Books, The Classics Club

Book 369: Symposium – Plato

I understand how important this work is, you know, history and stuff (hello sarcasm), but there is no need for the introduction to be roughly half the length of the entire work! Seriously, by time I actually got to the work which I would say is about 60 pages long, I’d read 30 pages and knew almost the entire story! Whoever wrote the introduction quoted almost all of it.

Mostly this book brings back the time in my first year of undergrad where I thought I wanted to study Ancient-Medieval history and then I scrapped by with my worst grade ever in my Greek history class and spent the next three-and-a-half years trying to make up for it and improve my GPA. On the plus side, this book counts towards my Classics Club reading list and I’m slowly chipping away. Finishing this, I’ve now passed the 40 books mark (41/100) and I’m nearing the halfway point. I’m behind schedule, but I threw the schedule out the window ages ago.

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Books

Book 367: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Marie Kondo

There are a couple of reasons I sought out this book and read it earlier than I thought I would. Apparently it’s been climbing the charts since it was translated from Japanese into English this past fall, but for me it first came to light when my friend, Carlie, started posting about it on Instagram. For those of you that have been following for a LONG time she got me to read The Hunger Games way back in 2010. I still haven’t read the other book she recommended, The Beans of Egypt, Maine, but I should probably get on that as she’s two-for-two.

After I asked about the book section of this tidying book she sent me the entire section via PM and I realized I wanted to read this book. I’m moving in August so it was the perfect time to take a look at all of my stuff so I grabbed a copy and devoured it.

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Books

Book 363: Her Best-Kept Secret – Gabrielle Glaser

Many of you might not know this about me, but when I have a problem that I don’t know how to deal with my first response is to research it as in-depth as possible. That makes it a bit awkward when I blog about everything I read (this is my reading journal as much as it is your review site). At the same time it’s great because I get to share interesting books, like Her Best-Kept Secret, that I never would have read. And I force myself to explore and synthesize in-depth a lot of topics.

If you see me on a day-to-day basis you’re aware that someone close to me has a lot of problems with alcohol, it’s kind of obvious they are a “she” based on the book title. In reality, I’m not sure it would’ve mattered if they were a she, because after reading “The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous” in The Atlantic I knew I wanted to find out more about non Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) programs and I figured Glaser was a great place to start as she mentioned her book in the article.

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ARC, Books

Book 348: In Youth Is Pleasure & I Left My Grandfather’s House – Denton Welch

The publisher, Open Road Integrated Media, reached out to me with this book as I’d previously read Jane Bowles’ Two Serious Ladies, and she is even mentioned in this work.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hesitant at first as Bowles’ work was very well written but I just didn’t like the characters. Thankfully, Welch’s characters were a bit more accessible for me. This is two shorter stories so I’ve separated my response into two parts. The publisher provided a copy of this book and I received no compensation for my honest opinion.

The one over-arching them the two pieces have in common is the idea of sexuality, specifically homosexuality, before it was commonly talked about and/or accepted. I tried (aka did a brief google search) to find out about Welch’s sexuality, but again this was a long time ago before our out and proud mantras of today. Welch died young, he was only 33, and there is only speculation outside of his written works which in today’s society seem pretty explicit. Regardless, I enjoyed both of these snippets of the past for completely different reasons.

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Books

Book 347: Jane Austen Cover to Cover – Margaret C. Sullivan

The amazing and wonderful Sarah of Sarah Reads Too Much sent this book to me knowing how much I love Jane Austen and I’m so glad she did! You can check out her review of the book here.

Please, don’t misjudge my response, I THOROUGHLY enjoyed the book. I just have strong opinions on Austen and I definitely went off on a tangent. I mean Sullivan clearly loves Austen AND she convinced me to give the graphic novel adaptations a go, that’s something right!?

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