Thursday, April 27, 2017

A [F]emale Adventure

I should have wrote about this a couple months ago, but I wanted to make sure I would follow my own rules. So...I made a New Year's resolution to only read books by female authors. I would like to write a little bit about every novel, book of poetry, or prose to digest the themes of each collection, but that seems a bit overwhelming. I might only write about a few of them because I am lazy, there is always time!


The list so far -


Novels


The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, most of you might recognize her name because she wrote the famous short story, The Lottery.


White Teeth by Zadie Smith, well known first novel written by a then 24 year old, I kind of consider her a prodigy.


Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, I want to call this novel an intricate love story, but I don't think calling it a love story justifies the complexity of the novel. I enjoyed the jumps forward and back in time, the two different perspectives on marriage was interesting, but I wish there was more character development of the main female character, Mathilde. Sometimes the story seemed unrealistic. I thought the description of Lotto's plays were beautifully woven, along with many references to Greek mythology.


The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt  After listening to an interview of Siri talking about her new book, A Women Looking at Men Looking at Women: Essays on Art, Sex, and the Mind, I decided to read a previous novel of hers before I dive into this collection of essays. The Blazing World is a beautifully written novel that explores perception and sexism. It took me a little while to finish the book, but I never lost interest!


Poetry


I enjoy reading poetry, but I would consider myself a newcomer to this sector of literature. For now, I will just list what I have read.


Sylph by Abigail Cloud


Incarnadine: Poems  by Mary Szybist


Balloon Pop Outlaw Black by Patricia Lockwood I was looking for a new book of poetry in the local bookstore, and the name Patricia Lockwood kept bouncing around in my brain, partly due to seeing another, more recent collection by Tricia, Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals, on my best friend's coffee table. She also came to town for a reading at Wichita State University. The Twitter prodigy did not fail to impress me. I look forward to reading Priestdaddy, a memoir by a poet, should be good!


Transformations by Anne Sexton If you have not read this collection yet, please read it! That's all.


I will continue to update this post as the year continues.