what I've been reading
I've been thinking about doing this for a while because bookblather always does and it looks cool and I read a lot, so, I thought I might post regularly about what I'm reading so this LJ won't just be about all the paper writing I have to do at university.
Right now, I'm reading Ten Little Indians by Sherman Alexie. It's a short story collection and I have one more story to go (40 pages). I haven't really read all that much Native American literature before even though I know lots of people I study with love it. One of the applicants for the new North American literature and culture professorship did a talk about one of Alexie's short stories back in late January and I've been wanting to read Alexie ever since. I read one short story that isn't included in the anthology for my American lit and culture seminar last summer ("Dear John Wayne") but I don't think I really appreciated Alexie's humor all that much then. I've been loving Ten Little Indians though.
I've started reading Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. Shut up, I didn't know it was a children's book until I got it. I only knew it was a classic you had to read at some point and German children apparently don't read all that many American children's books? At least my dad didn't read them to me. It's incredibly cute though. I can't remember the last time I read a book with illustrations in it. Even though I'm a little disappointed because I thought Charlotte was a human girl and didn't know she was a spider.
When I finish both of these books (which will be tomorrow), I'm going to start reading How Children Learn Language by William O'Grady. I'm taking a language acquisition class based on that book in April and I'm really interested. Usually, I only read one book at a time (I only started reading Alexie because I needed a book while some people were here watching soccer and I didn't want to be reading a book with a little pig on the cover) but I'm not used to reading linguistics books, so I think I need something to go along with it. I'm thinking None to Accompany Me by Nadine Gordimer. It's one of the four books I need to read for a class I'm taking in late June and I want to read all of them fairly soon so I can start (and hopefully finish) writing the paper for the class before the class actually starts.
Oh, and I finished The Bonesetter's Wife by Amy Tan on Monday. It's much better than her third book. I can't recall its name right now but that one was pretty bland.