Help me make a book list for myself!

[ButterPie]

I have decided to put off uni until at least next sept, maybe for a few years, and concentrate on being a SAHM as well as kind of educating myself a bit when the kids are in bed or at the ILs.

Can anyone recommend some books/websites/whatever to help me increase my general level of education? I consider myself pretty knowledgeable, but have woeful holes in my knowledge, particularly in history and current affairs. I am very interested in general lefty politics (I read the Guardian, i have just joined the Labour Party and Fabian Society, and the Fawcett Society are getting my membership next payday) but keep running up against my lack of general knowledge. I have asked for more info on some courses with the wea and have taken to clicking about the internet, a bit aimlessly.

I know mn is full of very clever ladies, help me out!

Hey - what degree are you thinking of doing?

I can reccomend some good books for English students

I will be doing English lit. It will actually be the forth time I will have started a degree in English (long story, basically it went OU, local uni, moved city, new local uni, got pregnant again, hopefully back to the new local uni) so I have done the introductory bits on literature several times

I actually have a house full of books as both me and DP are serial drop out bibliophiles, but I really need some kind of direction. From comparing myself to the other people in my seminar groups, I am usually in the top five or so for general knowledge, but that is comparing myself to 18 year olds at former polys. I hate not getting references, and would love to do more politically but am too worried that I will show myself up if I turn up to meetings or whatever with such awful general knowledge.

Any ideas?

Hello butterpie. I'm quite interested as i'll be doing English too.

OnlyWantsOneFartleBerry, please could you recommend?

ooooooo people seeking knowledge from me

well, depending, I would read some great basics,

Oscar Wilde - Iportance of Being Earnest

Jane Eyre -

also, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Charles Dickens - Gt Expectations

You can get fantastic little guides to things like Marx, Freud, Feminism and Communism. They are beginning guides, and really do give you a good start off to most modules.

Also, do some reading about colonialism / modernism

I'm half way through my 2nd year and by god I wish i'd read more before I started.

Oooo Virginia Woolfe, a Room of Ones Own

Not English, but as an excellent background reference for politics/economics I would recommend the Eric Hobsbawm series "the age of" (Age of Revolution, Age of Capital, Age of Empire, Age of Extremes) which take you from the industrial revolution through to the present day, more or less.
You have to bear in mind his politics (marxist - particularly an issue for me in the last volume, which deals with the 20thC), but he is always readable and it really gives you a sense of the chronology & what went on, plus loads to think about. I found it really helpful for understanding more about present day economics (eg the parallells between capital accumulation in Britain in the Industrial Revolution & what is happening now in China).
"The Making of the English Working Class" is another classic of economic history which is really readable & I think gives you a sense of how we came to be where we are now IYKWIM.

here's a list for you www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtmlou