For many, September means going back to school. For me, this is the first time in my life where I am not going back to education (something that I am still adjusting to). For my Undergraduate degree I studied English Literature, so there is a fair amount of books that I have studied, even having studied several earlier in school for my IB diploma to get me into uni. I did all my studies in Scotland, and that is also where a large chunk of my books still are, so this really is just a selection — realistically, my big anthologies of English Literature would be perfect for this post, but alas, they are across the sea. With that, while moving from city to city, many of my lesser-annotated books that I didn’t see myself going back to were donated, looking back it was not the best move, but in efforts of preserving space there was only so much that I could take.
When going into studying literature, you’re not going to love all of the books you read – something about not being able to pick them out dampens the will to read in my opinion. Admittedly, this was an issue I had for a large portion of what I was reading leaving a lot of what I was meant to read, unread. Additionally, having a week to read a book or two, seems like just enough time, but with so many things going on, I never quite managed it. A lot of what is covered are classics, published in the 18th and 19th centuries (or sometimes earlier, can’t forget reading the epic poem Beowulf from sometime between 975 and 1025), so not exactly the easiest to read. Regardless, I have kept most of them and intend on getting to them one day, especially my VINTAGE editions of Austen’s novels.
Granted, there were some texts that were easy to read and engaging. In my time studying literature I always favored reading poems (of the shorter variety, not necessarily epics) and play scripts. Due to their nature, these were all relatively quick reads but had plenty within them to analyze. Other texts I enjoyed included Nineteen Eighty-Four, a text I believe you can’t go into studying literature without having read it over the course of the degree. Same goes for HG Wells, on whom I did a whole module, which may not have been the best choice looking back.
Flicking through the pages of some of the annotated books I have here, the sense of nostalgia rushed over me. There’s something so satisfying about highlighting passages and noting down peculiar elements that stood out and are essay-worthy, that I almost miss the tedious, yet satisfying nature of some of these. In some ways, I miss studying English Literature. I have often found an ease to analyzing certain passages, and a fascination with writing and researching different subjects, being able to find something stand out, or completely mundane that so many comment on. Studying literature is so much more than then books you read. In many cases, it’s the lessons you learn from reading them and discussing them with those in the class as well as the additional research that goes on before writing a paper. (Can you tell I miss going to classes?)
Reviews of some of the books I’ve read for classes:
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
- I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
- Top Girls by Caryl Churchill
- Under the Skin by Michel Faber
This post was inspired by the #StudySeptemberReads hashtag which was organized by Amy (@read_between_the_linesblog) and Isabelle (@world_ofwordsblog).
aga is reading 