By: Tim Donahue
I’ve spent the last four years of my life slaving over a never ending parade of books that have been chosen for me, placed in my hands. You’re given a list on the first day of any self-respecting English class, and each comes complete with anywhere between five to ten books that you’re supposed to finish by the end of the quarter. Four years, three quarters per year, five to ten books per quarter: That’s math that I don’t want to do, but I’ve read A LOT.
So, without further ado and because so so many of you have asked: I’ve reviewed a sample of 10 books that I’ve had to read in my time as an English Major at WWU. These are not my ten favorites, and they’re not my least favorites. They’re representative, though, of the wide breadth that I was exposed to over the course of my four year course load. For better and for worse, the confusing and the clear, the life changing, the childish, and the challenging.
Books in stacks lined on the headboard of a bed. Behind the books is a wall covered in posters. Tim Donahue //Wavelength
Unlimited Dream Company by J.G. Ballard – Assigned by Michael Bell: A weird, trippy, acid-dipped ride. The weirdest and wildest any of these books have gotten. Contextualized really well over the course of the class, and it’s just a great time which can be rare when reading for academia.
9/10 Confusing Sexual Metaphors
Passages by Ann Quin – Assigned by Mark Lester: Part travel story, part sibling adventure, but make it NC-17 with an impressionist’s twist. Went by in a snap, I think I read it in a night or two. A short read, which is really important when docked within such a busy reading schedule.
8.5/10 Happy Confusions
Mood Indigo by Boris Vian – Assigned by Mark Lester: Set in a strange past-future, Mood Indigo is a beautiful portrayal of loss, love, and the ways in which we are consumed by our own fascinations.
8/10 Steampunk Contraptions
The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman – Assigned by Lee Gulyas: VERY different from the rest of this list because it’s non-fiction. Great, great advice for the aspiring writers among us. Actionable and down to earth, this is more helpful than 90% of the books about writing/the author’s life that I’ve read.
6/10 Business-Casual Pantsuits
Hamlet by Shakespeare – Assigned by Mark Lester: C’mon, it’s a classic. Up there with Macbeth in the running for my favorite Shakespeare, and it’s supplemented really well with discussion and videos of performances in class.
8/10 Renaissance Fair Turkey Legs
Watt by Samuel Beckett – Assigned by Mark Lester: This is a weird one, I loved it and I didn’t understand a word. There’s a weird thing about a building, and something about power structures. The discussion helped a lot to make sense of what I was reading, and Samuel Beckett’s so cool that I kinda mostly just had to assume that he was smarter than me.
6/10 Irish Dudes
Chocky by John Wyndham – Assigned by Michael Bell: Like E.T. if it was more about divorce and less about the whimsy. There’s something really tender about the family in Chocky, it’s families I’ve met and learned to love, they just so happen to have an alien.
7/10 “Stephen Spielburg’s a hack” T-Shirts
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer – Assigned by Tony Pritchard: Way better than the movie. Jeff Vandermeer’s major author’s class is a real treat and this was the highlight of our readings for me. Less of a hybrid work than the other stuff we read, but it’s still experimental, still strange, and tighter than anything I’d read in a long time.
7/10 Suggestive Mushrooms
In The Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne M. Valente – Assigned by Michael Bell: An amalgamation of smaller fables that come together and build on top of each other to form a greater narrative that is such a treat for any fan of the fantasy genre. This stuff isn’t even usually my cup of tea, and it’s long as hell, but the pages kept turning and it wound up going by like it was nothing.
8.5/10 Stressed Out Days I Spent Making a Board Game for This Class
A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe – Assigned by Sarah Zimmerman: This was assigned for a history class! Very different for me, but A Man of the People is also the best book I’ve read in all my time at Western. I did read this one in a night, and not because I had a deadline the next day. It’s gorgeous and illuminates everything that we’d discussed abstractly in class. Chinua Achebe’s one of my favorite author’s, and this might just be his best novel.
10/10 Corrupt Politicians
There are more, but I’m tired. Boy am I glad to have read these books, and boy do I never want to think about some of them ever again. The best part of any English class is the books that are selected by the people that know them better than anybody else. There’s something magical about the list you get on the first day of each new quarter. Sometimes the reading turns into such a blur that you can’t even remember it for an article that’s supposed to be a retrospective on your entire career as a student of English, but sometimes it’s a book that’ll change the way you read for the rest of your life. It’s a lot, and trust me there are more titles that I could have added to this list, but it’s worth it.