Literature for the 21st Century - Summer 2023

Here is our Summer reading list!

Audrey Magee, The Colony (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth (Penguin)

Genya Turovskaya, The Breathing Body of This Thought (Black Square)

Andrey Kurkov, Gray Bees, trans. Boris Dralyuk (Deep Vellum)

Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob, trans. Jennifer Croft (Riverhead)

Annie Ernaux, The Years, trans. Alison L. Strayer (Seven Stories)

You can also find these editions on our Bookshop.org site, which helps support local and independent bookstores.

Please note: these links, including the ones on the sidebar, are affiliate links for which we receive a small commission and which helps to maintain this site.


Brilliant Minds - Spring 2023 Book List

Brilliant Minds — Spring 2023 Readings:

Apuleius, The Golden Ass, trans. Walsh (Oxford)

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, eds. Mowat & Werstine (Folger)

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, ed. Watts (Oxford)

Abdulrazak Gurnah, Paradise (New Press)

Louise Glück, The Wild Iris (Ecco)

Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees (Penguin) 

You can also find these editions on our Bookshop.org site, which helps support local and independent bookstores.

Please note: these links, including the ones on the sidebar, are affiliate links for which we receive a small commission and which helps to maintain this site.


Brilliant Minds - Fall 2022

Here is our reading list in recommended editions for Fall 2022:

Euripides, Hippolytus, trans. Grene, in Euripides I (U Chicago) 

William Shakespeare, The Tempest, eds. Mowat & Werstine (Folger) 

Jean Racine, Phèdre, trans. Ted Hughes (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Albert Camus, The Stranger, trans. Matthew Ward (Vintage)

Margaret Atwood, Hag-Seed (Hogarth)

Kamel Daoud, The Mersault Investigation, trans. John Cullen (Oneworld)

You can also find these editions on our Bookshop.org site, which helps support local and independent bookstores.

Please note: these links, including the ones on the sidebar, are affiliate links for which we receive a small commission and help keep this site up and running.


Literature for the 21st Century - Summer 2022

Here is the list for our Summer reading!

Wild Swims, by Dorthe Nors

The Committed, by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth: New and Selected Poems, 2001-2021, by Yusef Komunyakaa

In Memory of Memory, by Maria Stepanova 

Walking on Cowrie Shells, by Nana Nkweti

Sea of Tranquility: A novel, by Emily St. John Mandel 


Spring 2022 - Reading List

Sophocles, Philoctetes, trans. Meineck (Hackett Classics) 

Seamus Heaney, The Cure at Troy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Plautus, The Pot of Gold, in Four Comedies, trans. Segal (Oxford UP)

Molière, The Miser, trans. Wood & Coward (Penguin Classics)

Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, eds. Mowat & Werstine (Folger)

Jeanette Winterson, The Gap of Time (Hogarth)

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, ed. Davies (Penguin Classics)

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, intro. Danticat (Norton) 


Suite Française

Here are links related to our recent discussion of Irène Némirovsky's Suite Française:

Aristotle: Poetics 9

Heath, Malcolm. “The Universality of Poetry in Aristotle’s Poetics.” The Classical Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 2, Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 389–402, http://www.jstor.org/stable/638907.

David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn, The Courilof Affair

Fire in the Blood

The Mirador: Dreamed Memories of Irene Nemirovsky by her Daughter

A Strange and Beautiful Book About a Mother Who Disappeared

Franz Werfel:

Pale Blue Ink in a Lady's Hand

Eine blaßblaue Frauenschrift

 


Thinking of Marie de France

For our upcoming session, I suggest you read "Guigemar" and "Yönec." Then, consider these groupings:

  • Le Chaitivel, Bisclavret, Equitan
  • Lanval, Le Fresne, Eliduc
  • Milun, Laüstic, Chevrefoil, Les Deux Amanz
The Lais were meant to be heard -- here is a link to an audiobook version available from Audible:
 
Readings of Lanval & Yönec:

 

In addition, here are two great resources you can use to prepare for our reading and discussion of the Lais of Marie de France:

British Library:

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-lays-and-fables-of-marie-de-france

Kathy Krause:

https://middleagesforeducators.princeton.edu/“lais”-marie-de-france

Cite:

Krause, Kathy. “The Lais of Marie de France,” Middle Ages for Educators, April 10, 2020. Accessed[date]. https://middleagesforeducators.princeton.edu/node/266/