Tuesday, May 14, 2013

May Biblio-Update

Greetings from the strawberry patch!
Hi, guys :)
Spring is in full swing in my neck of the woods and although it's a bit chilly for my taste (and no, you won't hear me complaining about the heat in August) nature's promising all kinds of goodies. Our strawberry patch is the one I'm most excited about. Hubby spent all day yesterday bunny-proofing it so my hopes are high.
If you've been following the blog you may have noticed that things haven't been going according to plan exactly. That's because back in January on a whim I took a Coursera Fantasy & Science Fiction course. We read a book a week, had to write essays, watch videos, evaluate each other's work and I loved every minute of it. Well, except for the part where a peer accused me of plagiarism because I used the phrase "socio-economic issues" in an essay. That wasn't fun but that was one essay. You've been reading my reviews for the books we covered ever since I realized that I haven't been posting any for all the studying, and I hope you've been enjoying them. So far these are the Fantasy & Sci-Fi curriculum novels I've reviewed:
Only Little Brother by Cory Doctorow is left but you'll see it on Sunday.
I had a short reprieve and have been able to catch up on my book club reading but today that's over for the next 15 weeks: I'm beginning two consecutive Coursera courses and there will be lots of work involved again. The first is a basic writing tools course which I'm taking as a grammar refresher to help me in my writing, those pesky commas get me every time. The second is called Fiction of Relationships and it will be examining relationships in a number of works of fiction covering the last several centuries, so you'll be seeing reviews of some more classics. I've been saying for a while that I needed to catch up on those and here's my chance! I expect it will be a very interesting and informative experience and although I'm a tiny bit intimidated by the fact that it's a Brown University course I'm at the same time very excited to have the opportunity to participate in it. Here's my reading list:
Manon Lescaut - Abbé Prévost
Bartleby the Scrivener - Herman Melville
Benito Cereno - Herman Melville
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
In the Penal Colony - Franz Kafka
The Country Doctor - Franz Kafka
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Light in August - William Faulkner’s
Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges
The Ice Palace - Tarjei Vesaas
Beloved - Tony Morrison
Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee
I will do my best to post at least 2 reviews every three weeks although Special Feature posts will probably continue to be in short supply until about the middle of August. I'll do my best to post something special every once in a while but girl's got to prioritize!
Since my reading plans for this year are getting a major overhaul I think it's safe to say that I won't be able to read all the books I so giddily posted about at the end of last year. Oh well, may be next time :)
Hope the year's going well for you all!

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