Many years ago when this blog began, we used to run a series called “what we are reading…”. The idea was simply to share some initial thoughts on texts that we were finding helpful or interesting. We hoped share a certain joy of texts, and to take pleasure in the unexpected. In the neoliberal university, even the most pleasant parts of teaching, thinking, reading and writing are commodified. All too often they become filled with the anxieties and the flatness of alienation. In the context of further neoliberal retrenchment (and the blistering heat of the northern summer) we thought to come back to the question of “What we are reading…”. We have asked some friends of the blog to make suggestions. Writing a short note of contemporary or forgotten texts that people might read in libraries, offices or on the beach, cafe or other space of escape. 

We hope you enjoy these short suggestions. And if you have suggestions please write a short comment and we can collect them at the end of the summer, for another post.