Reading List: Fall & Winter 2009 – 2010

Titles to Keep You Entertained During the Cold Months Ahead

Oct 18, 2009

The weather outside is questionable, and a good list of titles is in order. Try this one on for size.

This reading list will help keep you occupied during the fall and winter months, when it is just too cold to do anything outside. It includes thirteen entries that explores modern writing, throwing in a couple

true crime titles, along with philosophical, poetic, and fictional additions. Visit a local library to see if these titles are available there.

More of the Modern

This is a collection of fifteen short stories that can be read and enjoyed as individual stories, but they can also be viewed as cogs in a larger machine that work together. Included in this collection are “The Dead,” “Araby,” “Eveline,” and “A Painful Case.”

This is the classic story of Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his monster that Frankenstein created out of dead flesh. This story touches on a theme dealing with how humans play the role of God when we should not. Such dabblings only come back to haunt us in the end.

This is the classic story that started it all. The true character of Dracula is revealed in this classic novel that has enjoyed a long life in its own right.

Poe is the inventor of the gothic horror story as is proven by the contents of this collection. This volume features nine stories, including the title story, along with “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” All of these stories are horrific classics.

This novel was first published in 1929 and is somewhat autobiographical in nature. The main character is an American serving as an ambulance driver in Italy during the First World War. He meets a nurse, falls in love, and is met with troubles along the way.

True Crime

This is the fascinating exploration of a murder that took place in 1959 in Holcomb, Kansas. There, two men killed four members of the Clutter family at close range with shotguns. Capote’s reconstruction is as fascinating and entertaining as it is heart wrenching.

I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, and my brother: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century

This is the memoir of a serial murderer written while in a French jail. Pierre Riviere murdered his mother, sister and brother with a pruning hook to free himself and his father from her domination. Foucault restructures the events and gets into Pierre’s head exploring modern views of crime, justice, and madness.

Somewhat Philosophical

Fatalism is the acceptance of things as inevitable; we have no affect on what we will experience in our lives. Jacques and his Master discuss their lives as they travel and get themselves into a few funny and strange situations.

Thoreau was a naturalist and a Transcendentalist that lived in nature for two years at Walden Pond. This book is a group of essays in which Thoreau philosophizes about nature, life, and living well in the world.

This group of essays includes a few of Emerson’s classic essays and addresses including “Nature,” “The American Scholar,” “The Transcendentalist,” and “Self-Reliance.”

Mythology

The myths and legends of the Celts are just as grand and applicable in modernity as the myths of the Greeks and Romans. This volume explorers the gods and heroes of the Celts and the Northern People illuminating them in the same light given to their foreign counterparts.

Fiction

O’Connor’s writing has been anthologized for a long time. This collection includes all of her short stories, including the classics, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” and “The Geranium.”

Poetry

For those lovers of poetry, this collection, which was hand-picked by Thomas himself a year before his death, combines all of the best that he had to offer his readers. This collection includes an introductory poem written specially for Thomas’ beloved readers.

The copyright of the article Reading List: Fall & Winter 2009 – 2010 in World Literatures is owned by Joshua Nuttall. Permission to republish Reading List: Fall & Winter 2009 – 2010 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.