i can't really sing, so

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...