booktastic

I’ve posted this once before on one of my previous blogs… but it’s worth posting again. Some time back I was in the process of applying to a Graduate school’s English program, and I noticed that they had a recommended list of reading you were supposed to have completed before enrolling in the undergraduate English program (i.e. in High School.) As an exercise, why not check and see if you are ready to enroll in a undergraduate level English course by crossing off the materials below that you’ve already read? (Um. I’m apparently almost ready.)

Just to be all open and above-board, I’ll mark the ones I’ve already read with a smiley face.

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READING LIST: HIGH SCHOOL

Fiction

Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre

Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights

Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass

Cather, Willa. My Antonia or Death Comes to the Archbishop (I read “O Pioneers!” which evidently wasn’t important enough for the list)

Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans

Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe

Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. Some Sherlock Holmes stories

Eliot, George. Silas Marner (again, I missed out: I read “Middlemarch” instead)

Fitzgerald, F. Scott The Great Gatsby

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies (I refuse to ever read this book)

Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun

Harte, Bret. “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” “Tennessee’s Partner”

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter, “The Minister’s Black Veil”

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms (I read “A Moveable Feast” instead)

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World

Irving, Washington. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “Rip Van Winkle”

London, Jack. The Call of the Wild

Maugham, Somerset. Of Human Bondage

Melville, Herman. Billy Budd, Benito Cereno

Orwell, George. Animal Farm

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Purloined Letter,” “The Cask of Amontillado”

Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye

Scott, Sir Walter. A novel (Waverly, Rob Roy), Ivanhoe

Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men or The Pearl

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island, Kidnapped or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Twain, Mark. Tom Sawyer or The Prince and the Pauper

Wells, H.G. War of the Worlds or The Time Machine

Wright, Richard. Black Boy

Poetry

Arnold, Matthew. “DoverBeach”

Browning, Robert. “My Last Duchess”

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

de la Mare, Walter. “The Listeners”

Dickinson, Emily. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” “I Like to See It Lap the Miles”

FitzGerald, Edward. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Frost, Robert. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “Mending Wall,” “The Death of the Hired Man,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Birches”

Gray, Thomas. “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”

Housman, A.E. “To an Athlete Dying Young,” “When I Was One and Twenty”

Hunt, Leigh. “Abou Ben Adhem”

Keats, John. “Eve of St. Agnes,” “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” “To Autumn”

Kipling, Rudyard. “A Ballad of East and West,” “Mandalay”

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. “The Village Blacksmith,” “Paul Revere’s Ride,” The Song of Hiawatha

Marvell, Andrew. “To His Coy Mistress”

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Raven,” “The Bells,” “Annabel Lee,” “To Helen”

Sandburg, Carl. “Chicago,” “Grass”

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ozymandias”

Tennyson, Alfred. “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” “Crossing the Bar”

Whitman, Walt. “I Hear America Singing,” “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”

Wordsworth, William. “My Heart Leaps Up,” “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

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Well, that’s the list. I’m contemplating now whether I should embarrass myself by showing how well I scored on the list of books you’re supposed to have read before enrolling in a graduate level course. — Mrs. Hall

Know what doesn’t make sense to me? The fact that the Chicago public library doesn’t allow you to renew your books when they’re overdue. Of all the times that a person would need to renew books, it seems like that’s a rather important one!

I am also annoyed with their policy of not accepting credit cards. I mean, the library in SPRINGFIELD MISSOURI accepts credit cards - and Chicago doesn’t?

I don’t know why I’m ragging on the ChiPubLib today, except that I’m annoyed that my books are a further day overdue today and I have no way of renewing them (and I won’t have an opportunity of returning them until tomorrow). I must owe like five bucks by now.

Well, it’s the last day of the crappy year that was 2008. I don’t know about you, but I’m rather excited to put it behind me and see what the new year brings.

There’s a possibility that I may be going to graduate school this coming year. I’ve been accepted by a school in my home state; it comes down to a question of whether we want to move back to my home state or not. I’d be going to grad school for an M.A. in English, which has been one of my goals for a long, long time; I seemed to fare well in an academic environment, unlike a business/data entry environment (and here’s a place for me to share an appropriate quote: “Once humans spent most of their days doing useful things with their hands, and I realized that we were designed to get a deep satisfaction from this. As Hughes put it, ‘You have the feeling people were supposed to do this kind of work, rather than data entry, which is amazingly horrible.’” - Emily Yoffe).

So I feel somewhat inclined to do that, because I think it would suit me as a profession better than being an office flunky. Of course, I’ve been worrying that maybe it would be better for me to do something like an M.A. in Library Science - because people with that degree are surprisingly well paid.  It wouldn’t be SO BAD to actually get trained for a position where I would be making a decent salary for once in my life, would it? (Except that I think that I’m just tempermentally more suited to teaching than to something like library science which - at its heart - is mostly clerical, data-entry type stuff. *sigh*)

Well, it’s something to contemplate in this 2009. Well, not really, since I’ve been accepted to the English program and not the Library Science program. And money’s not everything, after all - but everything costs money, which always unecessarily complicates life. — Mrs. Hall

At that book sale last week, I happened to pick up a copy of a brand new children’s picture book called Ocean Wide, Ocean Deep, by Susan Lendroth, published August of this year by Tricycle Press.

Now, I didn’t buy it for myself, even though I have a “thing” for well-made children’s books (my minor at university actually focused on children’s literature. When my fellow students were struggling with Henry James, I was reading Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.) I picked it up for a baby I know.

I chose this book over several other picture books because this one had very nice illustrations and a sweet story. It’s about a girl, in the olden days, waiting for her Dad to get back from the sea.

Pretty simple story, right? Well, it’s a picture book for small children. It’s SUPPOSED to have a simple story. When your book is less than twenty pages long and has fewer words than this blog post, you have to be pretty concise in your story structure: You announce the problem, deal with the problem, and at the end of the book, resolve the problem. The problem is announced - girl’s dad is going away to sea. Deal with the problem: girl misses her dad. Resolve the problem: Dad comes home. Everybody’s happy.

Unfortunately, although I really like this book, I haven’t got a lot to say about it… because it’s less than twenty pages long and has fewer words than this blog posting. But let me reitterate: sweet story, BEAUTIFUL illustrations. If the book has one flaw, it’s that some of the vocabulary used in it is a bit advanced for the “picture book” age group… but I suppose that would be a good opportunity for vocab building, too, so I can’t even really complain about that.

So, to sum up - if you need a pretty, sweet, new picture book for a young lady you know this Christmas: pick up Ocean Wide, Ocean Deep. Definitely a keeper. (Although I’m not keeping mine, darn it. Lucky baby!) — Mrs. Hall

I had a stroke of book-related good luck day before yesterday. On my way down the hallway to my office, I happened to notice signs up in the hallway indicating that there would be a book sale in the building at some point that day. I’m not entirely clear on my way around the building so I thought no more of it until my office mate pointed out that it was at the conference room right across from our office, and would I like to head over there with her during lunch?

I have no objection to book sales (even though money is tight right now) although I had no idea what sort of books they might be; I have wide-ranging inerests, but I do have my limits.  But regardless I headed over with her at noon and we perused the tables.

Well, this is where it took a turn for the delightful. For one thing, the prices were exceedingly reasonable: if the original cover price were up to $10, the price of the book was $1; if the original cover price up to $20 the book was $2 and so on. For another thing - the tables were covered and overflowing with brand new books. Well, perhaps not brand-new - some were a year or two old - but most were within the first year and a half since publication. And for another thing - there was a pretty decent selection!

Turns out that the book critics at the newspaper (I’m purposefully not saying which Chicago newspaper to avoid being stalked - and because they’ve been in the news for other reasons lately and I don’t want to give them any more trouble) receive any number of free books from publishing companies every year for review purposes - but they feel it’s not in their journalistic integrity to actually keep the books (as it smacks a little of bribery in their opinion; not in mine but that’s neither here nor there) so every year they have this big book sale and donate the money to charity. (Let’s not even discuss whether selling books that are labeled “Not To Be Sold” is better than keeping a book that a publisher sent you to keep. I guess since it goes to charity it’s okay.)

Perhaps the best (and worst) thing about the sale was… this sale isn’t  open to the public, not really. It’s on an upper floor of the building and you can’t just walk in here - you need a special pass to get past the security guys. So it was really only employees who got to pick over the tables.

If only I had more time and a bigger budget! I could have spent hours there - and spent considerably more than the $21 dollars I wound up spending. (And I only had $20 in birthday money on me - I had to borrow that last dollar from my office mate.)

It strikes me suddenly that it may seem like I’m gloating - “I got to go to the super secret book sale and you didn’t!” kind of thing. That was not intended: I simply offer this as an interesting book-related story (and let you know so that if you happen to be in the area - and have a pass to get into a certain Chicago newspaper building - at this time next year, you should totally come to this sale). I also did want to share what it was that I picked up - as you are some of the few people who will appreciate my finds, as they are rather eclectic. I found:

Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon

Genius and Heroin by Michael Largo

Stop Whining and Start Living by Dr. Laura Schlessinger

The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Sandiford

Foyle’s Philavery by Christopher Foyle

Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar … by Thomas Cathcart

Oscar Wilde and a Game Called Murder by Gyles Brandreth

I also picked up a couple other books, but I’m not talking about them because they are going to be finding their ways under my Christmas tree this year. (No, I’m not giving them to myself, in case you were wondering.) — Mrs. Hall

I’ve had Mr. Hall’s copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare open on my lap for the past couple evenings, since the play “Macbeth” is prominent in my current writing project.

But I had it open in my lap this morning because Mr. Hall and I got onto the topic of Shakespeare monologues. Mr. Hall is a professional actor, and occasionally in the course of things has needed a Shakespeare monologue for an audition.

… However, we have yet to actually pick one for him.  He has made do for his entire acting career with a sum total of two memorized monologues, both from plays he performed in college.

This is because the process of picking a monologue is exceedingly tedious.

Think about it. You sit down with a play in hand (probably a play you’re not interested in reading) and have to go through and pick a paragraph of soliloquy to memorize. Sounds easy? Wrong. It has to be from a character that fits your “type”, it has to be words you feel you can convincingly say, it can’t be too long or too short, it has to have a beginning, a middle and an end, it has to have substance, and it can’t be a monologue that the auditioners have heard “too much”. Hence, in Shakespeare, all the stuff you’re probably already familiar with (”To be or not to be” or “Wherefore art thou Romeo?“) is out.

Now you can see why this gets complicated and - to say the least - tedious, and why Mr. Hall and I did not succeed in picking him a Shakespeare monologue this morning.

And don’t say, “Well, why don’t you just watch the movie?” - because, for the most part, I am not a fan of cinematic Shakespeare. (That probably makes me a cinematic lowbrow - but I hold that Shakespeare wrote the plays to be performed on stage, and that’s how they should continue to be performed. Shakespeare on the screen tends to be pretentious and full of nonsense that Shakespeare never intended. Speaking of which, it wouldn’t hurt, all you future directors of America, to actually mount a production that took place IN THE TIME PERIOD IT WAS INTENDED TO TAKE PLACE!!! I’m sick to death of Shakespeare plays done in Mobster times, in Future times, in Cowboy times, or some weird amalgam of the three… but, uh, that’s Mrs. Hall’s little soap box and I’ll climb down now.) And, no, let’s not talk about Kenneth Branagh, either - although I must say I am curious to see what he makes of his next directorial extravaganza, The Mighty Thor…

Anyways, to get back to the subject of Shakespeare monologues… I suppose we shall just have to try again. I suspect that Mr. Hall’s memorized monologue from Sonny Deree’s Life Flashes Before His Eyes wouldn’t really work at an audition for Titus Andronicus.  –Mrs. Hall

As I said, this job gives me an excellent opportunity to catch up on my reading via audiobook. Today, since I’d exhausted what I could find on other free sites, I made use of a resource I recently discovered through the Chicago Public Library website…

Free Media Downloads!

Yes, the Chicago Public Library website allows you to search their site, locate downloadable media (audiobooks, videos, and PDF copies of books) and keep them, for a short time, on your computer. (I don’t know what happens after the 21 days you’re allowed to keep them… Maybe your computer blows up or something.) Actually, some items (randomly, it seems) you are actually allowed to download and copy to disk, which is pretty keen.

I think this is a fairly new program on behalf of the ChiPubLib, and I haven’t heard of any other Libraries doing it. But isn’t it nice? Unfortunately, you have to have a Chicago Public Library card in order to use the system (sorry, out-of-towners).

The first thing I downloaded (when I discovered this service last month while attempting to renew books online) was one of the Patrick Troughton Dr. Who episodes which is available only in audio form because the silly BBC destroyed the video copy of the episode. I was also able to copy this particular download to CD, so I have it to enjoy for all time. (I am very enthusiastic about this program right now.)

Today, since I’ve been needing things to listen to at work, I downloaded the audiobook of Garcia Marquez in 90 Minutes - which was actually about two freakin’ hours long. (Very misleading). Granted, I do know a lot more about the South American modernismo movement in literature than I did before - but come on. It said 90 minutes. — Mrs. Hall

You’ll have to excuse me for not posting yesterday. I had to run errands during my lunchbreak, so I thought I would post when I got home… but, being exhausted by having only about three hours sleep the night before, I found myself lying blearily on the couch for most of the remainder of the evening.

That said, it was a pretty good reading day. On the bus home, I was able to read significantly longer than I have been. This is possibly because I began to get very interested in the book, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice - interested enough that I actually forgot how poorly I was feeling (until I began to feel very poorly indeed, and had to stop).

In addition, I was extremely delighted to discover that Youtube has a few sections from my favorite audiobook of all time: The Screwtape Letters as read by John Cleese. This was especially exciting for me because although I desperately love this recording, I have never owned a copy (only borrowed a library copy) and now it is out-of-print and quite unavailable.

The nice thing about listening to a recording of something you like to read is that sometimes in reading you will pass over things that you can’t ignore when you hear it. Thus it is with The Screwtape Letters.

(In case you’re not familiar with the book, it’s written as a series of letters from a senior devil to a young devil who is in the process of tempting his first soul. It’s funny yet serious - and simultaneously light while being very heavy indeed. It will make you examine your soul in ways you never imagined. It’s also exceedingly British, as the senior devil [Screwtape] sounds for all the world like a stuffy old British civil servant [which I believe was the intention]. One of the ultimate books on religion. If you haven’t read it - you should. I don’t care if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Agnostic or Athiest - you should read this book!) 

I had read the book before, of course, when I listened to the recording - but John Cleese’s reading of it really brought it to life. Certain passages had gone clean over my head when I read it, but were really hammered home when I listened to the recording.

Happily, my job here does not hinder me from having headphones on, so I was able to listen to the “letters” that are available on YouTube. There are only about seven of them, unfortunately, but they are all good. Here is an excellent one; this is letter seven - an excellent treatsie on how “Noble Causes” can actually advance the downfall of the soul. (I would advise you to ignore the little visual display that the video’s author came up with. I would have been entirely content to have John Cleese’s voicevoice and a blank screen.  — Mrs. Hall