Mini-Reviews: All the Books I Read for Literature Class This Year (Part 2) + 1-Year Blogiversary!

Good morning! Last week, we went over the books I read for the first semester of my literature class—The Great Divorce, The Iliad, The Aeneid, and a whole lot of Plato. This week, let’s take a look at my second semester line-up! Once again, I’ll examine the content of the books and then the edition/translation I used.

This semester was fun because the books we read were from the late Roman empire, medieval, and Renaissance periods, and we read them in chronological order. So my class was able to examine the progression of view on matters such as free will and humanism over the years. Let’s start at the beginning, with…

7 Books I’m Reading for This Year’s Literature Class + An Announcement

I love reading, but I am terrible about getting off my bum and reading important, weighty books. You know, hard books. Books that are over a thousand years old. Or books that wrestle with tough questions. Or books that delve into the darkness of the human soul.

If left to my own devices, I’d just read Shakespeare comedies and C.S. Lewis (whose writings, although complex, are quite readable) all the time. That’s why I appreciate literature classes: they push me into books that I’d never read otherwise.

I Saw “As You Like It” in a Hay Barn

It’s no secret around here that I love As You Like It. It’s mentioned on my home page and about page. I talked about it when I did the “If Books Were Movies” tag, and Orlando ranks at the top of my list of Shakespearean boyfriends.

“If Books Were Movies” Tag

Thanks to Mismatched Socks to tagging me for the “If Books Were Movies” tag. Her blog is awesome, and if you like thoughtful insights about books, movies, and culture, you should definitely check it out!

7 Shakespearean Boyfriends, Definitively Ranked

If you’ve ever read a Shakespeare play, you know that his comedies are basically Elizabethan chick flicks with puns and comments on the human condition. Here’s your definitive guide to the boyfriends in the best rom-coms of all time. WARNING: contains spoilers (for 400-year-old plays, but still).