Read Guide

July 2022

THE STRANGER | ALBERT CAMUS

Albert Camus made it clear that he didn’t identify as an existentialist, despite his work fitting neatly into the classification. But it’s unclear how he felt about the term absurdism, essentially created for him. The Stranger is about a man embracing the meaninglessness of existence in an increasingly secularized society. And it happens to take place over the summer. Sometimes translated as The Outsider, the book’s main character Meursault is a French man living in French-occupied Algeria. Disoriented by the heat and partially blinded by the reflection of the sunlight off the knife of a man attacking his neighbor, Meursault kills a man on the beach, unnecessarily unloading every round into him after the first fatal shot. His general apathy towards life is alien to the court, and he is thus found guilty of murder. The book continues to explore the thoughts of a man sentenced to death in a universe with no higher power.

TO THE LIGHTHOUSE | VIRGINIA WOOLF

To The Lighthouse isn’t really a plot-driven book. My reading of it was Virginia Woolf expressing her own thoughts, opinions, and emotions through multiple characters. Essentially, it takes place over two summers ten years apart. The first section introduces the characters Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay, their eight kids, and some guests at their summer home, including painter Lily Briscoe. The kids want to visit an island lighthouse by boat, but Mr. Ramsay is wary of the weather. Woolf’s unconventional narrative involves little dialogue but is told in the third person by an omniscient narrator. The middle section describes the events of the past ten years before the family finally reconvenes with their house guests from 10 years ago to visit the lighthouse at the end.

INFINITE JEST | DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

Infinite Jest isn’t about summer, but summer break is probably the best time to read it, or so the creators of the blog Infinite Summer thought. The site was a book club that read Infinite Jest from June to September in 2009 and analyzed it in a series of discussion posts. Though it’s not required that you read it in the summer, I certainly did by coincidence shortly after graduating with my BA. Infinite Jest is a groundbreaking hysterical realist fiction with some dispute over which school of thought it exists in. With several narratives, the sur-thousand-page book centers around a film that is so entertaining that viewers lose interest in anything else and eventually die.

Also, check out this summer reading list from our Instagram.

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Curated by Andrew Scott

June 2022

CHOKE | CHUCK PALAHNIUK

Chuck Palahniuk found unexpected success with his first book, *Fight Club*, which I’m sure you’ve heard of as he sold the rights for its adaptation into a wildly popular film starring Brad Pit and Edward Norton. Palahniuk reluctantly came out in 2008. He was concerned an interviewer he confided in about his partner off the record would out him. Though his work does not often feature explicitly gay characters, most of his characters are working through being marginalized in some way. *Choke*, probably his second most extolled novel is about a sex addict turned con man to help support his mother.

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY | OSCAR WILDE

Despite being married and fathering two sons, Oscar Wilde was secretly gay. After starting an affair with a poet, Alfred, who was 16 years younger than him, he was essentially outed by his lover’s father via a calling card in which he referred to Wilde as a “posing somdomite,” misspelling sodomite. Sodomy was outlawed in England at the time in the late 1800s. Despite this, Wilde tried to sue his lover’s father for libel. The defense used *The Picture of Dorian Gray* to imply that Wilde seduced Alfred with erotic themes in the novel. It resulted in Wilde serving two years in prison. *Dorian Gray* is about a man who wishes to sell his soul so that a painting of him ages instead of him.

TENDER BUTTONS | GERTRUDE STEIN

Gertrude Stein was an American modernist writer, though she moved to France in 1903. *Tender Buttons* is probably her most famous work and an excellent introduction to her writing style. Stein’s technique of recontextualizing everyday objects was called “verbal cubism” by Poets.org. Though poetry is decidedly subjective, especially when it is as novel as Stein’s, many people interpret the poems to have an underlying theme of lesbianism. It’s hard to deny the sexual-sounding nature of the title. Personally, I found her poems to be much deeper than sexuality, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be multifaceted, either.

GIOVANNI'S ROOM | JAMES BALDWIN

James Baldwin was an American writer and Activist who also moved to France. *Giovanni’s Room* is about an American living in Paris named David. The book covers a lot of different subjects, like identity, isolation, gender, and sexuality, but the main focus is David’s relationship with the eponymous Italian bartender, Giovanni. From this description, *Giovanni’s Room* seems semi-autobiographical or some form of autofiction. But Baldwin insists that, despite being influenced by his life in Paris, the book is not autobiographical. David is actually a blonde man Baldwin met who was later executed. Thus it’s easy to presume Baldwin did not base Giovanni on one of his partners.

QUEER | WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS

*Queer* is technically William S. Burroughs’ second novel and a spiritual sequel to his first, *Junkie;* however, it wasn’t published until 1985 because, in 1953, when he finished writing it, the explicit homosexuality in it was seen as obscene. His next and most famous novel, *Naked Lunch,* was published in a timely manner in 1959 and landed him in a Boston obscenity trial. *Naked Lunch* remains the last work of literature consisting of only words to face such a trial in history. *Queer* is a relatively short autofiction that follows protagonist Lee in his futile pursuit of a man named Gene Allerton.

Curated by Andrew Scott

May 2022

THIS IS WATER | DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

*This Is Water* is an essay David Foster Wallace read as a commencement speech to Kenyan College in 2005. Wallace later published it into a short 138-page book in 2009. His speech offered a uniquely sympathetic perspective on adult life to the 2005 graduating class. The part that stood out to me most when I read it was his parable of being stuck in rush hour traffic only to wait in the post-work rush grocery store line in this endless cycle of mundanity and how now one explained to him growing up that this was a large part of adult life.

RULES OF ATTRACTION | BRET EASTON ELLIS

You probably know Bret Easton Ellis best from his book *American Psycho* which Edward R. Pressman made into a film starring Christian Bale. It’s an odd occurrence of a film adaptation made as good as the original text without making it obsolete. The film took on a life of its own, but the book is this cerebral work of stream-of-conscious writing. *Rules of Attraction* is written in the same style, starting and ending mid-sentence. *Rules of Attraction* follows Sean Bateman in his fictional liberal arts undergraduate program. Sean’s older brother becomes the main character in *American Psycho*. It’s a satire of college culture. After you read it, you’ll realize that these were possibly not the greatest years of your life, as people often say. It’s just the beginning.

THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO | JUNOT DÍAZ

*The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao* has won several awards, was praised by many critics, and sold almost 40 thousand copies in the first three months of its publication. It follows the titular character through his undergraduate career at Rutgers. Oscar struggles with finding love and having a social life as an overweight mixed-race Dominican-American nerd. The book also follows his travels back and forth between his hometown of New Jersey and the Dominican Republic. Junot Díaz wrote *Oscar Wao* in Spanglish without offering translation for the Spanish segments.

GET GOOD WITH MONEY | TIFFANY ALICHE

Now that you’re an adult, it’s probably a good idea to understand personal finance. Tiffany Aliche has got you covered. Known as “The Budgetnista,” Aliche is a personal finance expert. Her passion for personal finance arose after losing her job as a teacher in The Great Recession. It eventually led her to create The Budgetnista, a personal finance education company dedicated to empowering women. *Get Good With Money* is her ten-step guide for achieving financial stability.

Curated by Andrew Scott

April 2022

THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: AN UNNATURAL HISTORY | ELIZABETH KOLBERT

In *The Sixth Extinction*, journalist Elizabeth Kolbert argues that the earth is experiencing another mass extinction event, like what happened to the dinosaurs. Mostly, Kolbert finds climate change to be a chief factor in causing widespread extinction during the Anthropocene era, the Anthropocene being the geological epoch during which the earth started to become significantly impacted by the presence of humans. As a journalist and not a scientist herself, Kolbert’s work relies on interviews and extensive research of her own. Kolbert explores some nonhuman-related extinctions but mostly covers species wiped out by human activity.

WALDEN | HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Henry David Thoreau was a philosopher, an essential figure in the transcendental movement, and a close friend to its founder Ralph Waldo Emerson. Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that started during the late 1820s in America. Transcendentalists were secularists who saw divinity in nature and believed people to be inherently and independently good, only corrupted by society’s institutions. Though Emerson founded the movement, Thoreau was more extreme and jailed for refusing to pay taxes. *Walden* is about that social experiment. For two years, two months, and two days, Thoreau sequestered himself in a cabin in the woods owned by Emerson, recording precise observations on nature, living alone, and providing for himself.

LEAVES OF GRASS | WALT WHITMAN

If you weren‘t already aware, Walt Whitman was an American romantic poet living during the 19th century. Though romanticism started in Europe, one of its fundamental tenets is the appreciation of nature. America in the 19th century had an abundance of raw land, as it turns out. *Leaves of Grass* is a collection of poems that explores Whitman’s humanistic philosophies. Like Thoreau, Whitman was part of a movement of secularization that was concerned with deifying nature, shifting focus from religion to the material realm. Whitman described early cover art for the collection as symbolizing “being one with nature.”

HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE: LEARNING TO FIGHT IN A WORLD ON FIRE | ANDREAS MALM

*How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire* is a critique of pacifist climate activism. Andreas Malm is advocating not for assassination or warfare but sabotage. *How to Blow Up a Pipeline* started as an inquiry into the lack of climate activism. But what Malm ended up taking issue with was the quality of climate activism. It’s unarguably an original stance and particularly interesting given the recent Black Lives Matter protests over lockdown. With an existential threat like climate change that affects humanity as a whole, it’s a wonder no one has even thought to suggest anything other than nonviolent protest and education. Most criticism of the book is nuanced, praising Malm for his valid points and questioning whether sabotage could do more harm than good. While Malm doesn’t explicitly describe how to sabotage, focusing more on why to do so, *How to Blow Up a Pipeline* has still been met with reproval from more right-leaning interpreters.

Curated by Andrew Scott

MARCH 2022

THE HANDMAID'S TALE | MARGARET ATWOOD

*The Handmaid’s Tale* is an easy, linear read. I was assigned it in high school and found it to be quite compelling. At the time, I was really into dystopian fiction for some reason. In *Handmaid’s Tale*, Margaret Atwood takes misogyny to a logical extreme. In the exposition, an extremist regime takes over the US and reduces civil liberties, particularly for women. Coincidentally, pollution has made fertility rare among women, so the government creates a caste system in which fertile women serve essentially as childbearing vassals for commanders. The book has won several awards. Atwood sold the rights for the book’s adaptation to film, opera, and, most recently, television. After the television series was released, Atwood published a sequel called, *The Testaments*. Transpiring 15 years after *Handmaid’s Tale*, *The Testaments*’ narrative form assumes the perspective of three women, one of whom was also in the previous book.

A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN | VIRGINIA WOOLF

Though I do jump at any excuse to talk about Virginia Woolf, it’s actually relevant this time. *A Room of One’s Own* is an almost 200-page essay based on a couple of lectures Woolf gave at two different women’s colleges affiliated with Cambridge. The book is about how society does not nurture women in the same way that men are to become great writers and probably a lot of other professions. This is summed up in the title, which references an excerpt of the essay, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” A good chunk of the book explores the idea of a female Shakespeare and whether society is capable of producing one, at one point creating a hypothetical character, Judith Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s sister.

INANNA, LADY OF LARGEST HEART: POEMS OF THE SUMERIAN HIGH PRIESTESS | ENHEDUANNA

It’s women’s history month. Why not read the earliest known author in human history? That is correct, folks; the first writer in recorded history was the poet Enheduanna, the priestess of the moon in ancient Sumeria. Enheduanna wrote hymns inscribed on clay tablets dedicated to various Sumerian deities. The most recent translation of her work was published in 2000 and comes to about 250 pages. While this is the most lauded on Goodreads, it is not without some criticism. Mostly if readers took issue with it, they condemned the translator’s personal interpretations, not the translation itself.

TIME IS A MOTHER | OCEAN VUONG

In an effort to provide something more contemporary, I’m going to suggest a male author. Last month I wrote about Melissa Broder. All of her books are written by a woman. You can also look into Mira Gonzalez and Darcy Wilder for more contemporary female-written literature. None of these authors and poets have a work that focuses specifically on womanhood, nor have any published this year. Ocean Vuong has something that satisfies both of these requirements. His second poetry collection and third publication, Time is a Mother, is set to release in April and was written as a response to the death of his mother. His novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, published in 2019, is also about a son’s relationship with his mother and will be adapted to film by A24.

Curated by Andrew Scott

FEBRUARY 2022

THE PISCES: A NOVEL | MELISSA BRODER

Melissa Broder is a poet, author, and essayist. She has a viral Twitter account called “so sad today” with almost 100k followers. Previously having written only poetry and essays published in *Vice*, *The Pisces* is her first prose work. It follows the story of a graduate student’s love affair with a merman. The merman character can be seen as an analog for her real-life husband, who has a neuroimmune disease that forces him to stay in bed for extended periods of time, depending on Broder to care for him. Broder goes into more specific detail on their relationship in her podcast *Eating Alone in My Car*. Lionsgate picked up the book, and Broder is in the process of adapting it to a film script.

RICHARD YATES | TAO LIN

Tao Lin is known for blending fiction and reality with his brand of Kmart realism. Kmart realism has been around since the 80s. It is a form of minimalist literature that portrays the lives of its characters as being consumed by capitalism or entrenched in consumer culture, if you will. Lin’s style often involves writing what would be straightforward autobiographies if not for the characters having different names and other minor artistic liberties. Lin based *Richard Yates* on a long-term relationship with a 16-year-old when he was 22. The two characters converse extensively through the Gmail chat client. It landed Lin in some trouble when the 16-year-old in the relationship, who now goes by E. R. Kennedy, accused him of abuse on Twitter. Though once feminist magazine *Jezebel* reported on this, Kennedy deleted the tweets and asked them to remove the article. While *Taipei* features what is probably a healthier relationship with a character based on Lin’s ex-wife, Megan Boyle, it feels less focused on the relationship and more on his life at the time in general. *Richard Yates* exclusively focuses on one romantic relationship.

SHAKESPEARE ROMANCES

The fun thing about literature is you can go back and read some of the works that inform how people think about the genre of romance today. A great place to start is Shakespeare. Though formally referred to as tragicomedies, Shakespeare produced many tales that embody what we now easily recognize as love stories, which he developed from chivalric romances. The obvious choice is Romeo and Juliet, but there are quite a few other options. Henry V though technically classified as a “History” play, chronicles the story of an English king seeking the hand of a French princess despite her apprehension due to her inability to share a common language with him. The Two Noble Kinsmen, based on Chaucer’s A Knights Tale, is the timeless tale of two friends and cousins who fall for the same girl. Then there’s Much Ado About Nothing about a young suitor who is convinced that his love interest is fornicating with another man. Twelfth Night follows the story of Viola, who is separated from her brother in a shipwreck. She falls in love with a duke while disguised as a man. These are just a few options, being that many Shakespeare plays feature a love story, there are many more.