Summer Reading Stack

My summer reading list is a little bit of PhD thesis and a lot of good fiction. And most of it is being done outside overlooking the Pacific Ocean, such a bonus. (Stop reading if you haven't finished HP 7.)

Alligator by Lisa Moore. It's been on my list for awhile and I'm really enjoying it - even more so than Open.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. So much hype surrounding this book. So didn't like Blood Meridian. But then the disparity between the literary taste of friends recommending it to me and Oprah picking it for her book club seemed so intriguing, that I finally picked it up during a delay at Heathrow. Hugely engaging, full of gut pulling moments and sweeping humanitarian implications, and I bawled when it was done.

Sharp Teeth by Tony Barlow. The next book to crack open of my reading stack. It hasn't been released yet, but some early reviews are calling it "part Coleridge, part Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Fascinating. And it's written in verse, which I kind of love.

Image Music Text by Roland Barthes. I am currently implementing "The Death of the Author" as my PhD mantra.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Was the big geek who bought it at 1am. Was then too hungover to read it on my flight, but when I finally dove into it when I arrived at my parents' house, oh my was it good. Read it standing for the last 150 pages. The Battle of Hogwarts blew my mind. Professor McGonagall rocks my socks. When Fred died, I bawled. When Dumbledore reappeared to Harry, I bawled. When my two year old prediction that Snape was the good guy was confirmed, I bawled. (Much bawling during this year's summer reading.)

Visual Culture: The Reader. Very much a PhD text, but I'm currently reading Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" and can't believe that it's taken me three years of PhD work to finally come across it. Small moment of embarrassment.