October Reads
This month has been great for reading. So many fantastic book releases, plus I got the Norton Shakespeare for my birthday! so here goes!
1. The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 1-This is so good. There have been some great take downs of the british bikini cover in the Guardian and Lithub worth reading, but otherwise it is such a great and fun read. Some of the letters involve deep analysis, but mostly Plath talks about dates and getting a B in English (I feel so much better now). The review in the Guardian pissed me off so much (she isn't a great letter writer etc) but how many 20 year old college students expect their letters to Mom to be anthologized?). Get it, though maybe buy the kindle. The hardcover is beautiful but way too big to carry around.
2. Adrianna Mather's sequel to How to Hang a Witch is excellent. Not as good as the first, put how could it be without a character called "The Crow Woman", really? The whole book is titanic themed, which put me off in the beginning, but it really picks up. Expect some ghosty romance.
3. Moorea Seal's new home book is so fun! It's much less traditional decor book and more about finding yourself and making a home, but I expected nothing less from Seal, who have us the 52 list's project. If you like home decor, add this to your collection.
4. John Green's Turtles All The Way Down is SO GOOD. It is a a super great depiction of anxiety and OCD and has lots of corny good quotes. I think it might be his best, though I do love Looking for Alaska.
5. Still working my way through Moby Dick, but I get why it's like everybody's favorite book. So much fun.
6. Also starting Ulysses for a class I am taking at the Rosenbach and OH BOY people were not exaggerating. Stay tuned, as I have only gotten through about 10 pages so far!
7. Made it to the final volume in the Harkness trilogy and I am feeling a whole lot better about the series. I got so pissed off at the first book, but it's hooked me. It is so many pages though, so it has just taken a while to push through.
8. Nikki Giovanni's new book. This might not fully count, since I read it for work, but it's a much more retrospective memoir type volume from Giovanni. Poems and essays about her abusive childhood, college, time at Virginia Tech, and Maya Angelou are interspersed and it is really pretty great though the title could be better (A Good Cry just feels like an old lady book. Just me?)
9. I just picked up the Omni Americans by Albert Murray (why is this out of print) and I am loving it, especially his essay on Baldwin's conception of the protest novel. I had no idea that was in there, but it's fascinating for someone who has been reading/thinking about those Wright/Baldwin debates for years.
10. We Were Eight Years in Power by Coates. A lot of this won't be knew if you have been following Coates in the atlantic for very long, but having a bound copy of his essays is nice and the little introspective essays are a wonderful insight into his mind (and how fame was never something he wanted or enjoyed).
11. I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez is a YA novel about an immigrant girl growing up in Chicago. Her sister was recently tragically killed and she feels pressure to live up to her sister, though she wants different things for herself (to be a writer, to leave for college, etc). It is a wonderful depiction of growing up in a city, immigration, and dealing with Depression. This is probably my favorite book from this month.