book recommendations for former English majors

Were you an English major? Do you still find yourself copy-editing subway ads or interrupting dinner parties with obscure factoids about the Brontë sisters? Do you wish someone would give you a gold star for all those books you read instead of making you click more buttons at your boring spreadsheet job? Do you long for the external validation of winning literary trivia or the shot of superiority you get from critiquing the latest horrible Netflix adaptation of an Austen classic?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, have I got a list of books for you. These books are not the traditional classics themselves, and they probably won’t make their way onto any syllabi for a while yet. However, they scratch that lingering itch to say, “I know what they’re quoting! I get that reference!” They let you nod or laugh along in knowing acknowledgement, and they allow you to feel like you’re in the club again. Isn’t that what we so often want? To be in the know?

These books run the gamut from comic to serious, historical to realistic to magical fiction, but they all make multiple references to that hallowed and undefinable/ unmanageable/ biased/ limited/ frustrating/ delightful list of books, The English Canon. (I will continue to update as I read more.)

Happy Reading!

• The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton (absolutely hilarious & heartwarming trilogy)

  • The League of Gentlewomen Witches

  • The Secret Service of Tea & Treason

• Just As You Are by Camille Kellogg (modern gay Pride & Prejudice)

• The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (all the Victorian marriage plot references)

• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (especially for fans of the Brontës and spooky moors)

• Meg & Jo by Virginia Kantra (what it says on the tin: modern Little Women)

Review: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

What: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (novel)

Who: written by Robin Sloan

Where: purchase from an independent bookstore

Why: Like many English majors, I dream of owning a bookstore. However, not even my wackiest designs compare to the mysterious goings on of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore— a shadowy back section filled with encoded volumes; peculiar clients with peacock feathers, jade buttons, and a shared Latin greeting; and 500 years of slightly spooky book history, for starters. Robin Sloan’s bibliophile/tech nerd mash up novel follows Clay Jannon on his journey from out of work graphic designer to newest employee in this skinny San Francisco bookstore and finally, book detective. Sloan’s writing is fast-paced and funny, even when Clay is working the graveyard shift with no customers. The female characters fall a little flat, and there are sections that, unintentionally or not, seem to rely on the tired trope that nerds are always Nice Guys™, and so can’t be criticized for their obsession with boobs, for example. However, these passages don’t overshadow the overarching adventure, which pulls you in with its rich detail and plot twists. This book manages to be chock full of technical coding terms, book binding methods, and words like “lignin,” while still being a book you fall head over heels into, and read in a day. If you’re looking for a book about books, puzzles, or the great might of Google failing to compare to human ingenuity, then this is the book for you. 

Letters From Avonlea, Part 1

Hello friends! I’ve recently moved to Brooklyn, and I finally have space to properly shelve all my books. In all the book unpacking and organizing, I found my eight Anne of Green Gables books, and I’ve started to reread them! L.M. Montgomery shaped so much of who I am with her Anne-girl, and it has been an absolute delight getting to re-meet all her lovely characters.

I’m currently reading Anne of the Island, the third book in the series. At this point, Anne has been a teacher in Avonlea for two years, and has just left good old P.E.I. for Redmond College, where she’s pursuing her B.A. Anne, at the beginning of her first term, is both excited for what’s to come and a bit homesick for anything or anyone familiar (very relatable!). Her first batch of letters from Avonlea comes from six friends, and L.M. Montgomery only chooses to include the full text of the ones from Mrs. Lynde and Davy.

So, sitting in my new apartment, feeling excited and lonely and homesick and taking comfort from my own pen pals (support the USPS!! mail letters! call your reps!), I decided to write out the rest of the letters Anne received. Today’s post includes the letters from Ruby Gillis and Jane Andrews, two of Anne’s school chums. I’m going to write the other letters later, and then I’m planning on writing them all out by hand (with different handwritings to match), and maybe, if you send me your address, you’ll receive your very own letter from Avonlea.

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Darling Anne,

I hope you are finding Redmond College absolutely cunning! We here in Avonlea are desperately missing you, and your absence is felt at every gathering. We so miss your darling laugh and your dramatic recitations. I cannot believe you’ve only been gone a few weeks, it feels simply like years!

Now, Anne, you absolutely must tell me— how are the Redmond fellows? Any delectable examples of young manhood? It must be delightful going to classes with so many darling boys from across the way. Have you gone together much with anyone?

I myself am just overwhelmed with all my beaux, and barely have time to think about anything else. It is just so tricky to keep them all straight! Edward Manley is just delightful, but his nose is not something I would want to pass down, so unlike your own sweet nose! Gerald Brinker is just the most beautiful boy, but he brings up his aunt and mother every third sentence, and it gets tiresome to hear about them on every carriage ride. Oh, and Anne, you simply will not believe the scrape I got into the other day! Carter Wiltshire, you remember him, from Queens, had told me he would call on Tuesday last. Well I plumb forgot, and told Scott Reiner that I was available that afternoon. Scott, of course, called, and took me on a boat ride. Right as I was about to get in the little boat, who do you think appeared but Carter Wiltshire! Well, I was just so surprised, I lost my balance and almost fell in the water! Scott, the dear, caught me as I swooned, and Carter ran so fast he forgot to tie up his surrey and thank goodness his horse is well-behaved enough that he didn’t run off (the horse, not Carter). I thought for certain the two boys would be fearful mad, but they just laughed when I smiled at them and complained about how my poor little brain just couldn’t keep the days straight! 

Well, Avonlea is still quite fun, even though your absence has dimmed our hearts. I am still so busy and I cannot imagine even you, at Redmond College, have a harder time balancing all the fellows. 

Have fun, and don’t forget your friend, 

Ruby Gillis

P.S. Gilbert seems to be enjoying Redmond, judging from his letters. I don’t think Charlie is so stuck on it. xx

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Dear Anne, 

I hope you are well, and that you are enjoying Redmond College. I myself have been doing well, and I am enjoying the weather we have been having recently in Avonlea. It has been sunny, but not too dry. There has been enough rain for the crops to grow, and the harvest looks to be fine. 

I have been keeping myself busy, and have crocheted much lace. In fact, since you left, I have crocheted over 50 yards of lace. I am hoping to use some on my new dress, which I am planning on having made with some sweet floral-patterned fabric. I think I will have tighter sleeves as well, and perhaps gather the sleeves at the elbow with some of my crocheted lace. 

The only problem I have been facing recently has been my headaches. It seems almost every other afternoon my head begins to ache, and it feels too heavy for my neck. My aunt says it is a cold coming on with the change of the weather. 

I hope you do well in your courses, and remember your friend, 

Jane Andrews

“The first batch included six letters, from Jane Andrews, Ruby Gillis, Diana Barry, Marilla, Mrs. Lynde, and Davy. Jane’s was a copper-plate production, with every ’t’ nicely crossed and every ‘i’ precisely dotted, and not an interesting sentence in it. She never mentioned the school, concerning which Anne was avid to hear; she never answered one of the questions Anne had asked in her letter. But she told Anne how many yards of lace she had recently crocheted, and the kind of weather they were having in Avonlea, and how she intended to have her new dress made, and the way she felt when her head ached. Ruby Gillis wrote a gushing epistle deploring Anne’s absence, assuring her she was horribly missed in everything, asking what the Redmond ’fellows’ were like, and filling the rest with accounts of her own harrowing experiences with her numerous admirers. It was a silly, harmless letter, and Anne would have laughed over it had it not been for the postscript. ‘Gilbert seems to be enjoying Redmond, judging from his letters,’ wrote Ruby. ‘I don’t think Charlie is so stuck on it.’”

— p. 38, Anne of the Island by Lucy Maude Montgomery