ROFL (Reviewing Our Favourite Literature) is a blog series intended to help you get to know the mysterious faces behind the UBC English Students’ Association. All the execs will share their favourite book or author and this week we are introducing Liam. He is the social coordinator and the official defender of Novels Too Long to Handle. He loves meeting people, learning about other cultures, and making snide comments about bad books. Come to him if you have any events-related ideas or dreams! Anna Karenina. There’s something mysterious about that little Russian social novel. There’s an intangible quality, a feeling in the air every time I open it. Tolstoy writes with…

Over the last six months or so, I’ve seriously started thinking about my future plans, academic and otherwise. After much internal debate I took a course in Creative Writing and it was honestly one of the best decisions I’ve made. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it helped me knock down a few fears… You see, I’ve been questioning my chosen degree and career options for the past year. I have been so focused on finishing my undergraduate studies properly and ticking off the various requirements that I utterly forgot that I was supposed to be enjoying this journey. So, in an attempt to somewhat dial-back my ambitions, I made a…

ROFL (Reviewing Our Favourite Literature) is a blog series intended to help you get to know the mysterious faces behind the UBC English Students’ Association. All the execs will share their favourite book or author and this week we are introducing Erin. She is a fourth-year undergraduate student pursuing a double major in English Literature and Art History. In addition to being the ESA’s Vice-President, Erin is also an assistant at the AMS Art Gallery and a self-proclaimed tea addict. Over the course of the past three years I’ve been introduced to many of the most important, or influential, books in the Western Hemisphere as a part of my education…

The ESA would like to welcome our new blogger Cassie Dominic! Cassie is an international student studying English and Classics with big dreams and an obsession with all things Jean Rhys and Shonda Rhimes.  Before I delve into an attempted explanation of why this novel is near to my heart, I should state that I have a special fascination for Jean Rhys; my admiration for her is on a level of its own and I am rarely able to adequately articulate just how or why – though I did attempt to in my IB Extended Essay. Wide Sargasso Sea tells the story of a woman named Antoinette Cosway (readers may…

ROFL (Reviewing Our Favourite Literature) is a blog series intended to help you get to know the mysterious faces behind the UBC English Students’ Association. Our team will share their favourite book or author and this week we are introducing one of our bloggers, Fatima.  “Have you ever asked yourself what works of art revolve around? Around love, sex, death, and the meaning of life; the struggle of man against his fate, against society; man’s relations with nature and with God. What else?”- Literary Murder. Favourites are complicated. I, for one, am ridiculously undecided. Therefore, my favourites lists are often convoluted and complicated. However, I believe favourites are born when they come to at…

ROFL (Reviewing Our Favourite Literature) is a blog series intended to help you get to know the mysterious faces behind the UBC English Students’ Association. All the execs will share their favourite book or author and this week we are introducing Javier. Like Sir James Augustus Henry Murray—polyglot, philologer, lexicographer, and primary editor of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary—Javier Ibáñez is a human being. Additional accomplishments include serving as President of the English Students’ Association, being a fourth-year student in the English Honours program, and having been named Best Editor of The Garden Statuary, an honour that he just made up. Last summer I decided that I would remedy what…

ROFL (Reviewing Our Favourite Literature) is a blog series intended to help you get to know the mysterious faces behind the UBC English Students’ Association. All the execs will share their favourite book or author and this week we are introducing Sara. She is a second-year undergraduate student in the English Honours program and the social coordinator for the English Students’ Association. “Yeah, so things have fallen apart.” Of the many reasons to read Miriam Toews’s writing, her ability to create characters is the one that I usually quote as I try to cram The Flying Troutmans down the throats of anyone unfortunate enough to be in my vicinity. It is nearly impossible…

ROFL (Reviewing Our Favourite Literature) is a blog series intended to help you get to know the mysterious faces behind the UBC English Students’ Association. All the execs will share their favourite book or author and this week we are introducing our blog manager, Emily. She is a third-year undergraduate student in the Honours English and is also an editor for The Garden Statuary.  In my Grade 12 yearbook the write-ups from the graduating students ranged from Dr. Seuss quotes to heartfelt messages for loved ones. And then there was mine, which went something like this: “Giraffes are so tall because their ancestors ate the top branches of trees. The shorter Giraffes could…

We are pleased to introduce our newest blogger: Callie Hitchcock.  “Hello everyone my name is Callie and I am pleased to be a new blogger for ESA! I am currently undergoing my third year of an English Literature major with a Creative Writing minor, and I have always loved to read and discover new poetry.” Philip Larkin creeps up on you. The Collected Poems sits quietly on your shelf for a while. Its soft beige cover doesn’t shout at you when you go about your day. Sooner or later you become drawn to its seeming simplicity. When you open it up you see short poems and think you are in…

GREETINGS again, groggy readers. This edition is brought to you by indignation, annoyance, and paralyzing disappointment. Only one of you wrote to me. How dare you not have problems! I know you are all curled into a tight little ball right now, rocking your poor mind out of its mold-filled pickle jars. I’ll say! If this is true and you can provide evidence (polaroids would be perfect, and if not, hire a lithographer), I guess I’ll forgive your negligence. And now I’m stuck talking about feelings. What madness is this? Well as per usual I am ever professional. Enjoy yourselves, or if not, eat moldy pickles. Dear Bloody Mary Snippets,…

GREETINGS bedraggled readers—if you are perusing this column right now you are most likely single, as Valentine’s Day has passed without any possibility that the enchanting secret beloved you have pined for since first year will remember to reply to your Facebook message. You are clicking the refresh button over and over while reading “A Softer World” and “Letters of Note” with at least 20 other tabs open, rather than in a bedroom, coffee shop, or somewhere outdoors hidden cozily beneath an umbrella with that said beloved. Why you wrote that little poem for him or her in thinking he or she will find your line-breaks meaningful, you haven’t the…

Lauren Milden graduated from UBC with a double major in English and French. She completed a law degree at Wolfson College, Cambridge, before joining the London-based political lobbying and media relations company, PLMR, in 2011. We interviewed Lauren in October about her past undergraduate experiences and current work. After double majoring in English and French at UBC, you completed your law degree at Cambridge and are now working in political lobbying and media relations in the U.K. Can you describe a bit about what led you to where you are now? Were there any central motivations? Any defining choices or experiences?   After setting myself up for five potential majors during…

by Rachel Robinson In the wilds of an English degree, it can be frustrating – perhaps even futile – finding time to read things which are not assigned in class. The same could occasionally be said about things which are assigned, but that’s a different story, no pun intended! Nevertheless, if you are feeling the need for some Unstructured Book Appreciation, check out C.S. Lewis’ (Yes, he of Narnia fame) Space Trilogy- especially Perelandra. Perelandra or Voyage to Venus as earlier editions are called, was published a year after Lewis’ Preface to Paradise Lost came out. Those who have studied Milton will see many similarities between the two works. The…