I know I have spent a lot of time complaining this summer about the heat. It feels like it has taken weeks and weeks of heat, humidity and storms, but this morning I have the window open and it is gorgeous! So, no complaints today! The sun is shining and it is cool-ish. I hope this is a sign of better things to come.
I have been reading Peter Ho Davies's book, The Welsh Girl. It is excellent! I usually don't want to put it down when I start reading it and have been greedily rationing it out. This is an author who is comfortable with words. He tells his story with ease. Some writing (and I mean other books here, not The Welsh Girl) seems sort of self-conscious, but this story just rolls along gracefully and fluidly. The Odds are that McEwan will win the Booker. Ho Davies only has a 16/1 chance. That's a pity really as he's my favorite so far. I'd say Ho Davies deserves to be shortlisted at least as much as McEwan, but then what do I know as this is only the third book I've read. I do have a couple more Booker longlist titles that I am trying to get from the library, but I don't plan on reading all of the list by any means. Booker nominee or no, I had my eye on this one from the moment I read about it anyway! I just hope it gets some well deserved press and readership!
I've also finally gotten around to reading Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Actually I am about half way through. For a play that might last at most three hours, it takes me forever to read the play script. I read Marjorie Garber's essay on it earlier this week. Although Garber writes as if the reader is familiar with Shakespeare's work--quoting liberally from the play and making comparisons between this and other plays, it is very worthwhile reading her. I don't always get her references at first, but I am finding that the more I read the connections seem to come later even though initially a lot of it is over my head. I have been reading each scene and then reading a separate summary and commentary afterward. There are so many layers to this play, I feel like I need all the help I can get to keep it all straight in my mind. The more I read Shakespeare and the more I read about him the more I am amazed by it all. I could spend weeks on this one alone; I feel like I am just whizzing through it really. I hope to finish reading this weekend and watch the play tomorrow night.
One more thing. I thought I would put the complete list of books with academic settings here. There were so many great suggestions I thought it might come in handy to have links to them all here. Plus it might be handy in case anyone wanted to print out the list:
- The Folded Leaf, William Maxwell
- A Separate Peace, John Knowles
- Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld
- Gentlemen and Players, Joanne Harris
- Old School, Tobias Wolff
- I am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe
- Song for Summer, Eva Ibbotson
- Decline and Fall, Evelyn Waugh
- Lake of Dead Languages, Carol Goodman
- Chatham School Affair, Thomas H. Cook
- Secret History, Donna Tartt
- Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers
- Thus Was Adonis Murdered, Sarah Caudwell
- The Book and the Brotherhood, Irish Murdoch
- The Small Room, May Sarton
- For Kings and Planets, Ethan Canin
- Moo, Jane Smiley
- Small World, David Lodge
- Changing Places, David Lodge
- The Groves of Academe, Mary McCarthy
- Straight Man, Richard Russo
- Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
- Blue Angel, Francine Prose
- Truth and Consequences, Alison Lurie
- Foreign Affairs, Alison Lurie
- Well-Schooled in Murder, Elizabeth George
- Death in Holy Orders, P.D. James
- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Edward Albee
- Quieter Than Sleep, Joanne Dobson (mystery series with sleuth Karen Pelletier)
- Mean Boy, Lynn Coady
- Weekend, William McIlvanney
- Pictures from an Institution, Randall Jerrell
- Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel and Its Discontents, Elaine Showalter
- Time of Hope, C.P. Snow (a series of books--Strangers and Brothers Sequence)
- On Beauty, Zadie Smith
- The History Man, Malcolm Bradbury
- In the Last Analysis, Amanda Cross (mystery series with sleuth Kate Fansler)
- Men's Room, Ann Oakley
- Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
Whew. I hope I got all the suggestions. That's quite a list--thanks, everyone! I have already found a copy of Francine Prose's The Blue Angel to mooch, and have dug out my copy of the first Joanne Dobson mystery to start with!