Going Forward with Summer Reading

I've just finished A Confederacy of Dunces along with A Midsummer Night's Dream...both of which have a LOT of medieval references. The play definitely renewed my faith in Shakespeare. Reading Hamlet was so traumatic for me, I decided I officially hated Shakespeare up until A Midsummer Night's Dream saved his reputation =). I read Hamlet for the first and last time when a good friend of mine needed help with analyzing it for an intro to drama lit. class. Horrifying is the only word for it. I'm sure it must be great to see on screen what with all the completely insane people running around and eventually massacring one another...but it was kind of irritating to read. Anyway, since last semester I've had a bit of a prejudice toward Renaissance literature. I took my long over-due first half of British literature course. It was all gravy (for me anyway) until will hit the Petrarchans (Sydney, Spencer, Shakespeare, etc.). They all just seemed completely whiny, love-obsessed, and stuck in the general Renaissance zeitgeist. I don't know -- the medievals just seem so much more creative to me.  While Sydney's speaker boohoo'ed and begged his girl for ages all to the effect of his never understanding that she just won't give it up, Chaucer was writing about a woman caught having sex in a tree by her much older, decrepit, not to mention blind husband who regains his sight at quite an untimely moment. On this note, it is funny that Ignatius J. Reilly also like to reference Chaucer considering how lewd and "decadent" his writings could be at times...

I'm still waiting until Wednesday to pick up the holds I have at the library. I hope they don't put them back before I get there. I'm supposed to be reading The Hunger Games next. I also need to find a copy of Northanger Abbey for my mom and myself, possibly at the book shop in the library. I'm looking forward to writing a little more in-depth about A Midsummer Night's Dream and A Confederacy of Dunces, but for now my brain is tired. Feel free to comment if you have any reading suggestions.