Tuesday, May 29, 2012

something new: summer reading list


Like I said before, this blog isn't going to be solely about my internship. There's too much else I love to do and want to share.

Firstly, reading. For the past couple years I've been keeping track of what I read - it reminds me of what I was thinking about at a particular time or what new ideas I was introduced to. So I'll continue to do that here, on this page. But I'd also like to share my thoughts about the books I read, since being away from school I don't really have anyone to discuss them with or papers to write.


To start...

You know those questionares that ask you all about your favorites? Your favorite color, season, food, etc? Well, this is what I put for my favorite book (if I really have to narrow it down to just one): To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.


The week after school ended I needed a novel to read and decided to pick up To the Lighthouse again. The first time I read it, about a year ago, it blew my mind. There's very little dialogue and the external action is secondary to the internal workings of the characters. So it's basically a novel of people's thoughts, feelings and reactions. In a way, it seems like a photographic negative.

There's one scene, a dinner scene, about in the middle of the first third of the book. The thing that drives the scene isn't what the characters are directly telling each other but how they're interpreting everyone's non-verbal communication and the way their thoughts are rambling, what connections they're making. It's very real and raw but - from what I've read - unusual in literature.

In short, To the Lighthouse is the story of a family and their company at a summer house on the Scottish Hebrides. But it's really much more than that.




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