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Do you know what you’re reading this summer?

Do you know what you’re reading this summer?

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Who wants to read?! Not you, probably, as you slog through to the last stretch before finals. And I get it, you’ve read hundreds of pages of theory, history, literature, science, etc., and if you’re a humanities major you’ve probably read more Freud than you think should be legal under the Geneva Convention. But whether you believe in it or not, there is life after finals and a whole summer stretched before you. Maybe you have an internship, a summer…

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Some Struggles of Not Having Read All of Game Of Thrones (Yet!)

Some Struggles of Not Having Read All of Game Of Thrones (Yet!)

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Like many pretentious liberal arts college students, I pride myself on the frequency with which I read a book before seeing its on-screen adaptation. I will never not casually #humblebrag that I read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy during elementary school—yes, before any of the movies were released. That being said, I have not read the books since then and I really don’t think I could again when they are just so dang long, and I might just…

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Opening Lines of Novels that Work For Me

Opening Lines of Novels that Work For Me

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“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” It is also a truth universally acknowledged that we’ve all heard the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice approximately a million times. And there’s a reason for that. The opening lines of classic novels have a tendency to become iconic, gaining lives of their own beyond the fame of the novel itself.  There are certain opening lines…

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In Defense of “Young Adult,” Sort of

In Defense of “Young Adult,” Sort of

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I’ll admit it: when it comes to books, I have a tendency to be a bit pretentious. So, when I started reading John Green’s novels and loved them after having turned my nose up at the “young adult” shelf for years, I went through a period of mild identity crisis. I tried to reconcile my conflicting feelings and I was just short of tossing and turning in my sleep over it. Thankfully, I have been courageous enough to work through…

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Vassar Alumnae Must-Reads

Vassar Alumnae Must-Reads

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If you are anything like me, you probably had plans to read a few novels over winter break but became too engrossed in sleeping, eating, and watching Scandal on Netflix to even so much as glance at a book. Don’t worry – there is still time to read something solely for pleasure before professors really start piling on the assignments and reading anything else becomes unthinkable. During the first few weeks of the semester, I always start a title from…

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Book Banning: The Importance of Controversial Texts

Book Banning: The Importance of Controversial Texts

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Although Banned Books Week–an annual week-long celebration of the freedom to read–already occurred in September, it is always relevant to think about issues of censorship and book banning, both in the United States and countries around the world. While banning books might seem like a practice of the past–challenged by modern, progressive ideas of intellectual expression–hundred of complaints and challenges to different titles (over 464 in 2012) are reported by the American Library Association each year. Over 11,000 books have…

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The Importance of Bookstores

The Importance of Bookstores

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Growing up, I was always enchanted by bookstores. At my local bookstore, I would wander through the seemingly endless shelves, searching through the battered copies of used books and the shiny new bestsellers. I would pull out a novel and curl up on the floor between the shelves to read the first few pages, hoping each time that I had discovered the perfect purchase. Now, bookstores continue to remind me of the endless possibilities of the literary world, displaying all of…

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