As an English major, I’ve naturally had to read a lot of novels for my classes. Thankfully, due to Amherst’s open curriculum, I’ve been able to select courses that are actually interesting to me, which means the books have also been very interesting (Note: when registering for classes, many of them list what titles you’ll be reading in the course description!). I have found some of my favorite books through my classes at Amherst, so I figured it would be fun to share some of them and my thoughts and feelings about them. Hopefully this gives you a taste of what books you may get the chance to read and discuss in classes here at Amherst.
Book: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Class: Literature on Trial (First-Year Seminar)
My Rating: 5/5
My Review: This novel made me fall in love with Dostoevsky’s writing (which is why I’m currently taking an entire class that’s dedicated to his works). It is the opposite of a typical Who-Dunnit murder mystery, as we follow the murderer as he commits the crime and deals with the consequences, and is instead a Why-Dunnit. In this novel Dostoevsky deals with themes that were of utmost importance to his political situation in 19th century Russia, including socialism, European Enlightenment, religion, isolation and brotherhood, and criminal psychology. Although it is somewhat of a challenging read, once you get through it you can rest assured that you’ll be able to understand any other book from then on!
Book: If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
Class: James Baldwin (English Department)
My Rating: 5/5
My Review: This is one of my all time favorite books! It is set in 1970s New York City, following a Black woman who learns she is pregnant while her boyfriend is in jail, serving time for a crime that he was falsely accused of. It is a heartbreaking yet empowering story about love, loss, hope, and racism in America. James Baldwin is one of my favorite authors and he write characters is such a beautiful and connecting way. Be prepared to cry!
Book: The Iliad by Homer
Class: Greek Mythology and Religion (Classics Department)
My Rating: 3/5
My Review: Although I am very happy to have read this essential classic epic, it wasn’t quite the story for me. Following the Trojan War, most of the epic describes battle scenes, which wasn’t personally very intriguing to me. What I did enjoy about this epic was the individual character arcs and reading about the Greek Gods and their direct influence on the war. If you’re a fan of all of those things, this is the book for you!
Book: The Brother’s Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Class: Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russian Department)
My Rating: 5/5
My Review: I can’t help but include another Dostoevsky book! I just recently read this for my class on Dostoevsky, and it was such a fun experience. It is much different than Crime and Punishment (although both have the murder mystery element) and is a lot more outlandish and fun to read. Following three very different brothers, Dostoevsky focuses on religious ideologies by presenting opposing arguments and giving strong reasonings for both sides. While doing this, he creates eccentric characters and events that had me laughing out loud. I would definitely recommend reading this and think would be a great introduction to Dostoevsky’s works—it’s much less intimidating than Crime and Punishment!
Book: By Night in Chile by Robert Bolaño
Class: Fiction Writing I (English Department)
My Rating: 3/5
My Review: Last by not least is this novel by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño! This story is told in the form of a letter written by a literary critic at the end of his life. This literary critic tells some crazy stories and the novel explores themes of art’s role in politics, escapism, mortality and death, and political hardships. While I found the plot very interesting, the format of the writing was less so my thing. One of the notable characteristics of the novel is that there are no paragraph breaks—the 150 pages are written in one long paragraph. Between that and the unusually long and intricate sentences, I found quite hard to follow along with the story at times. Nevertheless, I encourage trying out this story to see if that style of writing works for you!
Thank you for reading! I hope this post inspired you to start thinking about the types of books you’d like to search for when choosing your classes, and maybe even to read some of these books. If you’ve read (or are going to read) any of these, I’d love to hear your thoughts on them! Feel free to email me with your thoughts or any questions at hsmith28@amherst.edu 🙂