Merry Wanderer of the Night:
what i'm reading

I spent the majority of my time reading this week, but I lost some steam towards the end. I finished Sandra Gulland's The Last Great Dance on Earth, George Eliot's Middlemarch, and Syrie James' The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte. Click on the titles of the books to read my reviews.

I read all of those while I was still at school, and once Thanksgiving came I got busy with other things. I have started Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Thomas Kohnstamm's Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? So far I am really enjoying the former and not enjoying the latter. Hopefully I will finish both of those this week. I would also like to start The White Garden by Stephanie Barron.

The next two weeks are going to be pretty awful for me because I have three papers to write and a creative writing portfolio due. On the bright side, I am approaching this in a good way, at least I think so. I am going to spend one hour on each thing every night. I think this will work because the easiest ones are due first and the hardest ones are due last, so I should spend the right amount of time on every one. The other good thing about this is that four hours of homework is the last amount of homework I've had all semester. Hurrah!

I just got back to my dorm room now and I am amazingly relieved to be in it. I wasn't looking forward to coming back because I have so much work to get done. Now that I'm back I know I will be able to focus.

Last by not least, I am going to take a homework break next week and participate in Dreadlock Girl's Readathon. It is Saturday, December 5, and if anyone else would like to spend a day reading I suggest you join too!

I was a very bad reader last week. Lots of things are to blame, it was the week before Thanksgiving break and I just wanted to relax. I did finish Philip Graham's The Moon, Come to Earth. I also attended his reading at Prairie Lights. Graham is very gregarious, I enjoyed his reading. He read three dispatches from the book though, which took quite a long time. I'm always more interested in hearing authors talk about their books than read from them.

The book that has taken up most of my time is George Eliot's Middlemarch, which I plan to finish tomorrow. If I haven't mentioned it before, I will mention it again: Middlemarch is a beast. It's a multi-plot novel with what seems like one thousand characters. It takes me a long time to read, but thanks to a couple 4-8 AM shifts at work I am almost finished with it. I'm really enjoying it too, but that doesn't surprise me. Eliot is a genius.

Today I plan on finishing The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte by Syrie James. I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, I am obsessed with Charlotte Bronte and I'm always iffy on books that make the authors the characters. I am happy to say that I have not been able to put it down. James has really done a great job researching all the Brontes and I like how she documents her research in the back of the book. There are footnotes in this, which I know have put some people off, but I kind of like them. Some are unnecessary to me because I know enough about the 19th century, but some of them are helpful and interesting. The character that has interested me most is Branwell. I knew that he was a drunkard but James creates a fully developed character out of a man that has always baffled me.

Next week I plan on reading A LOT because I will just be sitting at home anyway. Books I plan to read are The Last Great Dance on Earth by Sandra Gulland, Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The White Garden by Stephanie Barron, and Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? by Thomas Kohnstamm.

I've already been busy reading for most of the day, which is good because I have a very busy evening ahead of me.

I'm reading my first George Eliot book right now, Middlemarch

. I'm really enjoying it even though it is a challenging (and long) book. I've been considering hosting a George Eliot challenge. If there is anyone interested in that please let me know. It would be a light challenge, probably only one book and a movie.

I'm also reading The Moon, Come to Earth: Dispatches from Lisbon

by Philip Graham. The book is a travelog about Graham's year in Lisbon with his wife and daughter. It's a quick read with some really beautiful passages and great questions about place and travel. I'm about halfway down with it.

I spent about nine hours reading yesterday (mostly homework) so I'm kind of taking a lighter day today. I have three meetings to go to tonight so I will be very busy for the rest of the day.

This week I plan on continuing the books I've already mentioned as well as finish The Lover

by Marguerite Duras. I will probably pick up another book but I haven't decided which yet.

Find out more about Sunday Salon here.

On a whim I went to one of my favorite used bookstores with a few friends today and found two books that I think will make my Victorian-Lit obsessed self very happy.

The first is Selected Letters by Jane Austen. I used to hate Jane Austen, even the Pride and Prejudice movie with Kiera Knightley (oh the horror!), but after reading Sense and Sensibility for class I'm starting to come around to her. Even though the basis of this blog is reading NOT for class and for enjoyment, it is really amazing how differently you see a book when you read it in a group.

The second is Disorderly Conduct by Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, subtitle: Visions of Gender in Victorian America. I just about peed my pants when I saw this book because you can't believe how incredibly difficult it is to find books about the Victorian period in America. I also see that the book goes for over thirty dollars on Amazon and I got it for under five, so that alone makes it worthwhile.

You can look forward to reviews of these books in the coming weeks!