or the week preceding finals week.
2. It is okay to miss a week or two because things come up.
3. I am not to beat myself up if I miss a week.

Accomplishing this goal will require me to read about 17-20 books between now and December 31 (yay!), and I'm itching to choose which books to bring to school with me. I just have to make myself pick books I can actually read in about 7 hours, which is probably all I'll have per week! Thaaat should be interesting.

I'm having a hard time reading at the moment. I feel like an utter failure. The books I have left at Jon's are all either too long to read at the moment (the likes of Anna Karenina and Atlas Shrugged) or they require too much thought to be able to get through them quickly. Since today is my last day of work, and tomorrow is Jon's, we're about to start 10ish days of relaxing and fun and road trips, not to mention that his 21st birthday is Wednesday. Needless to say, I will not be having a lot of reading time until I get to school.

The book I really have been wanting to read is The Jane Austen Book Club, but when I bought it (for $1!) I wanted to wait to read it until I'd read all of Austen's novels. Well...after a summer of almost solely Austen, I'm pretty sick of her (don't shoot me!), so I'm saving her remaining novels until later. But I still want to read a fluffy, comfortable, feel-good book about her books! Maybe I'll just read it anyway. Who knows.

Also, Le Morte is being chipped away at. The Slaugherhouse and Emma posts will be updated. That is all.

4 - Slaughterhouse-Five

Date Completed: August 15, 2009

Places Read: the living room, Jonny's room

I was supposed to read this for class sophomore year. I read about half to 3/4 of it before I stopped. So last night I picked it up after dinner, read 180 pages, and read the remaining 30ish this morning when I got up. :)

There are SO many things I love about this book. I'll edit this post later with details, commentary, analysis, etc. I just wanted to mark down that I did finish it, in basically one night.

3 - Emma

Date completed: August 13, 2009

Places I read it: my perfect bench at BCCC, my room in Doylestown, all over the house in Doylestown, in the car on the way to Philadelphia

Jane Austen wrote Emma knowing that no one would really like her; however, I actually do like the character of Emma. She is sometimes very blind and naive, but she is always willing to self-reflect and is always ashamed by the more horrible things she does. I enjoyed watching her grow into a more experienced individual.

Her union with Mr. Knightley is one of those Austen couples that a lot of people seem to object to. I thought it was much more plausible than Marianne's marriage to Colonel Brandon in S&S though-- despite Emma's constant protestations that she wouldn't ever marry, I knew from the beginning that she'd end up with Knightley, merely because he is literally the only person in the novel who ever sees anything imperfect about Emma. He alone is willing to criticize her behaviors (to her face) and to see some sort of fault in her. Well, I mean, Mrs. Elton is often critical too, but her motivation is spite. Mr. Knightley makes Emma a better person, and I really grew to love him toward the end of the book.

I thought Emma's situation in life was really interesting, especially for an Austen novel. Normally, Austen writes about poor girls, often with siblings, who are desperately trying to get married. Emma doesn't need that; she's financially secure by herself. She makes declarations all throughout the novel about being unwilling to marry, and even believes that love cannot touch her. So this novel presented a really unique plot-- instead of the women whose main purpose is to marry, Emma is quite independent already.

The characters of Mrs. Elton and Harriet Smith really bothered me. Mrs. Elton is obviously written to be really annoying, and Harriet is only annoying because Emma made her that way. But she (H) is so impressionable! She denies a proposal from the man she loves merely because Emma believes him to be inferior! Yeah, she wants to impress Emma. Yeah, she's really happy that Emma is paying attention to her. I know she's supposed to be really simple and moldable. It just bugged me.

So this novel didn't really pull me in until I was about halfway through...it dragged at times...but the end redeemed itself for me, I guess. Infallible Emma becomes more human, succumbs to love, is more self-aware, and yet remains caring and happy. It all ends too perfectly, of course (what was with the chicken robberies on the last page?! I find it hard to believe that Mr. Woodhouse would suddenly change his mind about the marriage just because of that! I don't care how ornery and silly he is!), but what else is there to expect from an Austen novel? I just really liked her character constructions in this one. So, so good.

The curse of coupons

I have an email address that I give out to stores when I purchase things online; I also use it when I join a website or fill out a form for a store member card. It's a bit like an email address that generates purely junk. It has become the bane of my existence.

If one were to peer into the inbox for this email address at exactly this moment (43 unread messages), one would find the following:

MARIO BADESCU wants me to try new skin products!
GAP.COM wishes to inform me that 1969 Premium Jeans have been introduced!
BORDERS REWARDS has generously awarded me a 40% off coupon!
VICTORIA'S SECRET has just received a whole new shipment of sweaters!
AERIE bras are all 30% off, whoopee! (ahem)
URBAN OUTFITTERS really, really wants the honor of decorating my apartment!
JCREW has added new items to its final sale!
AMAZON.COM has --shocker-- new bestsellers in fiction!
OLD NAVY is offering deals for $5, $10, and $15!
AMERICAN EAGLE wants me to buy something ASAP so I can get $10 cash back!
BARNES AND NOBLE realized that my life would be incomplete without a 15% coupon (and that's ON TOP of my regular member discount)!

Are you getting the picture?

It's particularly difficult for a recovering book-buyingaholic to receive these emails from Borders, B&N, and Amazon without drooling a bit and beginning to froth at the mouth. 40% off?! How can I let it go to waste?? A month ago I would have been perusing the websites for bargain books that just "needed" to be included in my future library, regardless of whether I planned on actually reading these books anytime soon.

This is going to be a long, hard road, my friends.

Why, you ask, don't I just unsubscribe to all of these emails? Well, for starters, sometimes I really do want that Badescu Enzyme Cleansing Gel. Sometimes I am actually in need of a 30% off bra. In reference to unsubscribing to the book emails...I just can't do it. It's comforting to know that while I am shunning bookstores, they haven't forgotten me.

Luckily, I do get to put that 40% off Borders coupon to good use tomorrow. I've been waiting for such a coupon to appear, because I'm sorely in need of a GRE prep book, and am unwilling to purchase one full-price. I feel bad enough as it is buying the book, so I feel like I should at least purchase it for 60% of what it's worth. Textbooks don't even count toward my nonbookbuying vow, yet I still feel guilty. (Do you like all the new words I'm coming up with today?)

On another note, August 10th marked one month of me not buying books! I'm really happy with how I'm doing so far. Yeah, I caved and bought a book for my lunch break at News Channel 9, but I also returned it ASAP and mentally flogged myself, haha. I've only read 3 books in a month, but like I said...I've been really busy. There's suddenly a lot more to do when you're living with your boyfriend. :-)

I have about 30 pages left of Emma. I'm taking a lunch break today and will finish it then, so hopefully when I get back to work afterward I'll have time for another update. If not, count on one tomorrow (my day off)!

Still kicking

I have many excuses for why I have not yet finished Emma.

1. Trips to Vermont
2. Working daily
3. Using my spare time for other things, i.e. running/writing/washing the car/going to the movies/cooking
4. I've been knitting the ginormous and amazing baby blanket (beautiful basketweave squares of yellow, blue, and green)
5. I have a life
6. I don't often take lunch breaks at work anymore

I know this is disappointing! But I thought I'd update with a bit of what will be coming up after Austen.

Provided that nothing else occurs in the form of alien invasions, meteor strikes, hurricanes, nuclear war, etc, I'll be finishing Emma at my usual lightning speed. Then comes... TEXTBOOKS!!!

Yes, you read that correctly. Yes, there were exclamation points and capitalization involved. That's because these textbooks aren't just any boring old textbooks. Oh no. These are multiple versions of Malory's Le Morte Darthur!!!



I read a lot of the Norton Critical edition of Le Morte during my freshman year for a different class. However, this fall, I'm taking a class solely devoted to my beloved Sir Thomas Malory, and that involves new versions of Le Morte (Oxford and Signet) and a looooot of reading. The Oxford is written in Middle English (as in, nothing is spelled correctly or consistently and there are all sorts of weird phrases), while the Signet is in modern English. As soon as I get a notebook (to jot down family trees, character explanations--there are TOO MANY KNIGHTS to keep track of, and other thoughts as I read) and finish Emma, I'll be a scholar once again. I can't wait to dive back into Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tristan and Iseult, Merlin, etc.

Once I go back to school, I'll be doing something I've been eagerly anticipating ALL summer-- rereading the Harry Potter series!!! I like reading easier things during the school year, since the books I read for class are usually pretty difficult. So while I couldn't justify a complete series rereading this summer, it'll be happening come September 7th.

And you'll be hearing from me again in a few days when I finish Emma.

An Update

So the official count of books to read is...*drum roll*...almost exactly 300!!! It might be a few more or less than that, but it's the most precise count I can get at the moment. Luckily awhile ago I started a computerized library catalog for my books in Microsoft Excel, complete with a color-coding system. I haven't finished it completely, but most of it is done. First, I cataloged my books using the following columns: author's last name, author's first/middle name(s), book title, publication date, category, subcategory 1, subcategory 2, subcategory 3. The final column lists where/when I came into possession of the book, if I remember (what store and in what city, who I was with, what other books I got there, etc. Yes, I'm strange). Then, I color-coded each book:

Green = books I read
Pink = books I haven't read
Purple = books I read part of (for instance, I had to read a few short stories from James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son for a class this winter, but I didn't read the entire book. So it's classified as purple.)
Yellow = books that "don't count" toward the read/unread lists (these are mostly textbooks and reference books)

This system is really useful to me, because I can see at a glance exactly where each book stands. I can also sort the books into genre and sub-genre with a few clicks of the mouse, so that's helpful too. I just have to remember to keep updating the colors as I finish books.

I probably sound like a crazy person, but books are one of my major hobbies, and I LOVE organizing things, so making my library electronic was honestly really fun for me. Knowing that I have this resource at my disposal quiets my brain, somehow. It's like iTunes. I have to have my iTunes library organized perfectly all the time-- I'm talking title/artist/album all typed correctly and with capital letters (because sometimes when I download them they turn up crazy-looking), and everything has to have album artwork and a genre. Otherwise I feel like it's a big mess.

When did I get so OCD?!

So in other news...last week while I was interning at ABC, I realized that--GASP--I had forgotten to bring a book to read during my lunch break! Yes, I succumbed and purchased a book to read during lunch. Yes, I felt so guilty afterward that I subsequently returned the book in shame and mortification. So I don't know if that counts as breaking my vow not to buy books, but I'm definitely learning to quell my book-purchasing tendencies. It's a lot easier this summer because I'm not actually making any money (not even from babysitting, since I'm living in PA), and it's hard for me to even fill up my gas tank (and that's pathetic because I get freaking 40 mpg and my car only holds 11 gallons), so it's not like I have money for extra stuff right now anyway, haha. Which is good. I've got to save up for next year and independence.

I have, however, acquired a few books for free. I'm currently doing a second internship at a tutoring center at a college in Pennsylvania, and every single classroom building has all these bookshelves full of free books. I can't help but take advantage of this, AND I've put a few of my books on the shelves for others to take, so it's more acceptable. Yesterday I found a brand new hardcover copy of David Sedaris's Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, along with Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint, a book by my darling John Fowles, The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon (also brand new, and the big version, not the mass market paperback), a Shakespeare biography, and a Norton reader. In exchange, I put a few books on the shelf that I'll never ever read but somehow acquired: The Firm by John Grisham, a few things by James Patterson, Prague by Arthur Phillips, etc.

So that's where I am now. I'm currently halfway through Jane Austen's Emma, which is pretty good considering that I only read for an hour per day (my lunch break) Monday-Thursday, and I just started it Monday. I should have more time to read it Friday, since that's my day off. For now, evenings are dedicated to snuggling with Jon and the puppies, watching Everybody Loves Raymond, and knitting a baby blanket for Angela (and I have quite a few more squares to finish!).

2 - Handle With Care

Date Completed: July 20, 2009

Places I read it: Tompkins Hall, BCCC, my room in Fulton, my room in Doylestown

So...Jodi Picoult. I have mixed feelings about Jodi. For some reason, I'm always reluctant to read her books. On the other hand, once I read them, I'm almost always glad I did. The stories are generally pretty enthralling and easy to get into, so once I get done procrastinating, Picoult books only take a day to finish. Jon's mom is really into Jodi, so this always happens when a new one comes out and she gives it to me to borrow.

This one was really intense, maybe more so than anything else I've read by Picoult. One of the main characters, Charlotte, sacrifices absolutely everything for her daughter: her marriage, her other daughter, her dignity, her "reputation" (and by that, I mean her actions cause people nationwide to point fingers at her and criticize her), and at times, her self-respect. I definitely give her credit for that. It made me think a lot about what I'd do in that situation. I'm not a mother, so obviously I can't relate TOO much, but holy crap. I don't know if I could do it.

So besides the stupid Jodi cliches (a child with an incurable disease, the inevitable angsty lawyer, courtroom scenes, and even the abrupt ending shrouded in death), this was an enjoyable read. It reminded me a lot of My Sister's Keeper, but like I said, I didn't really expect this book to be a masterpiece, so it's ok. It was great entertainment for an evening, and the relationships between characters kept me thinking, that's for sure.

1 - Sense and Sensibility

I've had this book for about 3 years...it was assigned reading for one of my freshman classes in college. Back then, I definitely didn't read it as well as I could have, so I decided to really spend some time on it this summer while I have a lot of time.

Date completed: July 14, 2009

Places I read it: Columbia Hall, my house, Panera Breads in Syracuse (NY) and Montgomeryville (PA), a Wegmans parking lot

Jane Austen has really charmed me as of late. I love her narration-- the narrators in her novels, especially Sense and Sensibility, are almost separate characters, full of witticisms and snide observations that show that Austen herself was able to poke fun at the conventions of her society.

Following Elinor and Marianne's stories was especially powerful for me because I can relate to both of them: I have known heartbreak the way Marianne has, but I have also known what it's like to stifle it and act normal, like Elinor.

I thought the ending could have been developed a little more, though. The part when Edward isn't actually married is a great plot twist, but Marianne and Colonel Brandon? Really? I mean, I grew to love Colonel Brandon, but I'm not entirely convinced that Marianne would marry him. Toward the end of the novel, Austen devotes a lot of time to Edward and Elinor, but sums up Marianne and Colonel Brandon's engagement in what seems like just a paragraph or two, when really, their part of the story deserves an equal amount of attention. The reader already knew how much Elinor loved Edward. Why use so much page space talking about them instead of elaborating on how Marianne finally grew to fall for Brandon?

The ending definitely didn't spoil the book for me; it just left me with a lot of questions. Overall, the book was a great read. I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice more, but Sense and Sensibility is just as worthy of attention.

Overture

As an English major and lifelong bibliophile, I have amassed quite the collection of books in my 21 years of life. This has proven to be a bit of a problem...not because of the sheer number of books (about 800), but rather because of the amount of those books I haven't read yet (exact count pending, but probably 150-200).

Whether I've purchased the books myself (and I'll admit, there's no place I like to shop at more than a bookstore) or received them as gifts, eventually I just got overwhelmed and never managed to catch up. Therefore, I've decided that I can't put it off any longer. I need to read these books.

That's right, folks. I'm not going to buy a single book until I've read every last book I already own. It might take years, but I'm willing to go through with this. This blog will be where I record the books I finish/the progress I've made/my woes and sufferings/my book-buying withdrawal/anything else I feel is necessary. Here goes!