Finals start in three days and I am wrecked by this godforsaken weather.
In no particular order, a partial list of books that I have finished between April and now or will have finished by the end of May, and which I am going to SOMEDAY post at least short, unwholesome reviews of:
- Cereus Blooms at Night - Shani Mootoo
- Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
- A Case of Exploding Mangoes - Mohammed Hanif
- The Temple of My Familiar - Alice Walker
- Breath, Eyes, Memory - Edwidge Danticat
- The Lost Steps - Alejo Carpentier
- Black Chin, White Chin - Ronnie Govender
- Cadenza - Ralph Cusack
- Crush - Richard Siken
- Skin Folk - Nalo Hopkinson
- 2666 - Roberto Bolaño (englished)
- A Question of Power - Bessie Head
So all but two are novels. Hopkinson's is a collection of short stories - definitely enjoyed this one. Ugh, only one book of poetry! But what an evisceratingly gorgeous book of poetry. Twelve books in two months is probably shoddy by the measure of some voracious readers I know, but I AM SLOW. At least I enjoyed every single of those twelve books. Mostly. The Alice Walker novel was almost unbearably irritating at times. More on this later. The Bessie Head book BROKE ME.
Plus, this is where 'partial list' comes in, I very conscientiously left out everything that was connected directly to my academic work*. Although I'm tempted to stick Danby's Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature or Erich Segal's Roman Laughter up there. There's an idea: frothy, chatty reviews of classics of scholarly study. It's been done, but so what?
* Lies; I ended up writing a soul-destroying term paper on the Hopkinson book that I feel like personally emailing the author an apology for.
