Wild Things: YA Grown-Up discussion
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Classics?
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Catcher in the Rye
Of Mice and Men
Farenheit 451
1984
The Scarlet Letter
I didn't read a lot of classics in high school b/c I had electives, so we read more of Shakespeare and mostly gothic literature.
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My fourth graders read The Secret Garden. Some of them loved it, other hated it. I'm assuming b/c the language is tricky.
Treasure Island is another great one.
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Catcher in the Rye
Of Mice and Men
Farenheit 451
1984
The Scarlet Letter
I didn't read a lot of classics in high school b/c I had electives, so we read more of Shakespea..."
I really enjoy/ed Shakespeare and some of the gothic literature we were introduced to. :) If I could have stayed with that, I'd have been a happy girl.
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How about some modern classics?
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith written in 1949 i..."
Just cos a book's a classic doesn't mean it's good or you're going to enjoy it. And, that's the thing about them that drives me up a wall - if they're classics, shouldn't they be good? Or, at least, well written and something that's going to be relevant to society, no matter when they're being read? Or, is that too much to ask? **end rant**
So, to try to whittle down books (because I'm sure just saying "give me classics to read!" isn't that helpful,) I'll put down the ones that I've already read. :)
I've read: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, a great deal of John Steinbeck, Lord of the Flies (about five times, because of English classes - I enjoyed it the first time, but now would rather boil my eyes in acid than read it again,) a few Charles Dickens (who I find distressingly depressing.) Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy (first one was good, but then the subsequent ones just read like a history book instead of a story.) Frankenstein I thought was too boring to get into.
I've enjoyed every Bradbury that I've come across (at least, his short stories - I'm working around to reading his novels - except for Farenheit 451, which I've read.) J.R.R. Tolkien was decent, but I liked the movies more - the books made Gandolf and co. look like clowns, I thought. I ADORE Peter Pan and Lewis Carroll.
I didn't think about The Secret Garden until you mentioned it. Absolute love. "Of course" I've heard of Jane Eyre, but I hadn't actually read it - I'll mark that down. I hadn't heard of Elizabeth Gaskell. I've read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and have watched several 3 Musketeer movies - does that count? :)
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Have you read anything by Jane Austen yet? I recently read Pride and Prejudice and found it to be delightful.
I'm including a link to a list of Western Canon books. They make spark your interest in authors you haven't heard of before.
http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/g...
Have you read much Russian literature? (Anna Karenina for example) What I like about this list is that it takes a world view. It seems like many of the 'classics' lists are centered on British authors.
I'd second the recommendation for Dodie Smith's, I Capture the Castle. I've also recently given 5 stars to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I'm in the midst of listening to Wilkie Collins msterpiece The Woman in White.
Good for you for pushing your reading boundaries. I went to a church school and NONE of the classics were taught there. College courses helped fill in some of the gaps. But I've searched quite a few of them out on my own and really enjoyed most of them!
Happy Reading!! -Krista
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And of course, The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The first couple of books are focused on very young readers.
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Also along that vein, have you read Shirley Jackson? We Have Always Lived in the Castle was great, and shortish too. I'd recommend anything by her.
Gatsby and Flies were both pretty much crap IMO. Ok to crap, along that scale. Steinbeck is brilliant, but avoid sharp objects while reading - although I loved Cannery Row and it's sequel Sweet Thursday of his.
Bleak House
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I'm working on reading classics this summer, too. There's a lot out there that I've never read. I joined the 1001 Books you Should Read Before You Die group here on goodreads.
I'd recommend Count of Monte Cristo, even though I have yet to finish it myself. I read about half of it before I had to return it, but it was so engaging.
For YA, I'd suggest The Wizard of OZ series, they're good and different from the movies. Also, Winnie the Pooh, Chronicles of Narnia, Charlotte's Web are some other older YA books. Let us know which ones you try and like!
I'd recommend Count of Monte Cristo, even though I have yet to finish it myself. I read about half of it before I had to return it, but it was so engaging.
For YA, I'd suggest The Wizard of OZ series, they're good and different from the movies. Also, Winnie the Pooh, Chronicles of Narnia, Charlotte's Web are some other older YA books. Let us know which ones you try and like!
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Then we had to take a trip to Prince Edward Island. What precious memories!
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For example: Because of Jules Verne we have a lot of amazing science fiction nowadays - so Verne's books are classics, but not necessarily worth reading if you have to make choices about what you want to struggle through.
E Nesbit is great, but don't start with the Railway Children.
All classics are still loved by some people. But most of us need help from teachers or goodreads friends to fully appreciate some of them. I'd advise seeking such help. Choose a book or an author from any of the lists that you think you'd be interested in, then start a thread about it, asking for participation from goodreads members who have loved it.
I might just start a thread for the Anne series and ask Krista to help me out with them, as I've tried them once years ago, didn't appreciate them, and want to read them again. (It'll have to be next month at the earliest though.)
I know there are lots of lists out there - thanks Krista and Jennifer W. for examples of resources. If anyone wants to add their resource or list here I'd appreciate it!
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I like this one because it's chronological. This is important to me b/c some of the later classics (i.e., Prometheus Unbound & Frankenstein) reference earlier works (i.e., Prometheus Bound). I'm trying to work my way through the list, but haven't gotten far yet...
If someone is looking for help appreciating the classics, I found How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines very helpful. I am very left-brained, and had trouble with symbolism etc. beacuse I read things too literally. This book laid things out plainly and has really changed my reading experiences. There is a similar book, How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form, that I been meaning to read as well.
As to recommendations, I would second the following:
Jane Eyre
1984
Treasure Island
The Three Musketeers
I would also add:
Animal Farm
Pretty much anything by Edgar Allan Poe
Robert Frost
Just So Stories (specifically The Elephant's Child)
Walt Disney's Uncle Remus Stories (specifically The Tar Baby)
Dracula
The Scarlet Pimpernel
The Phantom of the Opera
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I know that a bunch of people mentioned it so far, but Pride and Prejudice is definitely one to check out. But like Fiona mentioned, it's all according to what your taste is.
I also particularly enjoy anything by John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway.
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It's a quick read, all written in letters from Jerusha to her secret benefactor. The ending is a bit predictable, but that doesn't make it any less fun.
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Well, I think "classics" has become kindof a catch-all term: originally it's the Greek and Roman authors, now it's anything taught in HS.
I think "To Kill a Mockingbird" and others are very lovely books, but I'm not convinced they deserve to be quite on the same top shelf w/, say, "Anna Karenina" or the Iliad.
I'm not personally on easy terms with the 19th Century doorstoppers like War and Peace or Bleak House, but I hope everyone will tackle at least a couple of them at some point.
I'd also say any serious fling with Great Books ought to cover at least some of the old-fashioned "epics": at least one of Homer's, and Virgil or Dante or Goethe.
That said, my automatic recourse is always to Shakespeare and Jane Austen.
In contemporary YA I don't know: I think Enthusiasm is wonderful, and some of Francesca Lia Block, and I could imagine teaching these in a classroom, but calling them "classics" may be a real stretch!
Books mentioned in this topic
Enthusiasm (other topics)Daddy-Long-Legs (other topics)
How to Read Literature Like a Professor (other topics)
How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form (other topics)
Walt Disney's Uncle Remus Stories (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Edgar Allan Poe (other topics)Robert Frost (other topics)
E. Nesbit (other topics)
Jules Verne (other topics)
Laura Ingalls Wilder (other topics)
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So, a bit of back story: I'm fairly intelligent and I've also always had a fairly good concept of books/reading/so on. In fact, my reading level was so much beyond my classmates in high school, that most of my English teachers asked me not to participate in the discussions, because of the frequency my participation confused the other kids by going "above their level." Really. Needless to say, that made me lose a lot of interest in my English classes. So, when there was a book they introduced that I wasn't interested in, I simply didn't read it. I passed on a lot of the classics that way.
Now, because I've been interacting in The Big Bad World, and The Classics are something that are referenced quite a bit, I'm feeling a bit like I should try to read them. So far, the ones that I have, I still hate.
So, I'm looking for suggestions - what classics would you suggest (and it doesn't have to be YA, although a lot of them are being classified as YA, anymore) to someone who so far, hasn't found classics she enjoys? I'd like to be able to read one classic every month - at least, that's my "reading goal" - next year, and I figured that I'd start taking suggestions now.