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Sunday, 22 March 2015

An Education


The irony of having done a literature degree and compiling a list of the books I didn’t read is not lost on me. Especially considering how much I did want to read these particular books. That being said, there were definitely books I could have done without – Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg; the title alone should have put me off  – as well as books I happily did without – everything on the reading list of the experimental Early Tudor module I took; I got a 2:2 and I regret nothing. However, a few real classics slipped through the cracks and, at the risk of sounding nerdy, I do regret missing out on a few tutorial discussions. So, here it is, without further adieu, a list of the top five books I wished I’d read followed by my top five favourite books I read whilst at uni. 

TOP 5 BOOKS I WISH I’D READ
1/Manhattan Transfer – John dos Passos
2/Blue Highways – William Least Heat-Moon
3/Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
4/Orlando – Virginia Woolf
5/Middlemarch – George Eliot

TOP FIVE BOOKS I READ
1/The Awakening – Kate Chopin
2/Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
3/All My Sons – Arthur Miller (…more accurately, every Arthur Miller play)
4/Native Son – Richard Wright
5/Beloved – Toni Morrison


Interestingly, the latter list contains a majority of American writers and a majority of woman writers, both minorities in the grand scheme of my education. Keep an eye out for updates as I attempt to work through the former list in upcoming posts.

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