I think I am still coming down from having finished Infinite Jest. I’m not not just how long a book hangover is supposed to last, but this seems extended. I can’t bring myself to pick anything longer than a couple hundred pages if I think there might be any intellectual heft to it. That said, I managed to read close to 2,000 pages this month. That’s due in no small part to Sarah MacLean…
My boyfriend sends the best Snapchats
Apparently, I read romance novels now. This is a genre I have somewhat passively resisted for almost 20 years (I read a YA romance or two as a pre-teen.) I dismissed it as fluff when I was in high school and college and wanted to been seen as serious and cool. I had a friend in college who kept stacks and stacks of paperback romance novels in an alcove in her apartment. She is still easily one of the smartest people, but I couldn’t understand the appeal of reading something you might not learn from. During grad school, I mellowed out significantly when I saw the breadth of really interesting academic work being done on non-traditional subjects. That said, I have not been tearing through MacLean’s books because I am academically interested in expressions of female sexuality. I have been reading them because they are full of smart, clever women and brooding, handsome men with dark pasts and strong hands. It’s like Jane Eyre with significantly more on-page fucking and “no madwoman in the attic.”
My local library had display up of romance novels as part of their Summer adult-reading program (which all libraries should have. My library is excellent.) I picked up Sarah MacLean’s A Rogue by Any Other Name (the first in her The Rules of Scoundrels series about four disgraced English nobles running a gaming hell in 1830s London.) I have read three of the four novels in this series this month. Each one I read in a day (or night, more accurately… I told you I have not been sleeping well.) The last in the series is queued up on my Kindle, now that I know how easy it is to borrow books from the library and load them onto and e-reader. They’re fun and I enjoy reading them so I’m going to keep doing it. Younger Meredith was wrong about this (and many other things.)
By my count, I still have 17 books to finish before the end of the year (including two I am still reading.) That’s a little over 5 books and month and still have a few doozies to get through. I also don’t have a plan for some of these. I will gladly accept any suggestions for an African or Middle Eastern author and historical non-fiction (bearing in mind my earlier caveat that I can’t read any books by straight, white men until I’m done with this syllabus.)
2015 Reading Syllabus (9/26):
A book by an African author (not from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, or South Africa.)
A book by an Asian author (not from Japan.) The Noodle Maker: Ma Jian
A book by a Central/South American author. The House of Spirits: Isabel Allende…I (still) should get back to this book now.
A book by a Middle Eastern author (not from Iran, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, or Syria.)
A book by Haruki Murakami.
A book by an LGBT author.
A book in translation. (Europeana: Patrik Ourednik)
A novella I read in one sitting.
A collection of poetry.
A collection of short stories.
A book of historical non-fiction.
A book by a Native American author. (The Lone Ranger and Tonto in a Fistfight in Heaven: Sherman Alexie)
A book by an African-American author.
A book by a Latino/a-American author. (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: Junot Diaz.)
A “tough” read (something I’ve been afraid to read.)
A book about feminism. (Bad Feminist: Roxane Gay)
A book about race in the United States. (Men We Reaped: Jesmyn Ward)
A book recommended by my therapist. Daring Greatly: Brene Brown.
A book typically described as post-modern or experimental fiction. Infinite Jest: David Foster Wallace
A collection of essays.
A non-superhero graphic novel.
A YA novel. (The Fault In Our Stars: John Green)
A book I really should have read by now.
A book about money management.
A science fiction/fantasy book.
Blown by a strong wind 