What I'm Reading: Back to School Edition

Alternatively titled: "For Better, or Quite Possibly Worse" because the things I have to read for school, and the things I want to read despite school are rarely very well aligned.

If the Christmas edition of "What I'm Reading" didn't satisfy your thirst, here is a look at my slightly more scholarly endeavours of late (and those yet to come):

1. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein. American Lit. No, you read it right. All in all not a bad read, if you can handle the tone--super conversational.
2. Boswell's London Journal by James Boswell, Ed. Pottle. Restoration Lit. If you like to read about 18th-century sexually transmitted diseases, this might be the book for you. I am considering writing an essay on Boswell's Scottishness...I was supposed to finish the book for last term though and haven't cracked the spine even as we speak. Maybe I will stick to Gulliver's Englishness...it's slightly less disgusting.
3. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson. Also for Restoration Lit. I don't have any clue what it's about, but I have to do a 60 minute presentation on it in March. So I put it on my list to remind myself.
4. "Dress Suits for Hire" by Holly Hughes as printed in Clit Notes. Modern Drama. There's a stirring moment in this play that actually makes the sacrament of Christ sexually explicit in ways I never thought I would live to see. For a more dramatic rendition, come to my presentation Tuesday afternoon. Oh ya, I'm pretending to be a lesbian for like 10 minutes. I bet the unbelievability caused by my wretched acting will be deemed my fear of successfully performing in an identity I don't wish to sympathise with. I bet.
5. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams. Modern Drama. I actually read it for last week's class but still feel it deserves a bit of a recommendation. For anyone feeling sexually frustrated or ostracized...you'll really identify with the central metaphor. Seriously, that's what I've been told.
6. Poems by Ezra Pound. American Lit. So, Pound was a fascist and my professor has actually spent the better part of his academic career trying to figure him out. Maybe you can solve the enigma for me and I'll use it as my fourth year thesis.
7. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway. Impotence is a fascinating subject for fiction, don't you think?
8. Chapter Ten of Child Development...I think it's more on cognitive development...maybe even information processing theory. In case you thought I was too literarily-minded.
9. "Reading as Goal-Oriented Behaviour" by D.G. Bouwhuis. DTP. Worst twenty minutes of my life spent reading. Maybe not, but holding some serious clout in the very most boringest category.
10. George and Rue by George Elliott Clarke. Because I really want to read it! This was my new book of the month and Shane's "ya ya I'm sorry I left you worrying about whether I was dead or alive for hours at a time" present to me on Saturday. I am so excited to read it I can barely breathe. And I have so much to read for school...but I am going to sleep with George tonight. That's all there is to it.

Stay tuned. I'm surprisingly pleased with life the world and everything tonight, but you know how closely bitterness always follows sweets. For the sake of keeping your faith in me I'll let you in on one of my more clever aphorisms of the last month of so: "I feel the same way about doctors that I feel about pants: everyone should have to use them but me." I said something I can't touch and I always want way too much, anyway. Convert to Weinism. Convert to knowledge.