In the third Weekly Geeks of 2009, let's have fun with the classics. For our purposes, I'm defining a classic as anything written over 100 years ago and still in print. (If your memory needs jogging, see: Classic Literature Library for examples.)
For your assignment this week, choose two or more of the following questions:
1) How do you feel about classic literature? Are you intimidated by it? Love it? Not sure because you never actually tried it? Don't get why anyone reads anything else? Which classics, if any, have you truly loved? Which would you recommend for someone who has very little experience reading older books? Go all out, sell us on it!
I feel as though “classic literature” is a very broad category, encompassing pretty much everything: romance, history, mystery, etc. Personally, I think highly of classic literature, though there are of course the books I don’t like and the books I don’t “get” (Joyce's Dubliners and pretty much anything by Steinbeck, for example). But there are other books that I just love—anything by Jane Austen; Wuthering Heights; Jane Eyre; Bleak House; David Cooperfield; The Woman in White; The Moonstone; The Go-Between; Vanity Fair; Great Expectations; Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day; The Painted Veil. And there are many more on my TBR list.
As for recommendations, for anyone looking to start reading Charles Dickens, the places to start are either Great Expectations or Oliver Twist. For Jane Austen, definitely Pride and Prejudice, or maybe Sense and Sensibility. And Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, while not over 100 years old, is a delightful 1930s fairy tale (and it’s much better than the movie which I was disappointed in). It’s a quick read, but very heartwarming. It’s too bad Winifred Watson never wrote much else.
For your assignment this week, choose two or more of the following questions:
1) How do you feel about classic literature? Are you intimidated by it? Love it? Not sure because you never actually tried it? Don't get why anyone reads anything else? Which classics, if any, have you truly loved? Which would you recommend for someone who has very little experience reading older books? Go all out, sell us on it!
I feel as though “classic literature” is a very broad category, encompassing pretty much everything: romance, history, mystery, etc. Personally, I think highly of classic literature, though there are of course the books I don’t like and the books I don’t “get” (Joyce's Dubliners and pretty much anything by Steinbeck, for example). But there are other books that I just love—anything by Jane Austen; Wuthering Heights; Jane Eyre; Bleak House; David Cooperfield; The Woman in White; The Moonstone; The Go-Between; Vanity Fair; Great Expectations; Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day; The Painted Veil. And there are many more on my TBR list.
As for recommendations, for anyone looking to start reading Charles Dickens, the places to start are either Great Expectations or Oliver Twist. For Jane Austen, definitely Pride and Prejudice, or maybe Sense and Sensibility. And Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, while not over 100 years old, is a delightful 1930s fairy tale (and it’s much better than the movie which I was disappointed in). It’s a quick read, but very heartwarming. It’s too bad Winifred Watson never wrote much else.
Comments
I too adore Austen, and though I got a bit confused by Wuthering Heights when I first read it, I do like Jane Eyre. Last year I decided I wanted to give Anne Bronte a hearing, and The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall flew up in to take its place alongside her sisters.
And Miss Pettigrew I also read recently. I was worried that I might be disappointed after hearing so much about it, but I was not at all, and rather pleasantly surprised in of all the praise. I learnt of it through Persephone books, and the comedy in was unexpected after Mariana by Monica Dickens, which introduced me to the publisher.
i imagine it could be a delighful book with magic, that perhaps the film just barely missed.