Just Readin'

I was first introduced to The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff by the movie version of the book, The Eagle . The Eagle was a great movie, mostly because it involved face paint and Channing Tatum. So, after I saw it, I decided to read the book, and, after I read the book, I hated the movie, because the book was so much better. The Eagle of the Ninth tells the story of a Roman centurion, Marcus, stationed in Roman Britain. Marcus comes from a long line of soldiers. His father marched with the Ninth Legion, which disappeared in the old Roman province of Valentia. Marcus is haunted by the memory of his father's legion and longs to lift this shame from his family's name. After Marcus is injured in battle and forced to leave the army, he decides to journey north of Hadrian's wall to try to recover the lost Eagle of his father's legion. What follows is a stunning adventure that spans the length of Britain. The story is that the author actually based the book o...

So, the other day I was on Facebook, you know, like your typical college student with three billion pages to read a night, and I found one of those list challenge where you go through a list of things and mark all the things on the list you've done. Anyway, I found one that was called '50 Books to Read Before You Die'. Anyway, I read a lot, so I thought it I would try it, but out of 50, I'd only read 19, and, while most of the books on the list are famous and well known and note-worthy, I don't think my life would be significantly different if I hadn't read Frankenstein. Which, by the way, was like the dullest book I've ever read. I don't really like this whole idea of list of "necessary" books. It's hard to create a list of books that everyone should read before they die because, obviously, not everyone likes the same sort of thing. That's not to say that I don't think dark or boring books can be valuable. For examp...

So, I just finished reading The Trojan Women by Euripides (I don't know if you can tell, but I'm a bit of a Euripides fan) and it raised an interesting question for me: can we blame Helen for the fall of Troy? If you don't know, The Trojan Women explores the aftermath of the sack of Troy, particularly what happens to the women of Troy, who have been taken as slaves by the Greek soldiers. Both the Trojans and the Greeks feel that Helen is responsible for the war (for good reason), but Helen herself argues that she is innocent. Helen tells Menelaus that Aphrodite made her run off with Paris and that after Paris was dead she tried to go back to Menelaus. That sounds like a pretty lame excuse to me, but it doesn't seem fair that the entire war should be blamed on Helen either. Depending on the source, I've come across two different versions of the Helen of Troy story, one that says she was kidnapped and one that says she went willingly. Personally, I can't ima...

I realized today that it's been a while since I wrote one of these favorite book blogs. So, today I want to tell you about The Voyage of the Dawn Treader . The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is one of the books in The Chronicles of Narnia series, technically, it's the third book in the series (in publication order), but it makes the most sense to read it as the fourth book. It frustrates me that, when people think of The Chronicles of Narnia , they automatically think of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe . Not to say that it's not a great book, but the Narnia books are so much more interesting, so much more complex that. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is so monumental in scope . They made a movie version of it, but it didn't really capture what the book was all about. They tried to make it an adventure story, which it is, but it's so much more than that. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader we see so much more of Narnia than ever before. It really begins to tak...

So, I think everyone in the world can agree that The Scottish Play is top-shelf bard. To my understanding, it is the play against which all other tragedies and histories (you could make the argument that Macbeth is a history, don't fight me on this) are measured (except for Richard III , nothing beats Richard III ). There are a lot of reasons why The Scottish Play is the classic that it is, a lot of reasons that scholars love to analyze it. But my favorite thing about Macbeth is that it's so, so, very weird (as in strange, not as in the Weird Sisters - hang on, we're getting there). Seriously; it's bizarre! I know that in a world that contains alligator hot dogs, the vampire birth scene in Breaking Dawn , and the English system, everything else seems fairly normal, but, it you consider it, Macbeth is a really strange play. There are apparitions, witches, and ghosts; at various times in the play, horses eat each other and chimneys are blown down by the force of one...

So, if you're ever upset because you've done something that you regret, then you should read Euripides' Medea , because nothing you could ever do could be as bad as what happens in Medea . As you know, I've been reading a lot of Greek tragedy, but their is nothing more Greek or more tragic than this play. Medea is the story of Medea, the wife of Jason (as in Jason and the Argonauts). The backstory is a little complicated, but basically what happens is that Medea betrays her family to help Jason and, in exchange, he marries her and they have two sons. They go to Corinth, where Jason precedes to abandon Medea in order to marry the daughter of the king. Medea's very logical response to this is to kill her children and Jason's new wife. Obviously, there's some nuance I'm skipping over, but that's pretty much the gist of it. Like, seriously, Edgar Allan Poe couldn't make this stuff up. Aside from all the gore, however, this is an interesting ...

So, today, I finished reading Beowulf for one of my English classes. In case you've never heard of it, Beowulf is an old English, epic-poem about a Scandinavian warrior named Beowulf. Most people think it's one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature. Apparently, it's been quite a week for Anglo-Saxon poetry. Anyway, as you know, I like Anglo-Saxon poetry, so I've tried to read it before, but I could never get through it. Which is weird, because it's not like it's a boring story or anything. It's actually a very good story. I tried to read it on my own before, and I've had to read parts of it for classes before, but it's very slow going. Anyway, when it was assigned for my English class, I decided that this time I was going to read it completely, no matter what. Anyway, I started reading it and I found myself getting lost in the complicated prose, unpronounceable names, and references to obscure events.  I realized that, normally,...

So, today I read J.R.R. Tolkien's latest posthumous book, The Fall of Arthur . I like Tolkien as much as anybody (although, admittedly, I never could get through It was simply beautiful . It's an epic poem written in Old English alliterative meter about, obviously, the fall of King Arthur. The meter reads so smoothly, so naturally, that you almost forget that you are reading structured poetry. It's odd to think that perhaps one of the best examples of ancient, alliterative meter was written in modern times. Usually, I would say that it's impossible to accurately replicate a writing style from a bygone time, but, in this case, Tolkien did a masterful job. Here's one of my favorite passages: ...Queen and lady.   But cold silver or glowing gold  greedy-hearted in her fingers taken   fairer thought she, more lovely deeming  what she alone treasured darkly hoarded.  Dear she loved him with love unyielding,...

So, a little while ago, for fun, I read the Oresteia of Aeschylus. In general, I'm a big fan of Greek tragedy, but the Oresteia was really something else. The great thing about Greek tragedy is that you get this huge outpouring of emotion in a very short, condensed space. It took me about two hours to read the Oresteia, but when I was done I felt like someone had just punched me in the stomach. There's something so vital about Greek tragedy; it has a huge emotional impact. I mean, you just don't get that from other works of poetry or fiction. Anyway, one of the reasons I liked the Oresteia is because you're never really sure whose side your on.  Obviously, Clytemnestra did a horrible thing by killing her husband, but her husband should not have killed her daughter. By the same token, two wrongs don't make a right; Orestes should not have killed his mother, Clytemnestra. Like, is this one messed up family or what? While most everyone sides with Orestes and Ele...

So, to combat the great injustice done unto the human race by Showtime when they denied the world a fourth season of The Borgias , I set out to read all the books ever written about the Borgia family ever. That goal lasted about five seconds because, let me tell you, there are a lot of books about the Borgias. They're so delightfully scandalous. Anyway, before I totally gave up on that goal, I was able to read Blood & Beauty by Sarah Dunant. Normally, I don't read recent releases, but I have to say, in this case, this book totally lived up to the hype. Blood & Beauty is a compelling, vividly imagined portrait of renaissance Italy at it's best, worst, and smuttiest. I loved it. Blood & Beauty wasn't the first book I read about the Borgias, so I knew the basic plot line going into the story, but what shocked me was the depth of emotion that Dunant was able to summon when writing about people so long dead and, more importantly, so long disliked. Like, I h...

When I was working on my historical fiction blog last week, I noticed that my original list of recommendations was like 90% Jean Plaidy. Quite simply, Jean Plaidy is the queen of historical fiction (which is funny because she writes about royalty a lot). In case you've never heard of Jean Plaidy (not her real name), she was an English novelist who wrote tons of books under a bunch of different pseudonyms, but her historical fiction was mostly written under the name Jean Plaidy. The first book I read by her was Victoria in the Wings , a novel about the succession crisis that resulted in Queen Victoria's birth. With a title like Victoria in the Wings, you would think that the book would mostly be about Queen Victoria, however I was surprised, though not disappointed, to realize that that was not the case. Like a lot of her novels that I later read, Plaidy approaches the historical figure by first firmly establishing the political and familial setting. I appreciate that ...

So, in the spirit of continuing on the theme of 'historical' blogs, I have decided to give you some historical fiction recommendations. As you may have guessed from my frequent rants on history and historical inaccuracies, I rather enjoy reading about history. As a result, I read a lot of historical fiction. And, when I say a lot, I mean a ton. So, without further ado, here are some of my recommendations for good, historical fiction reads.   1) The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory - This was one of the first historical fiction novels I ever read that was written for adults. While it was quite a shock for a twelve year old, after re-reading it as an adult, I have to say that is quite an entertaining book. It tells the story of Mary and Anne Boleyn, two girls locked in a fatal battle for a king's affection. I think the struggle with historical fiction is always, first and foremost, humanizing the characters. This book especially does a wonderful job of humanizing Henr...

As an English major, I have to have an opinion about Shakespeare. Personally, I'm a fan of the histories. I like the comedies as much as the next person, but I think that there's some perspective to be gained from reading dramatizations of real (or mostly real) events. I quite like King John and Macbeth (which, in my opinion is both a tragedy and a history), but my favorite Shakespeare play is, without a doubt, Richard III . While half the fun of Richard III is Richards wile and villainy, I think that a lot of people make a mistake when they assume that Shakespeare's Richard is the same as the historical Richard. I recently wrote a post on my main blog about my evolving opinion of Richard III ; to make a long story short, I think that, while Richard made some bad decisions, he wasn't evil. It was hard to be a good guy in England during the War of the Roses. Even the much applauded Edward IV was capable of extreme acts of brutality and even executed his own brot...

I recently finished reading a book that I didn't think that I would like. The Night Gwen Stacy Died was an unexpected gem. I originally checked it out of the library because, excusably, I thought it was about Spider Man. Incidentally, I still think that someone should write a novel about Spider Man, but I'm glad that Sarah Bruni wasn't the one to do it. Her novel so was so much better, so much stranger, sadder, and romantic. The story follows two unlikely allies: 'Peter Parker', a man who has spun a comic book fantasy life in his mind and believes himself to have something akin to 'Spidey Sense', and Shelia, a high school student who dreams of escaping her small town life. The two throw their lot in together when they rob the gas station where Shelia works and run off to Chicago to save the life of a man that Peter has been dreaming about for months. Peter's dreams have a nasty habit of coming true and, after having a premonition about a man who tri...

After writing my non-fiction recommendations a little while ago, I got to thinking about what my fiction recommendations would be. These are a little bit harder, because I read a lot more fiction than non-fiction and there are so many wonderful books that I could recommend. To counteract this problem, I've decided to write a series of blogs about my favorite books. As someone who reads a lot, I usually find it hard to answer the question, "what is your favorite book?", it's like asking a parent to pick their favorite child. However, after much thought and deliberation, I have decided to that Ivanhoe , by Sir Walter Scott, is my favorite book. Ivanhoe , in my view, is an unlikely classic. In the words of my friend's father, who is an English professor at Penn State, Ivanhoe is the classic "that no one ever reads". I can understand that; it's a story about chivalry, love, and honor and other virtues that are looked upon as 'medieval' in t...

So, I recently realized that I haven't reviewed any non-fiction yet on this blog. I feel that that's a little unfair to non-fiction, because I've read some excellent pieces of non-fiction in my life. The reason I haven't written about non-fiction yet is that I haven't really read any non-fiction in a while. So, I've decided to give you a list of what I think is really, really good non-fiction. Granted, all of it's been about historical events/figures, but if you're interested in that sort of stuff, I've got some great recommendations for you. 1) The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough - I originally read this book for a class and it was a great experience. This was a great book, with the readability of a novel and an especial emphasis on the stories of the survivors. It covered more than just the actual event of the flood and the most interesting part of the book was the section on the aftermath, which assessed weather or not the flood was a man m...

The most terrifying book I've ever read was written for 9 year olds. I just finished reading Coraline , by Neil Gaiman and let me tell you that Frankenstein and Stephen King and the movie Gothic (which was perhaps the most disturbing thing I've ever seen) have nothing on this book. In case you are unfamiliar with the story of Coraline; the book is about a little girl who finds a doorway in her house that leads to an alternate world where everything is the same but different. There, Coraline meets her 'other mother' and 'other father' who have buttons for eyes. Anyway, Coraline's other mother kidnaps her real parents and tries to make Coraline stay with her forever and sew buttons into her eyes and make her play with singing rats (not singing rats in a cute way either, singing rats in a Kujo sort of way). The other mother has a whole closet full of dead children and she keeps their souls in marbles. The weird thing is, if I read this about eight years ...

So, today I saw the new The Great Gatsby movie, to which I say "eh". I love the novel, but the movie version of The Great Gatsby sort of disappointed me. Sure, the movie was really cool from a visual standpoint, but it wasn't The Great Gatsby as it was written. They really took the substance out of the story and made it one long frat party, set to hip-hop music. Which didn't make a lot of sense to me, given that The Great Gatsby is supposed to be set in the 1920s. Apparently, no one told Baz Luhrmann. The problem with his adaptation is that Luhrmann was so heavy handed with the story. I mean, if the metaphors were any more obvious, they would jump out of the screen and beat you over the head with a herring. However, all those things are forgivable. What was not forgivable was the casting of Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway. I say that not because his acting was bad, but because there is no place for Spider-Man in The Great Gatsby. Seriously, that was practicall...

Poet William Blake once said of John Milton's Paradise Lost , "he [Milton] was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it" (side note, I actually had to write a short paper on this quote for one of my English classes a few months ago and it was a thoroughly deplorable experience). Though I'm not going to talk about Paradise Lost today, this quote rather reminds me of a book I recently read: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. That's not to say that the angels are the bad guys or anything like that. Actually, if I had to pick, I'd say that the demons come across as rather villainy (shocking, I know). However, they're not the real villains of the story. Actually, thinking back on it, I'm not really sure who the villain is in this story.  In a nutshell, without giving away anything, the book is a comedy about the apocalypse, the son of Satan, and an angel and a demo...