So much I never knew I needed [wanted] to read, but oh do I
Things have been so perplexing lately - I hate not knowing what’s ahead. I am waiting to find out about three masters applications, am still unsure about when I’m leaving for Europe (April or May? yes - this April or May!), and I don’t really know what city I’m going to be living in next year. On top of all of that I feel like I have so much reading to do to prepare to enter a new discipline. While Communication Studies has connections to Art History, I feel like I have some catching up to do on major thinkers, theories and ideas in connection to media studies and cyberculture.
Inspired by Matt Webb at his wonderfully eloquent blog I discovered recently (like a breath of fresh air, I may do some reading through the archives to get more oxygen), I am setting out an ambitious goal of 2 books per week. My rule is that at least one of those books has to be “serious,” whether it be one of those supposed ‘classics’ I have always meant to read, or whether it be towards my degree. I have also found plenty of online essays and blogs to keep me busy with building a foundation of knowledge about the discipline.
I have been keeping a Google notebook for a long time entitled “Reading List,” where I stick the bits of reading recommendations that seem interesting that I pick up on my jaunts along the web. Just as an example, Matt Webb himself has some great recommendations. There is so much in that virtual notebook of mine, but eventually I will cobble together some sort of priority list. Or maybe I will just grab books as they fall here & there as I fancy, like catching glowing leaves. Let’s just say that it seems like the more I see what I’ve been missing out on, the more I think I have a lot of catching up to do.
So far I am in the middle of Kafka’s The Trial, which I am finding quite brilliant, and have already finished the Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami which I enjoyed but admittedly found questionable. Enough of that for now! I need to get my feet wet with Derrida, Deleuze & Guattari, Chomsky, more Foucault, Cixous, Borges, Calvino, Vonnegut, a little Umberto Eco (though I thought I’d never go there) and more… I am excited to get started! I have at least a month or two to read as much as possible until I am off to Europe. I can only bring so many books with me; can only hope that used bookstores will have copies of things on my must-read list so I can continue the journey until I am in school again next fall.
(image is CC, via gregw)
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