Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Journey to the Past

So now that I'm an official degree holding member of the Literature Legion I've been looking back on the number of books that I've "read" through my education and I find that I can barely remember who wrote what and my general emotional reaction to the work. Site content or or characters or governing metaphor? Forget it.

So I have these precious 9 months (well 8 now really) being totally and completely assignment free so I've decided to use this time to revisit the books that I've read, or "read", or should have read to equip myself for whats coming and what I'll be expected to know in grad school. I'm hoping I'll be able to see them with new eyes since I'm a bit older and have a little bit more of an education. Who knows, I may even like them this time around.

The list I've put together so far

Tom Sawyer
Huck Finn
The Lord of the Flies
Catcher in the Rye
The Great Gatsby
The Grapes of Wrath
Invisible Man
Things Fall Apart
A Tale of Two Cities
Great Expectations
To Kill a Mocking Bird
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The Red Badge of Courage
The Scarlet Letter
The Sound and the Fury
The Return of the Native
Ivanhoe
Of Mice and Men
Cry, the Beloved Country
1984
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Les Misarables

I know there are a good number of ones not mentioned so if you have other suggestions or memories of high school English Class lemme know, or if you've read one of these books and it really is a horrific downer warn me. I'm off to Borders.... *da-ta da-ta da-ta*

3 comments:

Liz the Poet said...

I did a similar list about a year ago, and it is HUGE. I don't know if I'll ever read them all again.

I'll throw out a few to add some ladies to your list, you know, for all the "women's studies" stuff you have to do:

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Anthing by Toni Morrison (she's way popular in grad. school)
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

Well, I could go on (and on and on). But I'll stop.

Ms. Liz said...

I really loved the Handmaid's Tale. I've reread it like 3 times since high school and love and remember it well. Middlemarch! How could I have forgotten? And I was thinking about reading "Their Eyes were Watching God" again. I liked that one I remember but I just remember "kissing cousins" and large amounts of long hair.

Tracy said...

Borders? Aaarrgghh, Liz... Amazon.com!!! You'd save something like $300 year (at least that's what they say about the average person... of which you're not in the least) :)