Time for the yearly round-up of books and movies! I think this will be the last year-- at least for awhile--that I keep track of these things on my blog. I might keep a reading list just for me next year, but include academic articles and chapters in edited volumes, since those comprise the bulk of my reading. The book list stifled me a bit this year; in past years I've had fun with it, but this year it started to feel like a mental block. I pushed through some books just so I could add them to my 'Books' list, and that's not how I want to live my life. I shouldn't waste time on a book I dislike or don't need to read, when I have so many other things I need and want to read! Other things, like The Lunar Men, didn't make the list despite their deep impact on my life this year and despite the hours I engaged with them-- simply because I didn't finish the last 75 pages or so (of a 600 page, very tiny print book)! And I didn't need those 75 pages as much as I needed other pages this year, so I had to make choices. And what of all of the poetry I've read this year? My thesis is based entirely on poems-- poems I've spent hours with-- but they had no place on the list since they didn't come in the kind of poetry 'book' that would meet my self-imposed criteria. When my reading list ceases to reflect the things that I've read that really resonated or changed me, it's time to call it quits. But here it is:
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman; Kit Learns a Lesson, Valerie Tripp; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain Poet (trans. by Marie Borroff); The Tragedy of Gorboduc, Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville; Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation, Peter J. Rabinowitz; Kit's Surprise, Valerie Tripp; Pearl, Gawain Poet (trans. by Marie Borroff), Sir Thomas More, Anthony Munday and others (ed. by Gabrieli Vittorio and Giorgio Melchiori); Professing Literature: An Institutional History, Gerald Graff; Showings, Julian of Norwich; Arden of Faversham, Unknown(s); King Richard II, William Shakespeare; Happy Birthday, Kit!, Valerie Tripp; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz; King Edward IV, Part 1, Thomas Heywood; King Edward IV, Part 2, Thomas Heywood; Eastward Ho!, George Chapman, Ben Jonson, John Marston; Troilus and Criseyde (in Middle English), Geoffrey Chaucer; Kit Saves the Day, Valerie Tripp; The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and Their Readers, Sheridan D. Blau; The Roaring Girl, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker; Changes for Kit, Valerie Tripp; Really, Truly Ruthie, Valerie Tripp; Bartholomew Fair, Ben Jonson; The Witch of Edmondton, Thomas Dekker, John Ford, William Rowley; A Game at Chess, Thomas Middleton; What Katy Did, Susan Coolidge; A Kit Mystery: Danger at the Zoo, Kathleen Ernst; Five Children and It, E. Nesbit; The Blazing World, Margaret Cavendish; The Country Wife, William Wycherley; Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift; Candide, or Optimism, Voltaire; Utopia, Thomas More; The Beggar's Opera, John Gay; Brave New World, Aldous Huxley; The Rover, Aphra Behn; Don Quixote in England, Henry Fielding; The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon; A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole; A Kit Mystery: Missing Grace, Elizabeth McDavid Jones, A Kit Mystery: A Thief in the Theater, Sarah Masters Buckey; The Dud Avocado, Elaine Dundy; Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn; The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet, Kate Rorick, Bernie Su; Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson, Paula Byrne; Heaven to Betsy, Maud Hart Lovelace; Frankenstein, Mary Shelley; The Vampyre, John Polidori; The House at the End of Hope Street, Menna Van Praag; Lessons for Children from Three to Four Years Old, Anna Letitia Barbauld; Original Stories, Mary Wollstonecraft; Vampires, Bones, and Treacle Scones, Kaitlyn Dunnett; Organizing Archival Records, David W. Carmichael; Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert; Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen; Yes Please, Amy Poehler; Persuasion, Jane Austen; Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder; Emma, Jane Austen
As for movies, I've actually enjoyed this list. It did inspire me to watch some films I wanted to watch, but probably wouldn't have otherwise, like Le Tableau. However, I've found myself wanting to watch multi-part documentaries or mini-series, but then not doing so since the episode won't make the list. Also, I had no list for theater, so going to see things like Peter and the Starcatcher or Little Dancer had no place, nor did seeing singer/songwriters at local bars. So, I think I subconsciously devalued these experiences, and didn't seek them out like I should have. Again, like with my books list, not super healthy. So, adieu Movies List!
I hope you all did some excellent reading and watching in 2014! Let's let go of categories for 2015, and just read, watch, and participate in whatever inspires us! Instead of rushing from one book or movie to the next, I will give myself leave to think about the art, history, and theories I imbibe. I want to slow down, to re-read, re-watch, to dwell, and consider. Perhaps that's my resolution for 2015.
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