Tag: literature

East of Eden by John Steinbeck- Review

Posted April 24, 2014 in Books, Reviews / 8 Comments

East of Eden by John Steinbeck My rating: 4.5/5 Stars Publisher: Viking Press (1952) Length: 602 pgs Format: Hardcover, checked out from my local library Goodreads Synopsis: Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families – the Trasks and the Hamiltons – whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new, rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal […]

Free Yourself: The Pressure to Be “Well Read” and Why It Shouldn’t Matter

Posted April 18, 2014 in Bookish Thoughts, Discussions / 5 Comments

I’ll let you in on a secret. I’ve never felt that I’ve been “well read” enough to be an English major. Let’s face it- English majors are often literary elitists. They scoff at reading King Lear or The Wife of Bath in Brit Lit 201 because they’ve already done in it high school. They line up to take that voluntary Shakespeare class. They’ll respond to something that happens with the phrase “Oh, that’s very (enter author’s name here).” It’s intimidating, and often discouraging, when you’re the only one who has to read The Great Gatsby sophomore year of college in […]

Oxford: A History of Children’s Literature

Posted February 8, 2014 in Travel / 3 Comments

While on my travel course last month, I was able to take a day trip from London to Oxford. While the primary attraction in Oxford was the two hour Harry Potter Walking tour, we also had five hours of free time to wander the quaint, beautiful area. What we came to learn was that Oxford has a history of Children’s Fantasy Literature, from C.S. Lewis to Lewis Carrol to one of the largest bookstores in the UK. First up on the day’s agenda was Christ Church College (see above), notable for having many Harry Potter movie scenes filmed on its […]

Summer Reading Series 2013: Boundless

Posted June 8, 2013 in Books, Reviews / 0 Comments

Boundless by Cynthia Hand My rating: 3 of 5 stars (3.5 out of 5 stars) I had this book waiting on my desk to read for a while, thinking, this will be a fantastic, enjoyable read, no problem. I had read the two previous novels in the series and had really liked them (as I’ve mentioned before, I’m a total sucker for angel/fallen angel books). And while this book does deliver at the ends, the first half was a real slough to get through. Since the first half of the book was relatively disappointing (at least for the standards I […]

“A smelly bone like that, better off buried in the backyard of your life.”

Posted June 4, 2013 in Quotes / 0 Comments

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

Summer Reading Series 2013: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Posted May 30, 2013 in Books, Reviews / 3 Comments

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky My rating: 5 of 5 stars There’s so much to say about this book it’s hard to know where to begin, or where to end for that matter. I never read this book in high school, though it would ironically always be that one book that people claimed to have read (by choice) and loved, often times it seemed for the sake of having “read” it, almost as a status symbol. Having read this for the first time in my later college years, I definitely see how much of the issues […]