December
Wet: On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture - Mira Schor
A book to get me thinking about the role of feminism and the male gaze within contemporary art. The more informed I am, the better an idea I'm going to have of what I want my work to do when a viewer sees it.
November
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
It is a crime that I have never read this book, I am currently halfway through it and have fallen in love with the story and the amazing lady herself.
September
1Q84 (Parts 1 & 2) - Haruki Murakami
I received this book as a Christmas gift last year after the build up and hype to it's release. This is my first experience of Murakami's work, although I am familiar with his past successes. I've heard only good things about the 1Q84 trilogy so I'm confident I'll enjoy this.
July
Tales from Ovid: 24 Passages from the Metamorphoses - Ted Hughes
With the recent opening of the National Gallery's exhibition 'Metamorphosis: Titian 2012' I was interested to read a few modern translations of Ovid's classic stories of Romanised Gods.
August 3rd - I LOVED these stories, full of emotional and bodily transformations which I think will have a profound effect on the direction of my art practice!
June
Fifty Shades Trilogy - E.L. James
After sitting on my bookshelf for the past month, I have given in and decided to immerse myself in the erotica phenomenon currently gripping the nation. I have had to set The Woman in White aside as I know that nothing else will get done while I'm reading these books!
July 9th - True to form I read through the trilogy and couldn't put them down! Gripping story and character development, my perspective of Christian Grey surprised me when it took an unexpected turn. Fab to see women's erotica selling so well and so publicly too! Will be an anticlimax to get back to reading The Woman in White now...
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Another literary classic I've never got round to reading, I love a good melodramatic, scary novel so I'm hoping this is a book I can escape in.
September 5th - Such a gripping read! Loved the changes in narrative and the slow piecing together of the story. I felt like a detective reading this.
Compulsive Beauty - Hal Foster
Another non-fiction read for the development of my ideas and art practice. I've read an essay by Hal Foster titled 'Obscene, Abject, Traumatic' and found it a fascinating, compelling read, so when I stumbled across this book in the surrealism section at the UCL library I thought I'd sink my teeth into this.
June 30th - I found it difficult to get my head around the heavy theories on surrealism and Freud. Although the explanation's on Breton's surrealism manifestoes were helpful.
May
Enduring Love - Ian McEwan
I am a fan of McEwan's novels, I've read Atonement and On Chesil Beach, both of which I have immersed my imagination in. I enjoy the level of description and layers of emotional complexity, so I have no doubt I will enjoy this book and hope to work my way through all his books.
June 15th - Wow! What an emotional roller coaster. I really enjoyed the dilemmas and emotional complexities of Joe the main character. Lovely short read, I found the further I got into the book, the less I wanted to put it down.
Nineteen eighty-four - George Orwell
This is one of those books that always gets pushed to the back of my 'to-read' stack, so now I will finally sit back and enjoy this literary classic!
May 31st - What a fantastic book, I understand now why it's as famous as it is. My heart broke for humanity.
April
Modern Art and the Grotesque - Edited and introduction by Frances S. Connelly
I started reading this collection of essays last week and am gradually making my way through it, I'm interested in the presence of themes such as abjection and informe within modern art and their relation to the origins of the grotesque.
June 11th - Great collection of essays, a book I will certainly be dipping in and out of with references to the motivations behind my work.
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
I've borrowed this book from a friend after an intense conversation we had about violence and abjection and our similar interests in gothic literature. I can't wait to get stuck into it, despite being warned about the powerful and nauseating imagery created by the author.
This book is INCREDIBLE! I couldn't put it down. Found the heavy descriptive nature hard work at first but was soon sucked into the work and mind of Patrick Bateman. Have now bought the film starring Christian Bale to watch!
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