As you guys might have guessed since I started Uni, I wasn’t able to read as much as I usually do because I had to read a lot for my modules and for the first time since I have become passionate about reading, I went out of my comfort zone completely and the interesting part is that I have found really interesting texts. I am doing English and American Literature, so the texts I have been studying are in this range. If you want to explore new different books than the usual commercial books, here we have a University style #Bookstoread article. P.S. I have recently bought three books from a bookshop in Canterbury and I will start reading those real soon. I will keep you posted.
Right now, in this time in the term, we are the theme War. That is a good thing because I am quite interested in the period with monarchies in the world and the relationships between those as well as wars. All types of wars: civil wars, world wars, religious wars. Everything! We have also studied Primitivism in literature (I bet it was a hard word to read! I always struggle with that. Primitivism… What the…? Haha) French Revolution, The sublime in literature and Romantic period, Enlightenment and Puritanism. Basically a bunch of weird words that don’t mean absolutely anything to anyone of us, but I can guarantee you that some of them are really interesting. That’s why I am here. To tell you which books are worth reading and which ones are a complete waste of time.
I will start by mentioning: Monkey with Typewriters – This book is basically teaching you how to write. If you are interested in becoming a writer of your interested in just improving your creative writing skills you should definitely read this book. Before I arrived at University I was asking myself if there is any book that is telling you how to write. I found it! It is an easy read and it also teaches you interesting things about writing. I read this book for my Creative Writing course! It is worth it.
Another one of our modules called Romanticism and Critical Theory. For this module,we had to buy two books. One of them has a lot of extracts and poems that are part of English Literature, called The Northern Anthology of English Literature and the other one has papers from different authors that are basically critical theory and it’s called the BIBLE. I am kidding! It’s called The Northern Anthology of Theory and Criticism, but you need to proceed with caution because it is huge. There was one text in particular that I liked called: The Death of the Author by Roland Bathes. It is really interesting because it basically says that in order for the reader to exist, the author must die even if he suffered a lot to produce the book. There are a lot of texts really interesting regarding a series of themes. I read texts about Orientalism, The Sublime, and the French Revolution and the best part of all are that I will study Feminism in literature.
Another book that I really enjoyed reading for one of my modules is Noa Noa by Paul Gauguin. In our module about Primitivism, this text was one of our primary text because it shows how a normal, culturized person goes back to its basic human roots. Basically how Paul Gauguin transformed into a savage.
I also liked a series of short stories that I encourage you to read. It takes such short time to read them and they are really good.
- Raymond Carver, ‘Cathedral’
- Brothers Grimm, ‘Cinderella’ – the original creepy story, but it is quite good
- Stephan King, ‘On Writing’ – awesome essay about the DOs and DON’Ts in writing
- Sophocles, ‘Oepidius the King’
- Ernest Hemingway, ‘Hills like White Elephants
I have a lot more to tell you and I will keep you post it with my awesome university reading, but I want you to get on with some of these and tell me what you think about it 🙂 Guys, believe me, if you will like the texts in this article I will have a lot more to present to you in a short period of time. I will also try to read other books, besides the ones I have to read for the modules and I will let you know about those.
About the Library in the University. Ohhh my…. It is my dream library because it has everything you can wish for. It is a huge building divided into two wings with approximately 4 floors. If you are a book lover as I am you would love that place too. I mean, I recently spent 7 hours in the library. Not for fun, I had to do a huge assignment.
I hope you guys like it and I will #seeyousoon! Let me know what do you think about this books and stories.