Whether it's your very first film review or those first speculative moments of your final dissertation, it's the start of a new academic year and pretty much everyone studying at university, of all years, is about to embark on an uncharted journey of self discovery and research which often involves climbing a few sets of stairs to the library so that you can discover new and exciting things about both the world and of yourselves. You're all like academic George Mallory's and Andrew Irvine's, but hopefully without the grisly, frozen demise! To avoid being stranded on the metaphoric Mount Everest of academic writing, the best trick to survive is to prepare yourself for the climb so you don't get caught in a tricky to navigate blizzard without the correct equipment. And that means books, and lots of them.
While studying my MA, for the entirety of the year I carried around a canvas bag full of books which made up a quite sizable reading list for the year which I could come back to at any point in my studies. Athens and Google Books are incredibly valuable resources but there's no doubt a big old book which you can reference at any point, attach post notes to and thumb through at your leisure is the most effective way to absorb new and sometimes difficult material.
This new feature is called CGAA Recommended Reading and the title pretty much explains what this new strand is about. Found a book in the which you think is particularly valuable for a project or is just inspiring? Post about it here and take the time to showcase a few images or some key passages or quotes.
Brownie points if you can showcase a book which is available from the UCA library!
Many thanks for kick-starting, Tom - this is excellent and most welcome on here - ta very much :)
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