It’s the 4th week of Fall term and you know what that means – a lovingly belated welcome back from the Miscellany! No doubt you will soon be entirely consumed by the Lolitas, Hamlets, and Pride and Prejudices assigned to you, so this week we asked you to cast your mind back to simpler times, when reading was stress-free and annotation was optional. Here’s what our English majors read this summer, accompanied by their tweet-sized reviews in 140 characters.
Lizzy Lynn:
Rabbit, Run. Rabbit is an a**hole. & a man-child. Updike’s writing polished. Scene of baby June’s death v powerful. #suburbanangst #misogyny
Alex Mackiel:
Jung’s “Psychology and Religion: West and East” harmonizes a Self from the Gnostic, Christian, and alchemical, ideas of the West and the universal self of the East.
Kate Johnson on Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy, which consists of Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance:
Southern Reach Trilogy=compelling horror sci-fi mystery: Enter Area X. Trust no one, including yourself. You’ll return a different person.
Nathaniel Chew on A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman:
Cringey standup. Dov’s a major ass. Is this going anywhere? Wait, I’m crying a lot, help #ireaditforthemanbookercred #notactuallyabouthorses
Jenan Jacobson on An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir:
Seemingly generic YA fantasy novel turns out to be not so generic. Oppressed intellect v. martial dictatorship #dystopiadoneright #spiesFTW
Madison Chambers:
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War is ridiculously funny and informative. FYI chicken guns are real and in use
Metamorphosis– Somehow weirder than I expected a book about a man turning into a bug was going to be
Want to be the kind of person who spends a beautiful day sobbing into their dog’s fur? Now you can with Marley and Me!
Brynne Diggins:
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A compelling narrative of one woman’s experience with race, class, immigration, and love. Made me tear up on the Northfield Lines bus.
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Confusing, funny, a little heartbreaking, not enough female characters. Get ready to think all about religion and family in a short read.
For the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Reads like a novel from your youth but with grown up topics. Grandmothers are great characters. Charming, haunting, and magical all at once.
Julian Hast:
Dr Seuss’s critique of postmodern ethics in his magnum opus “Go Dog Go” is without a doubt the worst cookbook I’ve read in years (Marx 553).
Anne Hackman on Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood:
There are summer days that are so hot you just want to lie on your bed and hate everything – and this book is the perfect accompaniment!
Jennifer Chan:
Zadie Smith’s White Teeth is mostly not about dental hygiene. Instead, it has doomed mice, a weird love triangle, and war vets. I liked it!
Ali Lorenz on John Steinbeck’s East of Eden:
Staggering prose and an author learns, once again, that the most effective tool for a therapeutic family history vent is…the Bible!
Happy reading everyone; may your papers be as illuminating as your tweets!