literature
Geek literature from the New York Times or the recesses of online. Our favorite stories showcase geeks.
"Miss Ravenel’s Conversion from Secession to Loyalty" by John W. De Forest
This book represents the way in which learning from each other can be a struggle especially in the midst of a war. But, the American Civil War is more than just war politics and a class struggle, it is also about race and slavery and humanity. There is also a great amount of violent language and the exploration I did into this book was to do with the way in which the characters talk about the war and what the reader learns about the view of the war throughout the novel. We get firsthand character judgements and a range of differing opinions to the way in which the war impacts the younger generation - both positively and negatively. When the reader encounters more humane characters, they are in no way perfect or even progressive for our own day, but when it comes to the American Civil War and the other characters who are brilliant examples of the racially insensitive and the racially abusive stereotypes, it makes the progressive characters obviously look more progressive than they actually are. Thus, we have this range of different characters that mostly depend on the way in which other characters too are viewed in the book.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
10 Books: Fallen Women
Fallen Women in literature actually has its own genre concerning women who gain agency through marriage and love affairs etc. and then, have their secrets found out or are violently mistreated and so, fall from this agency back down to either abject poverty or even worse, death. The literature of fallen women were most famous during the 1700s and 1800s with women being seen as more than alive for their agency in the 1900s and 2000s. Be that as it may, we can find fallen women in literature even in early eras of artistic movements. In Ancient Greece, we have the Orestian Trilogy and Sophocles’ Theban Plays which both contain fallen women, and in Shakespeare we can find fallen women in Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Othello and even in aspects of Julius Caesar. The fallen woman sub-genre has been around for ages throughout literary history, but became more and more famous in the decadent eras of the 1700s and 1800s partially because of the adornment of women of the aristocracy. The scandal that was created around women of the richer classes who required to hold themselves with decorum but ended up becoming involved with acts of degeneracy and the such. Readers were very much used to tragedies involving men and so, from the decadent courts of the Enlightenment and Romanticist Era we get women becoming more involved in tragedy, most obviously inspired by the richness and vulgarity of the Baroque and Rococo Styles. Towards the 1900s and 2000s, the ‘fallen woman’ sub-genre became more complex as instead of just having a rich woman who gains agency and falls into tragedy - we get a more complex story. We still have a woman either coming into riches or being above a certain social class, but then, we have a number of turns: familial tragedy, love stories, backdrops of war and sometimes the woman fell from grace before the plot line began and now, she is attempting to redeem herself. It certainly comes into the modern and post-modern eras with style and poise.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
Top 10 Summer Reads
Everyone is looking for the perfect summer read and everyone wants something different. So what I did (just for you) was created a list of some of my favorite/most highly recommended books. Here you have it, the perfect list of novels to get you through a long summer!
By Mary Knutson6 years ago in Geeks
"Le Morte d'Arthur" by Thomas Malory
When I was a little girl, like a lot of other small children, I liked reading the Arthurian Tales in children’s form. There were so many of them: The Sword in the Stone, The Knights of the Round Table, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Lancelot and Guinevere etc. But the best thing is that as I grew up, they got more and more sophisticated until I was fifteen and found the two volumes of Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Malory. It was like discovering a diamond after having nothing but crystals - there weren’t very many words for having the real thing in my hands. I am going to admit I read both volumes in the same day because I just couldn’t put it down. It was everything I’d ever wanted - an adult book made from the books I read as a child. This book completely changed me and changed what I thought about the children’s stories of my younger days. They really did come from other things. That was all a well and good theory until we got on to the fairy tales and Charles Perrault. Then it just got creepy and weird.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
"Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte
It has been a number of over ten years since I first read “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte. I was going to be thirteen and it was fairly cold outside (my birthday is in the winter). I was reading “Jane Eyre” for the first time because it was on a reading list I had found listed next to “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen - another classic. The way in which I discovered my copy of the book was simply by going to my local bookstore and reserving myself a copy (it was fairly popular and the book had sold out at that time). When I first read the book, it absolutely took me away. It made me cry, it gave me hope, it made me sad, it made me cry again and then finally, when it was all over - I could sob to myself happily in peace. It changed my whole life that book did. It was like reading something that was specially written to hit you right in the heart and make you feel every inch of the character’s emotions with them. Every bit of her anger and resentment, all of her rage and then, all of her calm and sorrow. Eventually, you can feel her happiness as well.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
Get Off Your Duff Reading List: 2020
There are six months left in 2020 and if you're feeling sluggish, like you aren't going to accomplish everything you wanted to this year, you're in good company—I mean, who among us even saw this coming? What I find helps motivate me when I'm in a slump is a thought-provoking book that inspires me to action. Often times, the more meager the means and the more humble the beginnings of the author, the more their book resonates with me. Not only am I inspired by what they write about, but I'm inspired that an average Joe like me could produce such an awe-inspiring work. It really gets me thinking about my potential, my limitations, and if either are truly as I perceive them. In the words of Helen Exley (creator of the London publisher by the same name), “books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled 'This could change your life’.”
By Alana Boyles6 years ago in Geeks
Review of 'Sisters of Sword and Song'
Synopsis Rebecca Ross, acclaimed author of The Queen's Rising duology, delivers a thrilling new fantasy about the lengths two sisters will go for each other. Perfect for fans of Ember in the Ashes, Sky In the Deep, and Court of Fives. After eight years, Evadne will finally be reunited with her older sister, Halcyon, who has been serving in the queen's army. But when Halcyon unexpectedly appears a day early, Eva knows something is wrong. Halcyon has charged with a heinous crime, and though her life is spared, she is sentenced to 15 years. Suspicious of the charges, brought forth by Halcyon's army commander, as well as the details of the crime, Eva volunteers to take part of her sister's sentence. If there's a way to absolve Halcyon, she'll find it. But as the sisters begin their sentences, they quickly learn that there are fates worse than death.
By Cyn's Workshop6 years ago in Geeks
"Memoirs of an Anti-Semite" by Gregor Von Rezzori
This novel is told in five separate episodes of one man’s experiences growing up and being told that anti-semitism was the normal way of thinking. Since our narrator is an aristocrat, he has some obvious class prejudices which include anti-semitism towards the poorer Jewish folk. Slowly, but surely, he seeks to learn that his prejudices were wrong and actually, there is no difference between him - a rich and worldly man, and a working-class Jewish person. He realises this through various friendships, relationships and even complex meetings involving Jewish people in which he finds not only sympathy and rage, but also confronts himself in this rage - asking himself why he thinks about them in this way. As the narrator confronts his past, we see prime Jewish characters of complex natures such as Wolf Goldmann, the hearty child of Dr. Goldmann who only seeks to make a friend but often struggles to assimilate into a more ‘Eurocentric’ lifestyle. We also see the Jewish woman in which our narrator falls in love with. But, in hiding and concealing her Jewishness, he ultimately leaves her for her fakery. There are also many more in which the narrator has to confront why exactly it is that Jewish folk hide their Jewishness but then expect nobody to realise. He analysis this over and over again, looking both ways at how this is a product of being racially stigmatised and how this is also a deceit on the part of the Jewish folk who choose to conceal themselves. As we go through the book once more, we find that the confrontation that the narrator has with himself looks deep within his own personal prejudices and develops some contradictions and hypocrisies before he can attempt to rectify things that he had once believed that now, seem absurd.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
Review of 'Wicked Fox' (Gumiho #1)
Synopsis Eighteen-year-old Gu Miyoung has a secret--she's a gumiho, a nine-tailed fox who must devour the energy of men in order to survive. Because so few believe in the old tales anymore, and with so many evil men no one will miss, the modern city of Seoul is the perfect place to hide and hunt. But after feeding one full moon, Miyoung crosses paths with Jihoon, a human boy, being attacked by a goblin deep in the forest. Against her better judgment, she violates the rules of survival to rescue the boy, losing her fox bead--her gumiho soul--in the process. Jihoon knows Miyoung is more than just a beautiful girl--he saw her nine tails the night she saved his life. His grandmother used to tell him stories of the gumiho, of their power and the danger they pose to men. He's drawn to her anyway. When he finds her fox bead, he does not realize he holds her life in his hands. With murderous forces lurking in the background, Miyoung and Jihoon develop a tenuous friendship that blossoms into something more. But when a young shaman tries to reunite Miyoung with her bead, the consequences are disastrous and reignite a generations-old feud . . . forcing Miyoung to choose between her immortal life and Jihoon's.
By Cyn's Workshop6 years ago in Geeks
"Moby-Dick" by Herman Melville
I first read this book when I was sixteen years’ old and the way in which it had an effect on me was so long-lasting that I don’t think I got over the book for a long time. I don’t think I’m even over it now. I’m just coping. I discovered the book after finding a really pretty Penguin copy in the bookstore. It looked rustic and beautiful and so I bought it. I had heard of the book but didn’t really know what it was about before I’d read it. My first reading experience of it was definitely immersive. It was one of those things that I stayed up all night for and I really got so into it that by the time it was morning, I hadn’t even realised the sun had come up. I was still making notes and drawing pictures. That’s what I do when I get too into a book to the point of no return. I make notes and sketches. This book completely changed my perception on the way books about the sea could be written. It was one of the first American books that I’d ever fallen in love with so much that I barely put the book away for an entire year afterwards. I had it on my bedside table and would constantly be scribbling about it, highlighting it and writing short stories about the characters and other wild adventures they’d go on at sea. Yes, this was my life and pretty much, still is.
By Annie Kapur6 years ago in Geeks
