Rachael Reads

After a weekend full of bragging about my project and the wonderful things I had planned for myself, I finally got to the library to get the first book. Technically, it’s the 100th book. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington.

The What by Who?

Yeah. That’s what I said. Imagine my surprise that not only have I never heard of a book on this list, but there’s an author I’ve never heard of. “Booth Tarkington” sounds like an Internet quiz on how to get your porn star name.

After a quick Google search, I learned that not only was Booth Tarkington a state representative in the Indiana government, but The Magnificent Ambersons was made into a movie directed by Orson Welles in 1942. The novel won a Pulitzer Prize in 1919. It is also the second part of a trilogy that spans the years between the American Civil War and World War I. The Amberson family “serves as a metaphor for the old society that crumbled after the Industrial Revolution,” according to the review on Amazon.com.

Great. Social commentary for my first venture out into the world of Modern Library’s list. At least the book cover is pretty.

When college has prepared you for a life of analyzing books and producing papers on the subtext, what jobs can you achieve?

Not much, as it turns out.

What do you do with a B.A. in English,
What is my life going to be?
Four years of college and plenty of knowledge,
Have earned me this useless degree.

I can’t pay the bills yet,
‘Cause I have no skills yet,
The world is a big scary place.

But somehow I can’t shake,
The feeling I might make,
A difference,
To the human race.

–Avenue Q

I graduated from college two years ago and have found that my particular set of skills prepared me for nothing but trying to find opportunities to use the word “juxtaposition” in conversation. Try as I might, the classified section has yet to produce any advertisements for “professional reader.” What is a girl to do?

Start a blog about reading, of course.

Though I doubt it will make a difference to the human race, it will at least make the payment of my student loans seem worthwhile.