Goucher Reads

Jen Schiller

1. Who are you and what are you interested in?

I’m Jen Schiller, a 2010 alum and former library worker. I just finished my Masters degree in Theatre Studies, and now I’m looking for a big-girl job. My absolute passion is writing (my BA from Goucher is in creative writing), I’m a three-time winner of National Novel Writing month and I love throwing together staged readings of my plays with the very talented people I call friends. This summer I’ll be hosting at least one writers retreat with some of those very talented people.

When I’m not writing, I’m usually reading, watching television or movies, or playing any of a variety of video games. I’m also an entertainment blogger for International House of Geek, where I write about everything from the Muppets to Doctor Who to Dragon Ball Z. I had an awesome internship last summer at Kotaku writing video game news. 

I’m also a dramaturg, which means I sit around in theatres and help contextualize shows for the directors and cast. It also means I’m always interested in new research. Currently, I’m working on two major projects, one related to Harry Potter and the other about the new Doctor Who series. I love sinking my teeth into a new research project.

The short list of my interests related to all that jazz includes (but is definitely not limited to) early 20th century history, comic books, young adult fiction, classic science-fiction, fanfiction, American musicals, British television, tea, Disney (not just the movies. history, philosophy, technology, etc.), anime, and…well…the list goes on.

When I get my butt back into gear, you can read all about it on my personal blog, theempirestrikesforward.

I try to switch back and forth between fiction and non-fiction. I just finished Zen in the Art of Writing, by Ray Bradbury, so I have to decide what to read next. My boyfriend is really into Patrick Rothfuss, so he stuck The Name of the Wind into my purse the other day, but I also want to finish the Hunger Games trilogy.

My next non-fictions are going to be Chicks Dig Timelords, an anthology of essays by female fans of Doctor Who and American Eve, Evelyn Nesbit’s biography.

Max Eber

1. Who are you and what are you interested in?

My name’s Max Eber, I’m a 2011 graduate of Goucher College and studied English, concentration creative writing while there. I’m pretty scattered interests wise, it causes a bit of a problem as it sort of leaves me unable to pursue all of them. For instance I love art but didn’t have time to finish an art minor while at Goucher. I was also lured into acting by my friends (as in forced) but having done it I found I really loved it and since then I would love to do more theatre and cultivate that craft through dance and singing lessons. But it’s hard to fit that in at the moment since I also enjoy horticulture and garden design and since graduation have started my own landscape design business as a means to support myself. Have already had a few clients this spring already so it’s looking to be an interesting year. Otherwise I really enjoy play and screenwriting, I’m in the midst of writing a play adapted from this Italian folktales that’s turning into sort of a Shakespeare pastiche.  It’s bawdy but in a frothy way which is pretty fun.

Otherwise I’m into superhero comics (particularly the Batman Family) and vintage film, animation, illustration, clothing and design. Pretty much anything to do with aesthetics and design interests me.

2. What are you reading now?

It’s a bit embarrassing since it’s not very literary, but outside of plant nursery catalogs, I’ve actually been engrossed in reading cooking books.  I’m a foodie and can make some deserts but I’m rather lazy when it comes to making savory food for myself. I’ve been experimenting and have been making a point to try to actually cook actual meals. Other than that I’ve been reading Italian Folktales retold by Italo Calvino, of which the tale I’m adapting for my play is from. It was the only story in the book that was relatively pedestrian and domestic. There was no magic or any of the other fairytale trappings that pepper the other stories in the book and so it really stood out to me and reminded me of Taming of The Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing.

3. What is the most important book you have ever read?

  Really hard question as I sort of equate a lot of books to food, you read them and sort of absorb them as you would food’s calories and nutritional content. So they all contribute whether you like it or not. I could say admittedly I get impatient with a lot of novels. I find really well written short stories can deliver a much more concentrated shot of emotions or leave one particularly disturbed. I really owe a lot of my creativity though to a lot of the picture books and young adult novels I grew up with. I’m very visual so these days I appreciate when revisiting my childhood library those books that had beautiful illustrations. My mom used to work at a children’s bookstore so she had a pretty extensive cache of children’s classics and sort of forgotten oddball works around the house growing up. I guess favorites, pretty unsurprising would be things by Doctor Seuss and Maurice Sendak (doesn’t take much to figure out why I liked Where The Wild Things Are) especially Pierre (A Cautionary Tale) and love even ones  he didn’t write but illustrated as he did for a Sesyle Joslin book on manners called What Do You Say Dear? Other things are the sort of amazing for their art is Imps. Demons. Hobgoblins. Witches. Fairies & Elves by Leonard Baskin, Masquerade by Kit Williams and The Practical Princess by Jay Williams, illustrated by Frisco Henstra.

As far as determinate life changers, probably reading Thorton Wilder’s playThe Skin of Our Teeth sticks as it brought together both a bizarre flippancy and dead seriousness together in one package sort of  through me for a loop.  I also owe a lot of credit to Italo Calvino, Oscar Wilde, and J.D. Salinger.

4. If you could suggest one book, what would it be and why?

Probably Italo Calvino’sDifficult Loves, the Riviera section of stories is truly beautiful.

I sort of worship Salinger’s 9 Stories though, it’s far superior to Catcher In The Rye. I adapted the story Teddy from this book to the stage for class at Goucher but since Salinger’s estate pretty much has embargoes on his work so I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to stage it anywhere.  It’s funny I remember having to read the book in ninth grade and I sort of wanted nothing to do with it. But after the fact and during discussion I started really enjoying the short stories. Salinger’s work is also pretty dated, obviously influenced by the movies of the time, and I’m not sure if it’s sadistic but I enjoy seeing Salinger’s sort of affluent rich white people having mental breakdowns, being alcoholics. The general permanence of sadness and unrest in many of the stories is very, I also like how he writes children. Probably half the appeal to me is to see that idealized chic image of post WWII sort of upper class aesthetic and lifestyles being sort of punctured or sullied by mental illness, alcohol and depression as well as other vices and issues. It’s a wonderful juxtaposition that reminds me of some episodes of The Twilight Zone, as well as Hitchcock movies and the Hitchcock Blonde concept where often very kept people that often embody that aesthetic are thrown into odd situations and or suddenly or even quietly unravel before us. Despite the heavy hitters like A Perfect Day for Banana Fish and Teddy the book has some wonderfully sweet, sincere moments too that I envy a lot as a writer.  I’m more inclined to write comedy so it’s always very enviable when other writers can pull off tender and somber moments without it appearing too trite on either.

Michael Habif

1. Who are you and what are you interested in?

I graduated from Goucher in 2010 and graduated from Loyola’s Emerging Leaders MBA program in 2011. I’m currently unemployed (aka: full time science fiction reader). I am one of the most knowledgeable people in the world about science fiction literature (seriously) after having read over 400 science fiction novels and short story collections as well as studying the field’s history in tremendous depth. I’m also very interested in economics and play drums in the band Antherums.

2. What are you reading now?

I’m currently reading Gardner Dozois’ anthology The Best of the Best Volume 2. The book contains what Dozois considers the best science fiction novellas from among the first 20 volumes of his annual Year’s Best short story anthology (currently at 28 volumes). Many in the field, including myself, consider the novella to be the definitive length for science fiction because it allows one to concentrate on a single idea and extrapolate on it without all of the fluff that goes into a novel. Unfortunately, I didn’t care for many of the novellas in the collection with the exception of New Light on the Drake Equation by Ian R. Macleod.

Next I will read Dan Simmon’s Ilium which is essentially the Iliad taking place on Mars (most people: “That sounds stupid.”) (awesome people: “God yes.”)

3. What was the most important book you have ever read?

The most important book I’ve ever read is The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. This novel is very important because it defines the value of science fiction (or speculative fiction to use a broader, more inclusive term) to me. The novel is about a planet and its satellite in which the planet’s society is purely capitalistic and the satellite’s is anarchistic (or more a form of pure socialism). The novel’s central protagonist is in search of his personal utopia among the two societies. The novel deals largely with political theory and economics and how they can change societal values and morals. Many people who don’t read science fiction look at The Dispossessed and say “That’s not science fiction, that’s literature.” I’ve never found a satisfactory answer for what defines ‘literature’, but I know that the ideas in the novel cannot be effectively explored with any two societies that have ever existed. Therefore, Le Guin had to create these societies from scratch with convincing economics, ecology, and politics that all play off each other and each play a definitive part of the protagonist’s story. She builds the macro elements and lets us discover them from the micro point of view.  In conclusion, the true value of science fiction is being able to take the reader out of our world in order to look at it from the outside-in.

4. If you could suggest one book, what would it be and why?

I would pick Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg because it enjoyable to both people who do and dont read science fiction (even my mom liked it).

Royce DuBiner

1. Who are you and what are you interested in?

I am Royce and I am interested in Sailing, History, Corporate Governance, International Criminal Law, Medical Malpractice, and Historic Preservation. I also like anything related to the American South. 

2. What are you reading now?

Right now I am reading a book on critical race theory and the law. It is called The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. This goes along with my general interest in public policy and criminal law. The author of the book spoke at my school last year. Sadly, I do not have time to read for fun and most of my reading is related to work or schoolwork.

For a fiction book I just finished Noble House. The Novel was the story of a British Businessman during the heyday of Hong Kong’s rise to becoming an Asian Tiger. It is a great book for both showing the culture of Hong Kong and International Business Transactions. 

I really liked the book Peace Under Heavenby Man-Sik Ch’ae and Novel Without A Name by Duong Thuu Huong. Both novels are really great introductions to Asian history in the 20th century. Peace Under Heaven was great for me because it showed me a little of what Korean life was like under Japanese Colonialism. The book is comical but also critiques Korean society during the Japanese Colonial Period. Novel Without A Name was extremely transformative for me to read. I spent most of my time time at Goucher studying Asian Colonial and Post-Colonial history. Duong’s novel shows the brutality of war as it was for the average Vietnamese soldier during the American War. Slowly you see the main character descend into hell and become less and less human as he travels across Vietnam. Novels that show human beings on the edge and in their survivalist form appeal to me for some reason.

I would say every American owes it to themselves to read Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative. It is a nearly impossible read but I think the Civil War was the peak of the mountain in terms of this countries development after the founding of the Republic. I will admit I am barely done with the first book in the series, Fort Sumnter to Perryville. If that is too daunting I would recommend reading The Wild Man From Sugar Creek: The Political Career of Eugene Talmadge by William Anderson. This book is a great look into the politics of Georgia and the South during the depression and in the weird intra period between Civil Rights and Reconstruction. The book is still valid for today’s politics as candidates increasingly turn to populist political strategy much like that employed by “Gene.” I don’t really read fiction so I am absolutely no use in that area.

Asa Eisenhardt

1. Who are you and what are you interested in?

I’m Asa, and I enjoy music, long journalism articles and film. I’ve also recently improvised my own peanut sauce and given my amateur cooking abilities, I’m kinda excited about it! I graduated from Goucher in 2010 with an English degree (creative writing concentration), and have absolutely made use of the skills honed then while working as a technical writer for the past couple of years.

Goucher is such a reading- and writing-heavy school, and the meat grinder of literary analysis I went through really helped me become the dependable documentation dude I am today. 

2. What are you reading now?

Recently, I’ve finally kicked my butt back into a decent reading-for-pleasure regimen. I can’t say I frequently read the same caliber of material as some of the previous Goucher Reads interviewees, but for me anything is a step in the right direction back to the reading voracity of my youth. 

As of late, I’ve been rekindling my longtime love of noir/crime/detective fiction. Drive was an excellent film based on a similarly excellent novel. It’s Hemingwayish in its minimalism and conveyance of character behavior. A quick and awesome read.

The other book I’m just finishing up is called Queer Street, and it’s the third (and sadly last, I believe) of Curt Colbert’s Jake Rossiter detective novels. Each one uses considerable historical accuracy in examining postwar Seattle’s various social issues through the lens of a tough-as-nails private eye— police corruption (Rat City), Japanese immigrant conflicts during and after the institution of internment camps (Sayonaraville) and the underground club scenes of the gay/lesbian/transgender community (Queer Street). I was honestly kinda worried I’d be really offended at how a private eye— especially an ex-marine, as Rossiter is— would handle the lifestyles in Queer Street, given that homophobia was even more rampant in those days than it is now and detective fiction isn’t known for being egalitarian (see any Mickey Spillane novel, yikes).  I was honestly really impressed, though— Colbert doesn’t use any homophobic motives to keep Rossiter tough.

Sadly, in my lengthy search for Queer Street, I found out Colbert’s publisher went under. I really hope it’s not the last the world sees of his writing— Rat City is so instantly addictive, it’s unbelievable. For anyone into Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe or olden-day America, I can’t recommend it enough.

I’d also highly recommend the Longreads tumblr, which highlights some of the best long-form journalism I’ve ever read. In particular, this article about pain relief technology for war veterans really moved me. 

3. What was the most important book you have ever read?

This is truly a tough one. I think the slew of sci-fi and fantasy I read as a kid is pretty indicative of the day-dreaming escapist I am. I feel like Ray Bradbury imbues his work with this sense of wonder that sort of transcends genre. He makes you feel the same. whimsical sort of emotions as his characters and I think that sort of resonance is a profound connection with the audience that most artists seek. So in that way, Something Wicked This Way Comes was ONE of the most important books I’ve ever read— it’s as much a wide-eyed and spirited a coming-of-age tale as it is a deliciously ghoulish Halloween yarn.

But on a slightly more contemporary note, I think High Fidelity is a masterpiece. Rob, its protagonist, isn’t the best guy— in fact, dude is quite repulsive. He brags about this and that sexual conquest, rambles on about his musical knowledge, and becomes an overdramatic wreck when his girlfriend leaves him. But at the same time, there’s some comfort in his being flawed. He’s a warts-and-all hopeless romantic who has to conceal his true nature under a spikey layer of pop-culture elitism and mid-30s jadedness. It’s like reading a book of painful confessions from a close pal.

Though I hardly pay as much attention to the comic book industry as I should, Watchmen is something I will forever evangelize. I’m not one for nerd rage, but it bums me out that most people might remember it as a stupid eye candy movie and not a self-contained, brilliant series that addressed American history, Cold War paranoia, the ubermensch and all these vastly different character stories under the premise of a simple question: what if superheroes were real? I’ve read the thing more than any book I own and more times than I can count, and yet I still find new things every time I pick it up. Absolutely indispensable.

Man, I feel like the answers to this question and the previous one are interchangeable! In addition to the books I mentioned there, I’d also add Stephen King’s On Writing. I have great respect for the man’s work, though I’ve read little of it save for a traumatic glance through Cycle of the Werewolf  at the tender age of ten. That said, his humor, wisdom and unpretentious insight are phenomenal and On Writing seamlessly switches between advice and memoir.

Hillary Edwards

1. Who are you and what are you interested in?

My name is Hillary. I graduated from Goucher in 2010 and have since settled down in Baltimore. I work for the University of Maryland (http://wellness.umaryland.edu) and am pursuing a Master’s in Public Health on the side. I’m an advocate of public transportation in cities. I know some about art, a lot about tea, and would spend all my free time in a kitchen if I could, but a lot of that time right now is taken up learning how to garden (which is not a bad thing). 

2. What are you reading now?

Right now I’m trudging my way through Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls. 

Recent reads I loved: 

Tinkers by Paul Harding, whose story moved so smoothly between worlds of consciousness on a man’s deathbed. It won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and after reading was easy to see why.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is hands down one of the most beautifully haunting and hollow novels I’ve ever read.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, which is a true classic everyone should read. I think it is very telling of how our country has reverted back to the ways (in industry and in politics) of the early 1900s.

The Curfew by rising author Jesse Ball is a quick read but unforgettable. Ball is an author on the rise and the stories he constructs are full of suspense and love.  

Books I will always love:

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, 

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, 

Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi, 

Another Country by James Baldwin, 

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, 

Welcome to Hard Times by E.L. Doctorow, and

Blankets by Craig Thompson 

3. What was the most important book you have ever read?

Important in what way? In changing my life view? In making me believe literature is worth the time spent pursuing? Or are we talking about a book that I can re-read and always discover something new? I’ll answer the last, but with an author rather than a book. I’m enraptured by Milan Kundera. I’m working my way through his bibliography, some novels for a second or third time, and to whom I have an evolving relationship with as I read and re-read his novels as I grow older. The complexities of human nature and relationships are so striking. While working my way through his bibliography, it’s not only remarkable to see how Kundera developed as an artist, but also in how the perspectives of his characters change as I, the reader, have more life experiences. Sometimes I think I go through these phases of life that are more metamorphoses than simply change. I first read The Unbearable Lightness of Being in high school, I thought I was so cool, but really 90% of the content was way over my head at the time. The last time I read it was last November and it left me breathless. I neglected to see the vulnerability in the selfishness of many of Kundera’s characters for so long, yet it’s now quite apparent to me.

If you’ve never read Kundera, I would not start by reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 

I recommend beginning with The Farewell Waltz or Life is Elsewhere.

4. If you could suggest one book, what would it be and why?

I’ve already named many of my favorite books, but one I haven’t mentioned is Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle. This book is youth, not about it. Doyle’s command of language is extraordinary and impeccable as he takes draws you into 1960s Dublin from the perspective of a ten year old boy. The events in the book are destructive, some in hilarious due to the nature of, well, young boys, but also heartbreaking in the coping of the social world around him.