Summer Reading List!

I love reading but because of my A levels, I've had trouble finding time to read books not to do with my courses for the last two years! This summer is the longest I've ever had so I'm intending to use it to my full advantage and read as much as I can! 

I've come up with a list of books I either want to finish or at least start before I hopefully start University in September/October!

- Aristotle: Philosophy in an hour by Paul Strathern

- David Golder by Irene Nemirovsky

- Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

- Confronting the Classics by Mary Beard

- Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

- The Civil Wars by Appian

- Isis and Osiris by Plutarch

Most of these books are still to do with Ancient History/Classics or Archaeology but I'm reading them for fun instead of for classes (the books I read for classes were still good though!) so I'm excited to read them! Hopefully they will actually be useful for next year as well!

I know the list isn't huge but some of the books are quite big and I'm quite busy until mid way through August so I don't want to set myself too big a goal as I'm pretty sure I can read all of these by the time I get to Uni!

The writer and the philosopher.

Lately, I've been feeling like I should be doing homework and work which I haven't actually got any that I can do properly and it's causing me to put more unneeded pressure on myself. Does anyone else feel like this sometimes? 

Today I used my free to do some extra research work for my most recent English Lit and Classics lessons which was quite fun, I got to research about The Knight's Tale by Chaucer and then researched Friedrich Nietzsche for Classics! 

We're studying War in English which is covering Ancient Greece (a modern re-working of the Iliad) to World War 2 (The Ghost Road) so it's a really interesting module! I've always meant to look into the works of Chaucer as he is widely known as the Father of English Literature and the best poet of Medieval times so it's quite exciting getting to learn about him and his works! So far he seems pretty interesting and once I get time, I fully intend to read The Knight's tale in full as the story seems to be really interesting! 

We're reading the Iliad and the Aeneid in Classics so to introduce us to the topic, my teacher is doing some lessons that introduce the Greek and Roman concepts of Heroism which is also really interesting as it's quite different from modern times and they actually greatly differ from each other! It's quite philosophy based at the moment so it can be slightly hard to understand sometimes as I don't study it, but once it's all explained, I'm finding it all amazing! I was considering philosophy for AS level but I didn't want another essay subject, I regret that decision quite a bit sometimes! My teacher mentioned Nietzsche and as I'd heard of him before from when I studied The History Boys at GCSE (also another fantastic piece of work, I highly recommend the written play and the production) so I decided to research him which has been super interesting but sometimes a bit complicated as I've been clicking on links trying to understand concepts left, right and centre! 

I love this sort of researching work as I feel more like I'm becoming independent and closer to University work, I'm honestly so excited for September now, I just hope I get in! 

Jess xx