Happy Chinese New Valentine's Day! Wait what?

Since Valentine's Day & the Chinese New Year were both yesterday, Amalia (1 of my Italian housemates) and I decided to celebrate both by going to Chinatown. There were lanterns everywhere and it was beautiful! We shared a very expensive crepe that was worth it because it was The Most Delicious Crepe I've eaten in my entire life. It came with chocolate ice cream, bananas, and chocolate sauce, my 3 favorite food groups... yes, groups.


So, moving on. I've finished three books since I've been here. I love reading on the tube because it makes the time go quickly. It's nice to have that hour or two per day to catch up on reading, particularly if it's for school. Want to hear what I've read so far? Not really? Well I'm going to write about it anyway...

1. "The Secret Agent" by Joseph Conrad
Read for Fiction class. Conrad channels Dickens in that he uses an omniscient narrator, which I liked. But the thing I hate most about Dickens is how he incorporates hoards of rather tangential characters, which Conrad also does in this book. I like the story of the family--Verloc, Winnie and Stevie--and their drama, but I could give a crap about the rest. Seriously, Conrad wastes entire chapters on the rag tag band of anarchists and their intellectual masturbation sessions. Who cares??? 2/5 stars.

2. "The Quiet American" by Graham Greene
Read for Fiction class. I love it. Greene turns a morally ambiguous, sexist British journalist into a very human, nearly lovable man (and does sort of the opposite with Pyle). Greene also manages to meaningfully incorporate themes of love, religion, East vs. West, war, sex, etc. without sounding pretentious. Brilliant. And probably the first book about Vietnam I've read that didn't bore me to tears. 5/5.

3. "The Museum of Dr. Moses" by Joyce Carol Oats
I checked this book out of the Northfields library when I realized I wouldn't have anything to read for a week. I already knew what to expect--dark, disturbing murder stories--and I ate it up! Some stories were almost too open-ended, in particular, "Feral" and "Stripping." My favorites were definitely "Valentine, July Heat Wave," which was very prose-y, and the title story, which was the creepiest of all. 4/5.


Ciao! (Figured I might as well switch it up since, after all, I hang out with Italians more than British people, haha)

Rebecca