Skip to main content

Top Ten Books That Would Be on My Syllabus If I Taught...

Happy Top Ten Tuesday!

I think about this a lot because I do teach classes! But instead of my more hum-drum reading lists for English Composition, which you can find here, here are the reading lists for imaginary classes I'd like to teach:


Early Modern British Literature
(Note: would not necessarily teach in this order)

1. King Lear by William Shakespeare



2. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare



3. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare



4. Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe



5. Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe



6. Comus by John Milton



7. Penshurst and other poems by Ben Jonson



8. Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum by Aemilia Lanyer



9. The Poems of Katherine Philips

(No Image Available)

10. Assaulted and Pursued Chastity by Margaret Cavendish



Extras: The Sonnets, selected poems from John Donne, selections from The Jew of Malta and The Duchess of Malfi, selected poems and speeches from Elizabeth I



Utopian and Dystopian Literature
(partially stolen from a class I took in graduate school; I thought more about order here)

1. Utopia by Thomas More



2. The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish



3. The Giver by Lois Lowry



4. Animal Farm by George Orwell



5. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin



6. Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy



7. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley



8. Dawn by Octavia Butler



9. The Female Man by Joanna Russ



10. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler




Extra: "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Beast Below" episode from Dr. Who, "Sultana's Dream" by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

Comments

Maggie said…
I love your dystopia list! I am a big fan of Butler and especially The Parable of the Sower, and it's nice to see her mentioned.
Great list! Though my favorite Shakespeare is Hamlet :)
Shakespeare is hard because really students should take an entire class on just Shakespeare, so I was just picking those that I think were best representative of his interaction with his society and fit best with the other texts in the proposed course.

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: The Speed of Clouds by Miriam Seidel

Book Review: The Speed of Clouds by Miriam Seidel *To Be Released from New Door Books on April 10, 2018* Mindy Vogel is haunted by the future. In frequent daydreams, she toggles between her real, wheelchair-bound life and the adventurous life of her fanfic alter ego, SkyLog officer Kat Wanderer. She's haunted by all that Kat can do which she cannot---belong to an organization of comrades, walk, and fall in love---yet. Because at twenty-four, Mindy's future is very much ahead of her, wheelchair notwithstanding. Through Mindy's "SkyLog" fanzine and related emails, Seidel evokes Star Trek fandom around the turn of the millenium, but also creates a new and compelling science fictional universe, similar to what Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl  does for the Harry Potter fandom with "Simon Snow." Mindy is among the pioneers transitioning fandom from print to digital, boldly encountering like-minded individuals from the comfort of her chair behind the monito...

Books with Single-Word Titles

Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl! Books with Single-Word Titles These are all my favorite books that I could think of with one-word titles. A lot of fantasy, a few nonfiction (minus subtitles) and Kindred , whether you consider it scifi or historical fiction. Also two portmanteaus using the word "bitter." I suppose it's a word that lends itself to amelioration. 1. Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler 2. Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore 3. Fire by Kristin Cashore 4. Heartless by Marissa Meyer 5. Inheritance by Christopher Paolini 6. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 7. Stoned by Aja Raden (has a subtitle) 8. Educated by Tara Westover 9. Fledgling by Octavia Butler 10. Kindred by Octavia Butler

Books Read in July 2024

 Pitch It by Evie Blum-- Kind of a weirdly suspenseful romcom but I enjoyed the perspective of a woman working in Silicon Valley,  which I don't see a lot. The business jargon was on point. The author is really talented at writing physicality too; be prepared for a lot of spicy scenes.  My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Bro di Ashton, and Jodi Meadows--I'd wanted to read this for a while (Tudor history nerd, hello!), and I just saw and loved the show on Prime and finally got the book from Kindle Unlimited.  Both are so, so good! Very tongue-in-cheek, intrusive narration, and so many riffs on Shakespeare, Tudor history, and more. Plus it's a surprise fantasy world with people who turn into animals instead of Protestants vs. Catholics--totally brilliant. Can't wait to read the rest! An Improper Situation by Sydney Jane Bailey-- On Stuff-Your-Kindle romance day, I took a chance on a lot of different books. This was the first one I tried. I really enjoyed the 19th century Sp...