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Beth
La mia biblioteca
My books are not possessions, but portals. I always think of the bit in The Magician's Nephew in which Digory and Polly find themselves in the Wood Between the Worlds. They are in a beautiful forest with many ponds, and they know that each pond leads to a different world. This is my library. This is why it is utterly impossible to get rid of a book. You never know when you will need to revisit that world.

Personal Favorites

Possession, A.S. Byatt
Every time I read this book (which is at least once a year) I find something else in it that absolutely blows me away. Whether you focus on the plot, the word play, the fables and fairy tales, the letters, the research methods,the evocation of place, the ideas debated... whatever, this book is amazing. As an aspiring writer, this is the book that inspires and intimidates me every time I read it. I love this book. If you didn't like it the first time through, try it again. Byatt takes work. But holy mother, totally worth it.

Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers
I love all of the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane books- this one is mentioned as representative since in this one they actually (finally!) get together. In my opinion, theirs is the perfect relationship- they are both ridiculously well-educated, violently protective of their autonomy, and verbose. And they have to learn how to make each fully defined "I" work as a "we". Nobody loses or gives up parts of their identity... they compromise. What an amazing concept. Dorothy Sayers fills her character's dialogue with sideways allusions to literature, history and philosophy and phrases in Greek, Latin, Italian and French- it's exhilarating when you understand her and informative when you don't. If Romeo or Sir Percy (Blakeney, of course) were the ideal in high school, Wimsey has since taken over that role.

The Flight of the Falcon, Daphne du Maurier
A successful young tour guide meets a decrepit beggar woman from his past and gets pulled into a particularly violent college demonstration. Although I love many of du Maurier's books, this one is my favorite. It blends the unrest of the twentieth century (student demonstrations, enforcers reminiscent of Hitler Youth) with the sense of timelessness contained in the ancient architecture of old Italian towns. The twists are consistently surprising and the atmosphere builds to a truly shocking conclusion.



Informazione su di me
I'm working on a PhD in Victorian literature, and I'm a little obsessed with (mix and match the following):ghost stories, medieval mystics, transcendence, ideas about the body, ideas about the self, ideas about the afterlife and, always ideas about desire. I'm interested in queer theory, gender theory, and narrative theory; I continually come back to the philosophical underpinnings of Descartes.

I'm trying to cut back on the amount of contemporary fiction I read (there are only so many hours in the day!) but it's rare that I'm not reading at least one fun book in addition to everything else.

Luogo
Washington, DC
Pagina principale
http://southernbluestocking.com
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Librerie: Barnes & Noble Booksellers - Greenville, The Open Book

Biblioteche: Greenville County Library System (Hughes Main Branch)

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