Comments | maneki_angel: Books I Read for 2010

maneki_angel

Books I Read for 2010

Jan 01, 2011 10:29

Stole Fiona's idea to create a yearly book list. Not as long as I would have liked it to be, but I only have another 1.5 years of didactic coursework from pharmacy school to squash my reading time.

( What I read this year: )

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danseinfernale January 10 2011, 01:03:51 UTC

wuuut! I need to read the Book Thief, and House of Leaves. Geek Love is helllaa.

What do you think of David Foster Wallace?

maneki_angel January 10 2011, 20:43:16 UTC

The Book Thief was so good! House of Leaves only scared me for the first 400 pages, then it just dragged on forevs. Geek Love was so good, read it based on your recommendation!

I love all the non-fiction stuff I've read by David Foster Wallace. The first essay I read by him was about how in schools your writing is only considered good if you can write like a WASP and creative liberities are really discouraged. Which I totally relate to, because I feel like I can write essays in 'White English' and while I think my other classmates are good writers it's not what the teacher is looking for.

danseinfernale January 14 2011, 09:02:02 UTC

Wait, REALLY? I have always heard that DFW takes the exact opposite stance and is annoyingly prescriptivist which is why I've always put off reading things by him. I guess it's time to stop listening to my friends, ha. I'll read some of his stuff then!

maneki_angel January 14 2011, 17:21:36 UTC

He is a prescriptivist but honestly I jizz errywhere over his grammar because I just love when people can articulate goods ideas and package them right (slightly unrelated note: sometimes I cannot believe I'm dating someone who can't use 'to' vs 'too' correctly all the time, and that's just the beginning of his problems ;_; Arizona school systems y u so bad). Somehow DFW manages to make being a prescriptivist his style and his writing is so unerring self-conscious and full of footnotes it is exactly what I could picture myself doing too. In DFW's book Consider the Lobster he has a hilarious essay about why he was warped into a prescriptivist (at least he's not just doing it to be a pompous asshole) and then he goes on to talk about linguistics war so that might be a good place to start.

danseinfernale January 14 2011, 09:03:28 UTC

Also, did you like the Watchmen? I love that book so much yet I can't convince Sean to read it.

maneki_angel January 14 2011, 17:24:48 UTC

I love that book so much! Rich and I read it together and it made me want to grow my hair out and dress up as the Silk Spectre for Halloween. HOW CAN YOU NOT CONVINCE A BOY TO READ A GRAPHIC NOVEL?

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