"I may be a black sheep, but my hooves are made of gold."

20th January 2012

Photo reblogged from Literary Flack with 90 notes

literaryflack: Funny, because I heard your boss is super nice, and not remotely revengeful. Maybe that was misinformation. vintageanchor: Our new edition of Decameron just landed in the office, a lot of us have coughs, and the boss doesn’t like it when sick people come to the office and cough. All of this leads to a lot of thinking about the literature of disease and exile, obviously, so here’s a reading list—just in case you’re between the same rock and hard place we are.Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio One of the most influential works of literature ever published, here we have ten people (three men, seven women) taking refuge in the countryside from Black Plague-ridden Florence and regaling one another with tales of love, death, and deception.The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann Set in a sanitarium tucked away in the Swiss Alps, Mann’s magnum opus is an allegory for Europe’s terminal irrationality that begot the First World War.The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham Nothing like forcing your philandering wife to join you on a journey through cholera-ridden China to get even with her. Until that plan backfires, of course.A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe A fictional chronicle of the Great Plague that tore through London in 1665, purported to have been inspired by the author’s uncle’s journals.Hotel-du-Lac by Anita Brookner The diseases here are love-sickness and ennui, experienced by Edith as she is forced by friends to leave London for a Swiss resort in the off-season after making a horrible error in judgement. The Way We Live Now by Susan Sontag Told in the symphonic strands of dialogue between a group of friends, this short-story-turned-novella remains one of the most bracing works of fiction about the AIDS pandemic.The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus Marcus’s third novel explores the hypothetical horror of what happens when the vocalization of children becomes toxic for adults. Happy reading, if you’re inclined, and remember to push those fluids! No one said it was specifically you, chief!

literaryflack:

Funny, because I heard your boss is super nice, and not remotely revengeful. Maybe that was misinformation.

vintageanchor:

Our new edition of Decameron just landed in the office, a lot of us have coughs, and the boss doesn’t like it when sick people come to the office and cough. All of this leads to a lot of thinking about the literature of disease and exile, obviously, so here’s a reading list—just in case you’re between the same rock and hard place we are.

Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio One of the most influential works of literature ever published, here we have ten people (three men, seven women) taking refuge in the countryside from Black Plague-ridden Florence and regaling one another with tales of love, death, and deception.

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann Set in a sanitarium tucked away in the Swiss Alps, Mann’s magnum opus is an allegory for Europe’s terminal irrationality that begot the First World War.

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham Nothing like forcing your philandering wife to join you on a journey through cholera-ridden China to get even with her. Until that plan backfires, of course.

A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe A fictional chronicle of the Great Plague that tore through London in 1665, purported to have been inspired by the author’s uncle’s journals.

Hotel-du-Lac by Anita Brookner The diseases here are love-sickness and ennui, experienced by Edith as she is forced by friends to leave London for a Swiss resort in the off-season after making a horrible error in judgement.

The Way We Live Now by Susan Sontag Told in the symphonic strands of dialogue between a group of friends, this short-story-turned-novella remains one of the most bracing works of fiction about the AIDS pandemic.

The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus Marcus’s third novel explores the hypothetical horror of what happens when the vocalization of children becomes toxic for adults.

Happy reading, if you’re inclined, and remember to push those fluids!

No one said it was specifically you, chief!

Tagged: love-sicknessennui

Source: vintageanchor

  1. spellboundsoma reblogged this from vintageanchor
  2. thelaurenator reblogged this from vintageanchor and added:
    The Decameron! I read part...my classes last year & I liked it so much
  3. mandapanda28 reblogged this from vintageanchor
  4. aseriousbibliophile reblogged this from the-bibliophile
  5. theredshoes reblogged this from the-bibliophile
  6. jumblednerves reblogged this from vintageanchor
  7. sswslitinmotion reblogged this from vintageanchor and added:
    Decameron. How exciting. I haven’t read...since freshman year
  8. kjwicket reblogged this from vintageanchor
  9. burkesbricolage reblogged this from vintageanchor