One of my quirkier reading habits is that I enjoy re-reading certain books during certain seasons. 100 Years of Solitude is a fall book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is for spring, and I like to pick up some Ann Patchett books in the summertime. Charles Baxter's The Feast of Love is another summer book, and I usually get a hankering for Tim Gautreaux in the winter.
But my favorite seasonal read is Hamlet, which I weirdly associate with springtime. Or perhaps not so weirdly. In high school Brit Lit, Macbeth was the winter Shakespeare, and Hamlet came around in March.
A few years later, when I found myself teaching 12th grade English at the ripe old age of 22, I held to the pattern. I had so much fun teaching Hamlet that year that now, it always makes me think of spring.*
Does anyone else do the "a book for all seasons" thing?
__________________
*One of my most vivid memories of teaching it was holding a press conference from Elsinore, where I had a few students play the roles of the principal characters, and the rest pretended to be the paparazzi. Good times at Wooddale High.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
For me I have authors for certain seasons. J.D. Salinger must be read in the fall (especially if you're living in NYC). Graham Greene must be read in the winter; you won't get that same sense of melancholy from his stories if you're reading it on a bright, summer day.
Post a Comment