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Category: Books & Literature
Interesting Article from 2015 No. 6: “Junot Diaz’s Syllabi for his MIT Writing Classes”
Interesting Article from 2015 No. 5: “What it’s like to be a deaf novelist”
And while writing in a language that works against me can sometimes seem a less-than-ideal occupation, what is the job of a writer if not to reinvent language, or at least to create the space and tools for the silenced?
Interesting Article from 2015 No. 2: “‘Nabakov in America’ looks at how U.S. shaped novelist”
I found this book review very interesting, as I studied with Robert Roper at JHU and first read Nabakov’s Pnin when I was there. I will have to check out the book soon!
Books I’m Currently Studying/Reading/Referencing
Ten Books That Have Stayed With Me. What’s on your list?
I recently received a Facebook chain to do this list.
Here goes. In no particular order…
1) So Far from the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins
2) Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
3) The Stranger by Albert Camus
4) No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court by Edward Humes
5) Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World by Leah Hager Cohen
6) The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
7) The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle
8) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
9) The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
10) Drown by Junot Diaz
It was great remembering all of these books that have a special place in my heart for one reason or another. Many of the books I read in high school, some when I was younger, and some (particularly the non-fiction) I explored on my own. I read The Divine Comedy in a fantastic course I took at Hopkins (I’m now partial to the Durling translation, and who can resist the cool covers?) In doing this exercise, I connected with my favorite English teacher from high school on Facebook and The Bluest Eye made both of our lists. It just goes to show how much literature can bring people together.
So my question is, What’s on your list?
NPR: Speaking Of Foster Care In ‘The Language Of Flowers’
I’ve been eying this book for quite some time, and finally had time to read it. Got through it in a week. What an engaging work of fiction that sheds light on a hidden population—the more than 400,000 children in foster care and the more than 30,000 who age out of the system each year without the support they need to become successful adults. Here’s an NPR piece on Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s debut novel ‘The Language of Flowers.’ We can also look forward to a movie.
Coming Soon: My Thoughts on Italo Calvino, or, How I Learned to Love Postmodernism
My thoughts on ‘If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller,“ a beautiful, engaging mediation on literature itself and the act of reading;
‘If on a Summer’s Night a Moviegoer’? Works that are not translatable into film;
How Italian literature played a role in my undergraduate career
“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” ~ Toni Morrison
“Read all of somebody.” ~ Elizabeth Bishop
My “somebody” became Toni Morrison. Still working on it, but still think it is important for every writer—and every reader—to find his or her own “somebody” and read “all of” their work. It can be a great adventure.
