A few months back, Lollygagger posted a review of Lewis Dartnell’s The Knowledge, which was described as a sort of real-life companion to Station Eleven. Since my fall Composition I course will be focusing on dystopia, I thought a real-life how-to guide might be a great thing to read. And it certainly was interesting. While Dartnell does not tell you how to skin a deer or make an igloo, he does talk about some of the building blocks of society that we will need to […]
I came for the dystopia, but stayed for the Ultraman references.
I am not, generally, a fast reader. These days, it’s a rare thing for me to devour a book over a weekend. Ready Player One started as a much-needed reprieve from presidential biographies (I’ve gotten bogged down in an FDR biography), and ended up a marathon session that left me both highly entertained and saddened by its inevitable end. For the few who haven’t yet read Ready Player One, it is (to put it simply) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but with 80s pop culture […]
In which I admit my addiction to Cormac McCarthy…
I know a LOT of people who have read The Road and were thoroughly traumatized by it. Several advised me to wait and read it when it was sunny outside, so I wouldn’t be depressed afterwards. I did follow that advice, but I also read two McCarthy books that did not coincide with sunshine. And, frankly, I found Blood Meridian to be such a bloodbath that The Road, as bleak as it is, cannot even compare. I’ve concluded that The Road is the most traumatizing […]
Teaching a novel I love brings new insights.
Last year, I reviewed Never Let Me Go for CBR6, and I almost didn’t review it for CBR7, because I didn’t want to bore you all with a rehash. So here’s what I’ve decided. I’ll attach last year’s review, which contains a pretty decent synopsis, and then I’ll delve into the new things I picked up this year. This time around, I’m teaching it to my ENGL 1002 course, which has been enlightening and eye-opening. At first, I was super nervous teaching them a novel. […]