Reading Week!: Academia is a pain in the ass (but I love it anyway...I think)

So I've been away for a few days. I never said that I would posting every day - just that I would be featuring book-related content this week. I always leave myself loopholes for the days when I just want to watch films and eat ice cream and wallow in my very minor cold pretending to be on the brink of death. Today in the real spirit of reading week, I thought I would write a bit about my academic reading life.

Tommy Boy

I am currently studying for my Master in English literature with a concentration in the early modern (my time period is roughly confined to the 16th & 17th centuries). So basically the English Renaissance, made famous by all of the big name dudes you're forced to read in school - Shakespeare, Sidney, Donne, Marlowe, Herbert, Jonson, etc. Of course I love all the famous guys, but I also have a soft spot in my heart for my boy, Thomas Middleton. I'm writing my dissertation on Jacobean drama and so I spend most of my time with the later Shakespeare plays, some Jonson, Beaumont & Fletcher, Webster, and of course Middleton.

I have a love-hate relationship with my reading for school. I'm not really sure when the edging of hatred came into the picture, but there's no mistaking the fact that sometimes I just loathe the reading I do for my weekly seminars. Sanne, of YouTube fame as booksandquills, recently posted a video about Reading and Guilt that is also linked to this love-hate feeling I have been experiencing.

As you can tell from these Reading Week! posts, I love to read and have been a serious bookworm ever since I was a little kid. It wasn't until university, however, that I started to fall in love with critical reading and literary analysis. I was an English major, but my undergraduate career was a bit schizophrenic (dabbling in journalism, public relations, & public policy as well as the usual liberal arts curriculum that forced me to take math and science courses when I would rather have been filling up my schedule with English classes). After two years of the unfocused jumble of liberal arts, I took a year abroad at Oxford where I focused entirely on English and history, specifically the early modern period. Then, I graduated and started my Masters this fall. So my university life has been a bit weird. And it's only recently that I've really come to experience this strange guilt and love-hate feeling attached to my academic reading.

As a Masters student, I only have 4 hours a week of classroom time. Apparently I am supposed to spending the other 36 hours of the work week reading and studying independently. Yeah...that doesn't happen. On a good day, I can usually get a solid 3-4 hours of reading done for school but those good days are few and far between. I'm always astounded by people who can put in full 8 hour days because I am just not at the level of motivation or intense focus. Recently my good days have been made even more rare because of this complicated love-hate, anxiety-ridden experience that has somehow become attached to my academic reading. Today I went to the library and checked out 6 books for some early reading for my dissertation, which I won't start writing in earnest until April after this semester's modules. I'm looking at the books right now and I'm filled with my favourite feeling - excitement for reading, specifically exciting for learning and for new ideas on a topic I love. What I want to know is how this feeling can turn so sour?

When I was writing the final essays for my courses last semester, I experienced this disintegration of excitement into anxiety, then bitterness and eventually overwhelming guilt and fear. It was the worst experience of my academic career. Literary analysis, whether at the undergraduate or post-graduate level, is hard. It's not like math or science when there are quantifiable facts that lead to indubitable answers. In literature courses, we are asked to come up with ideas to contribute to a discussion. Part of the problem is that I'm always intimidated by the fact that I'm not as well read as many of my classmates. And then I spend half my week reading secondary materials from experts in the field, which just makes me even more convinced that any of my ideas are not nearly intelligent enough. This is especially heightened at the post-graduate level - we are supposed to be the people that have excelled thus far, we've chosen to devote our lives (or at least a portion of it) to academia so we're expected to be quite intelligent from the word go. So here I suppose my problem is, as ever, my feelings of inadequacy. But I think there are other reasons for this problem among students - once we learn how easy it is to get by on just skimming the reading, we'll then slack off knowing we can eke our way through the course with the least amount of effort (more time for Netflix). Of course then, this leads to guilt for abandoning our passion for learning and to the deterioration of confidence in our academic abilities.

Look how excited this kid is about reading!

I'm not really sure what I'm saying of worth here. I suppose what I mean to say is that I wish I could keep my excitement about reading from the pollution of my anxieties. Of course all of this is tied up with all of my other anxieties about life in general (here again I can reference Sanne and also Rosianna of missxrojas, who made a video together about their life crises after graduating with English degrees and not knowing what to do). I'm just fighting against this stem of anxiety at the moment and searching for some inspiration.

In case you're curious my dissertation will be looking at chastity, sexual desire, and female self agency in Jacobean drama (and how it is performed on stage). And these books I checked out of the library today:
The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800 by Lawrence Stone
Domestic Dangers: women, words, and sex in early modern London by Laura Gowing
The Body Embarrassed: drama and the disciplines of shame in early modern England by Gail Kern Paster
Desire and Dramatic Form in Early Modern England  by Judith Haber
Hymeneutics: interpreting virginity on the early modern stage by Marie H. Loughlin
Domestic Life and Domestic Tragedy in Early Modern England: the material life of the household by Catherine Richardson

Reading Week!: the inevitable e-reader issue, review of the Kindle Paperwhite

For Christmas this year my mother surprised me with the new Kindle Paperwhite. I felt like I did at age 6 when I received my beloved Bitty Baby doll - pure joy and immediate love. Up until this past year, Rosie, my Bitty Baby, was hands-down my all time greatest Christmas gift. Now poor Rosie has been demoted and I am completely infatuated with the Kindle, making her (yes, she's a girl - she has a pink case so obviously) my new favourite Christmas gift.

Not-so-quick and dirty review

Look how pretty! 

Aesthetically this Kindle is very pleasing - small and slim, sleek, very minimalist with a screen just slightly smaller than an average mass market paperback page. I'm not sure how it compares in size to the other Kindles but I love its compact size. It feels as though I'm carrying a small paperback book, especially when I have it in my bright pink case (by Marware). I also love the paper and book themed images on the resting screen - pencils, fountain pens, etc. (the one I don't really get are the children's blocks - they have the alphabet on them, but still not particularly book related). As far as I know, these images are different from the other Kindle models, which show pictures of authors on the resting screen. The touch screen is a great feature as I never liked the older versions with keyboards. Also, obviously I need to comment on the unique "paperwhite" screen - it's very nice. Didn't say I would have a particularly useful comment, did I? I like that I can adjust the lighting of the screen and it is very easy on the eyes. In a dark room, it is actually suggested to use a lower light setting so you can read without straining your eyes, which I think is fantastic.

Using the Kindle has been very use-friendly. I like that I can organise my library into collections as I am a total organisation freak - also keeps the home screen from becoming cluttered, which is one thing I really hate. I won't go into detail about every little feature, so I'll just go over a few of my favourites and a few of my not-so favourites.

The good:
- At any point in the book you can touch the top of the screen to pull down a menu, from which you can navigate throughout the book or back to the home screen or store. You can also search the book for certain words (great for students analysing texts). There's also an X-ray feature that I don't really use, but it shows how often a certain character appears in that chapter or on that page.

It just wants to fit in with my other books
(theme: pink)

- I actually really like the highlighting and note-taking features. I am definitely someone who marks up books, and honestly I'm not going to lie and say this is the same thing because it's definitely lacking in comparison to my intricate system of annotation. However, I do really like that all of your notes and highlights can be viewed together in one place. This is really useful for students writing essays who don't want to be constantly flipping through the book to find that passage to quote - just go to the Notes page for the book and they're all there.

- I like seeing the percentage of how much of the book I've read. When I'm reading a book, I constantly close it up to see how far along my bookmark is. The Kindle just gives me that information right away - something I never would have thought of as a part of my reading experience but appreciate now that they've included it.

- I also love that you can get samples of books before buying them. When I'm browsing through a bookshop I often want to sit down and read the opening pages (sometimes I do!) but feel to awkward or rushed, like the booksellers will come up and charge me for reading the book without purchasing it first. This feature is just so great for indecisive people like me, very big thumbs up.

- The lending library for Amazon Prime members is also a really great perk. I'm a big fan of Amazon Prime in general because I'm very impatient when it comes to delivery times. The Kindle library is just another reason I'm glad I subscribed to the service. Perfect for those books you just want to read for fun even though you know you won't love them enough to pay money to own it.

Could have used the professional
photos but I decided to go with my own
shitty pictures

- I have also been using my Kindle to read documents quite a lot - if I'm assigned an article to read for class, I can download it on my laptop and then send it straight to my Kindle. I don't have a printer so this is a real life saver. I can highlight and make notes for class and then bring it to seminar bc it's a lot less of a hassle than carrying my laptop across town.


Ok, now onto the few complaints I have and they are all minor.

The bad:
- The touchscreen mechanism for turning the page is a bit iffy for someone like me who is very imprecise with all movements, even when it comes to touching a screen (seriously, how was I so good at the piano?). So I'm meaning to touch the right side of the screen to move forward, but I'm an imbecile and think just poking the screen anywhere will suffice so I end up going backwards or pulling down the top menu. Obviously I am just a little impaired, so for any normal human being the system should be very easy - left side to go backward, right side to go forward, top for the menu. Although I suppose it would be a bit confusing for someone reading in Hebrew or Arabic...

- The page number is not displayed unless you pull up the top menu - again a minor complaint, but annoying enough to notice. Yes, I like to see the time remaining and the percentage left in the book, but to eliminate the traditional mode of signifying your place in a books just seems stupid. I know we aren't holding a physical book with pages to flip, but if I were to cite a quotation on this page I would need the number. Not to mention the fact that we habitually think of books as made up of pages, that's how we mark our progress. Just because the format has changed, doesn't mean the ingrained way we comprehend the reading experience (or the book itself) has changed.

- My only big complaint with my Kindle experience is the battery life. I was told the battery would last as much as 8 weeks and I've found that to be false advertising. I've only owned my Kindle for 8 weeks and I've had to charge mine at least 3 times. Now, my suspicion is that I use up the battery life by browsing the Kindle store for new books. I know that I already browse Amazon for hours just looking up new books (adding them to my enormous Wish List) and Lord knows I can't pass by a bookshop without stopping in for "a few minutes" that somehow turn into a whole afternoon. So I suppose my addiction to browsing for books has crossed over to my Kindle, which isn't necessarily what it's meant for. However, I do feel that the 8 weeks promise was not accurate and it definitely annoys me. Yes, compared to my laptop and phone it has an amazing battery life. But I just hate feeling like I've been lied to, even about as trivial a thing as the battery life of my Kindle.

My other books have accepted
the Kindle as one of their own.

And that's all folks. I wanted to share some thoughts on the evolution of the book and the materiality of text as I spend quite a bit of my time contemplating those ideas as regarding the emergence of the book in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. That will have to be another post for another day because who knew I could talk so long about a little e-reader. Hopefully it's coherent enough to be helpful.

Reading Week!: Books, Books, Books

For the second instalment of Reading Week! I thought I would share what I am currently reading and what's next up on my reading agenda. I also have a goodreads for documenting more of my reading habits.

Currently Reading, February 2013:

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
- I just started this one last night and I am already halfway through it. I'm enjoying this one very much - not at all what I was expecting, but I love it's eccentricity.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfus
- I started this one over Christmas, finally taking up my brother's recommendation. I got about 100 pages into, but just when I was beginning to be sucked in I returned to England, set it aside to write some godawful essays, and never picked it back up (until now).

Therese Raquin by Emile Zola
- Ok, really I'm listening to the audio book read by Kate Winslet on my Audible app. It's actually quite good so far and Kate Winslet is such a wonderful narrator - now I just wish she could read to me all the time. Also in my audio book listening rotation is the first Harry Potter book read by Jim Dale. I try to listen to one or two of these Harry Potter audio books every year if I can as I have such a strong nostalgia attached to Jim Dale's readings that it feels like going home to my happy childhood every time I listen.

Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor
- I've only just started to get into this one, a few chapters in and I haven't been fully immersed yet. Although I do remember that it took me quite a while to get into Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but I ended up loving it. Maybe it's the world that just takes a slow start for me. This one will probably be in the background for a while, a chapter here and there, until I get sucked in.

Insurgent by Veronica Roth
- This one I've really only dipped my nose into once. I seem to have forgotten the ending of Divergent, which is at home in Baltimore so I am now at that crossroads wondering whether to put this on hold until I go home and can refresh my memory of Divergent or keep on with the hopes that my memory will reawaken as I get further into the story.

Up next for my reading:
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I also have a few books that are languishing half-read on my shelf that are in reserves:
The Stranger's Child by Alan Holinghurst
The Diviners by Libba Bray
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Windup Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

Ok, phew! That's a lot of reading - I'm definitely living up to my bookworm status in this post. Off to bed now for me, and a few more chapters of Swamplandia! I think.

Reading Week!: Arcadia by Lauren Groff

As it is now my Reading Week, the mid-semester break which is supposed to be used for revision and coursework, I thought I would get into the spirit of the "Reading" part and start a little week-long series here on the blog. As you can probably guess I don't have much going on in my life at the moment, so these little things help to keep my evenings filled (I've given up TV for Lent, possibly even longer,  so I am devoting much more time to reading and writing). I will of course be doing a lot of reading for my seminars and my disseration, but I am also going to use this opportunity to read for pleasure. Here on the blog I will be using this space for some book reviews, reading updates, and other bookish things. So without further ado here is the first installment:

Review: Arcadia by Lauren Groff

I remember reading Lauren Groff's first novel The Monsters of Templeton several years ago and being quite impressed by it, not particularly amazed but I liked the book enough to be intrigued when I saw her second book on the shelves last year. Although I knew the book had received critical praise, I began reading without very high expectations (a book about growing up on a hippie commune didn't sound initially appealing, perhaps a little close to home as my brother had recently taken up residence in an 'eco-village' that resembled a commune a bit too closely and the family was not very happy about his lifestyle). I quickly realised, however, that this book was definitely going to be one to bypass all expectation and succeed in amazing me. 

The story follows Bit as he grows up on what we would call a "hippie commune" - free love, drugs, veganism, etc. This premise is unique enough to stand out, but what is really special about the novel is Lauren Groff's beautiful writing. It was the very first book I read on my Kindle and so I was only just getting used to the new method for taking notes and making highlights, but I still found plenty of passages to mark up. In fact I am planning on buying a physical copy when I return to America (not a fan of the UK cover) so that I can reread it and fully mark it up as I do to my most beloved books. Groff's descriptions of childhood are very real - she captures the tenderness and vulnerability of a child's formative years. Mixed into the opening passages of Bit's childhood are some intelligent musings on language and the power of words (the strange physicality and materiality of them), told through the perspective of a young boy just discovering both. 

The middle part of the novel loses some of the magic. This perhaps is a signal of Bit's growing up - he is less amazed by the world around him, an adolescent with a much more stark view of the work around him. The strength of the middle part is instead Bit's relationships to the other characters and the relationships that complicate the idealistic world of Arcadia. I was pleasantly surprised by the final part of the book - I won't give anything away, but I liked the way Groff addressed the idea of utopia - the flaws in an idealistic society and later the longing for a (lost? nostalgically imagined?) utopia in a faltering society. In the end, the novel doesn't quite regain the intuition, effortlessness, and finesse of the opening passages. I still gave Arcadia five stars, however, because all throughout Groff's writing is simply wonderful. As a whole picture showing the progression of Bit's life, the novel works very well. Even more than just the story of one man's journey from childhood to adulthood, however, Groff also gives us an opportunity to grapple with complex truths - "The invisible tissue of civilization: so thin, so easily rendable," she observes, "It's a miracle that it exists at all."