i can't really sing, so

Because of my dissertation writing (and reading), I didn't read as many books cover to cover this summer, and those are always the only ones I write about/note as "read," so I'm combining all the summer months here! I definitely read a lot of excerpts from books, but this isn't the place for that. See: My dissertation! When it's done! Someday! Not too far in the future! American Hybrid Poetics by Amy Moorman Robbins I agree with so much of what Robbins says in this book, and it's provided a fruitful background for my research, though the way she uses the word hybrid makes me a little crazy because it seems to cover too much ground, and she never really defines how she is using it in a way that is clear to me. If it were only ever an adjective/modifier, I think I'd be fairly on board with most of the argument she is making, but she uses it occasionally as a noun in a way that gets me. I won't give away my entire dissertation, though, and instea...

Just a reminder that these aren't reviews, but... more like notes on the books that I feel worth sharing, some more substantial, some more review-y, some more helpful, some more personal, etc. I thought I read more this month--and I really did, but not in terms of "full books." I read a lot for a paper I wrote on Mercy Otis Warren and Susanna Rowson for this year's ALA in SF, and I read a lot for my dissertation, but I only finished a few books, it seems. Je Suis L'Autre: Essays and Interrogations by Kristina Marie Darling I was excited about this book because of the way it is marketed, as a sort of lyric-criticism. I liked some essays more than others, though I found some of the ways it described the works being commented on too vague, the sort of criticism that I fear slapping a broader hybrid label on texts might encourage. This being said, I find it difficult to read about a text I myself have never read but believe the right critic will make an essay comp...

Haven't done one of these in a while! But I managed to finish quite a few books in April. Here are some thoughts... Radical Artifice: Writing Poetry in the Age of Media by Marjorie Perloff It took me a long time to read this book , but I was determined to get through the whole thing, since this is a subject I am interested in--and I'm especially interested in how it ages. What about the way we viewed media (TV, radio, advertising, the internet now, etc.) was true of the 1980s, 1990s, now, and how can we examine, if we can examine it at all, its affects on us or how we perceive it or how it was perceived and how can we look at the way poetry engages with language and the way media engages with language next to each other and why doing so is important--Perloff covers this for a time earlier than today. See What I Have Done  by Sarah Schmidt I even managed to fit a  novel  in during April! For funsies! What sort of graduate student am I... one who needed a true break ...

I made the mistake this semester of taking three classes and auditing one. Even though I didn't have to do the coursework for the one I audited, just the reading/participation, it was still too much. I didn't have time to do things that I normally like to do, that are important to me--let alone things that I do generally because I do them. Such as.... writing about the books I read. HERE are all the books I read from February-April during this semester, excluding re-reads, with brief snippets of thoughts after them... FEBRUARY Caligula by Albert Camus The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt For my drama class, we read these two plays the same week. I preferred the Dürrenmatt because the characters were more interesting to me, particularly Claire, the cruel/eccentric/wealthy woman who returns to her hometown for revenge. Caligula was interesting to me in terms of it as an existential retelling of an old story, but the characters blended more easily. Snow White by Donald Bart...

I actually read a lot in these two months, despite it being the end of of my first semester as a PhD student and then the holidays, and I'm glad I did so. Here's what I read to finish out 2015: A True History of the Captivation, Transport to Strange Lands, & Deliverance of Hannah Guttentag by Josh Russell This was a text we read for one of my classes since it's "about" a grad student. It was good; it had its flaws, some of which we discussed in class. I liked the characters I was supposed to like; I didn't like the characters I wasn't supposed to like. I was surprised where I was supposed to be surprised. I definitely enjoyed reading it, but I can't help but read "like an editor" at times, and there were things, had I been on the other side of this book, that I would have liked to ask the writer to reconsider. Sometimes I wonder if the things I dislike are things an editor had a hand in moving in the direction that they wound up in--li...

::Hums that "Back, back, back to school again," song from Grease II :: because indeed, indeed I am! And loving it! I have realized an important thing, though, learned only recently--despite the semester nearly at an end--my reading career will have to change. In order to get my PhD, I'm expected to be proficient in a variety of ways, and one of them is to be well-read. This sounds awesome, in a way, but is disappointing in others that can be summed up in this: my reading list is no longer my own. This doesn't mean that I can't read for pleasure or discuss, here, the books I do read for pleasure, but it does mean that I will have to change the way I read. I'm not sure exactly yet my reading schedule will adapt, but I hope to still continue to provide brief notes on the works that I do finish. As for now, I will stick to what I've always done, and that is to only write about books I've read cover-to-cover. I think, though, that this might have to be some...

Wow, I know, I know. It's been awhile since I've posted. But I've been reading! Perhaps not as much to "finish books", though, which is typically what I am broadcasting in posts like these. My goal for total books read this year might not be met. Again, though, this doesn't mean I am not reading! I am just reading differently. Right now, I have my nose in an anthology about English Studies, a book of 16th century poetry by Sor Juana, and the in/famous rhet/comp textbook They Say, I Say. My not-posting is mostly due to recent dislocation-- not of any limb, but just moving. I was living in Philadelphia back in April--by the end of May, Geoff and I packed up our house, moved out of it, couch-surfed for a few weeks, and wound up living in a camping trailer on a hayfarm for the summer, after which I packed up a car and drove down to Louisiana, where I am currently enrolled in a PhD program at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. All of my books aren't ...

Perhaps I've been putting off writing this blog because I am disappointed in myself with the number of books I actually wound up completing during February. I could defend myself-- it's a short month; I was busy working three jobs and mailing GS out to the world; it was one of my saddest and most stressful months in a while-- but the one very noticeable thing is that I didn't read much poetry. And there is no defense for that. I read poems online. I read submissions for GS . But I didn't pick up a book of poetry and commit to it. Here's what I did read: BOOKS READ FEBRUARY 2015 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami I started this back in January as my "long" winter reading, and it took me into mid-February to finish. Sometimes, when I take awhile to read a book, I silently berate myself over it. With this book, I didn't want it to end. In fact, I was disappointed when it ended. Not with the ending itself, which works, but with the fact that so much-- as, I sup...

REMEMBER THAT TIME that I cheated for my Goodreads challenge because blah blah blah and this and that and this? Well, it happened. And I only KIND OF CHEATED because Goodreads in & of itself is a cheater.  I SAID IT. So here's what happened: I was so close. But then I realized I wasn't going to make it. The turtle was going to beat me. So I ran fast, and I found chapbooks that had listings on Goodreads THAT I OWNED and SHOULD HAVE READ BY NOW ANYWAY, and I made a small stack of them, and I read a number of them. I read four of them. Then, it was nearly midnight. There I sat, at my stepsister and her husband's house. Evie, their daughter, was headed to bed. It was storytime. So I read THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR by Eric Carle and also THE DANGEROUS ALPHABET by Neil Gaiman. So that's what happened. I'm not ashamed. But I made it. I read 52 books (+) in 2014. And for 2015 my challenge is 50. I plan on cheating again if I must. So there. BOOKS READ IN DECEMBER, ...

I went on vacation a lot in the beginning of August and somehow never posted about the books I read in July, so now I get to do a double post where I write about two months of reading! Summer reading at that! Something I did this summer that this blog nor Goodreads doesn't calculate is reread a bunch. In late August, I finished rereading the Neil Gaiman Sandman series, which I began doing back in February, and I also reread the Harry Potter series this summer, finishing that in July-- literally a few days before the "new" Rowling piece went live via Pottermore and the internet went nuts. It was really special to reread the series, and I was so enamored with it again I intend to do so every 7 years if I remember. But without further ado... BOOKS READ IN 2014 SO FAR ACCORDING TO GOODREADS: 29/52 JULY An Untamed State by Roxane Gay This was on my list of " Books I Will Read This Summer ", so I read it. I bought it after hearing Roxane read from the first c...

I don't know why it has taken me half of July to post this, but it has. Mostly, I reread for June and did the challenge for June via the monthly prompts I've been attempting to follow. I reread all of Harry Potter starting in May and finishing in early July. They were excellent, better even. I last read them seven years ago. I think I will go seven years without watching the films and read them again when I'm 37. I can't believe it's been 7 years since Deathly Hallows came out. That makes me feel very, very old. Two days after I finished, J.K. Rowling posted a "new" story on Pottermore, Rita Skeeter reporting live from the Quiddich World Cup, writing a gossip column about Harry & other members of the D.A. It felt fate-like. Anyway, the prompt was to read "that classic you never read"-- I always try to read a long summer classic, and there isn't one in particular I avoid, so it was a great month to do just that, read my 2014 summer cla...

As promised, back in action this May. I read a whole bunch. I "caught up" with my Goodreads Challenge and then some. And that's not even including all the rereads! I was the reread Queen this April and am still going strong-- I'm not going to blog about them, but I'm in the middle of rereading the Harry Potter series. I read most of the books each a couple times back in the day, but it's been at least since the summer of 2007 since I read any of them-- so that's a good 7 years ago. I forget if I wanted to wait 10 or what until I reread, but my husband and I have been watching the movies. I really felt a strong need to reread the books to "get straight" a lot of what the movie ruins/gets wrong. The deeper into the series I go, the more I notice the movie's lack of that UMPH that makes the books The Best. They really are so fucking good. But I digress. Back to what I read  this month outside of being in the throes of the HP series as the month ...

Opening Remarks I'd hoped to read more, really. February came and went so quickly, though, that I didn't read as much as I'd wanted. There was no point in posting a blog about what I did read, as it was scarce. A combination of February and March's books read proved a better idea. And then, I made a draft of a post & never posted it. So now April is included to... Books Read (according to GoodReads) 16/52 Notes on Books Read Hollow City by Ransom Riggs This is the second book in a YA series that I began reading way back in the day when I was in a bookclub. I am enjoying the series, but every book ends on such a cliffhanger that as a reader, the books feel like they really should be one long book. This is extremely frustrating, though I understand why this is done. I don't have time to reread the previous books, and I didn't reread the first in the series before reading this one-- that turned out alright, I got right back into it. The cast of charact...

This is a meme going around facebook. I like lists, but I also like annotating lists. I, in fact, have made annotated tracklists for mixtapes/CDs I've given to friends. So, this. Notably, this is in "no particular order". It also considers that I have been a "reader" since I learned to read. Ostensibly, this list should be much longer & books that have stayed with me have been edited from here. "Stayed with me" is sort of a hard designation. There are books I love, books I consider my "favorites" that aren't on this list. This is because sometimes I read something and love it, but the plot/characters/etc. go out the window when I think back on it. Often I can tell you why I know I love the book, but not much else about my own personal relationship with it. Does that mean it has "stayed with" me? Not so much as the books on this list, which I can relate facts about AND tell you why I loved it. I tried to avoid books that stic...

I began doing this every two months because at one point I was reading very little & had very little time to shout about the very little I was reading. I always want to blog more than I actually do, to turn my blog into a better way to communicate my ideas, especially on the culture that I consume. But it isn't something I prioritize. I'm not sure why. Anyway, as usual, the writing about each book below shouldn't be read as reviews of these titles, but thoughts/feelings on them generally. JULY Darling Beastlettes by Gina Abelkop :: Gina sent me this book in the mail, and I read it this summer because it has been sitting on my bedside table for awhile. It was under a couple of other books that are still on my bedside table that I haven't begun or started, including a tome of Joseph Brodsky's poem, for which I have one poem left to read but it's very long and I can't bring myself to find time to really concentrate on it. I'm not sure why I didn...