Question of the Week: What is your favorite "classic" book?

Mine is To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee.  I have read it multiple times and still enjoy it. I sometimes think we ruin the classics for people by having kids read them in high school.  When I reread something I was assigned in high school, I see how much I missed because I was just too young.  Try a classic today. You may like it.

.In case you don't know the story of To kill a mockingbird, Scout, a young girl growing up in an Alabama town in the 1930s, learns about injustice and violence when her father, Atticus, defends a black man, Tom, who is falsely accused of rape.

Posted by Becky

 

Question of the Week

Have you ever read a book, just because you heard it was banned?

It seems that whenever somebody makes a fuss over something - a book, a movie, or a song for instance - there's a mad rush of people that hurry right out to take a look or listen and find out just what's so "horrible" about it!

I don't recall exactly how old I was when I heard just that about J. D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye."  I was probably in 9th or 10th grade.  Like any good, curious reader would, I found a copy of the book and read it.  I just didn't see what the big deal was!  And I'm pretty sure I wasn't damaged from reading it.

Enjoy the rest of Banned Books Week!

Question of the Week

Which classic is your favorite?

As procrastinating students visit the library in search of the books they're supposed to read before school starts, focus inevitably turns to the classics.  Like many people, I chide myself for not reading very many and occasionally tackle one between my other reads.  It's a bit difficult to pick a favorite since I'm not allowing myself to say Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Instead, I have to go with a bit of a sleeper - It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis.  Despite being published in 1935, it reads as if Lewis is writing America of the last fifteen years.  The sense of yes, it really can happen here and sort of is happening really stuck with me both times I read it.


"It Can't Happen Here is a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression when America was largely oblivious to Hitler's aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a President who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, rampant promiscuity, crime, and a liberal press. Now finally back in print, It Can't Happen Here remains uniquely important, a shockingly prescient novel that's as fresh and contemporary as today's news."



So - what's your favorite?

Revisiting the Classics

Publishers Weekly has a great article this week called 10 Classic Books You Read in High School You Should Reread by Kevin Smokler, the author of the new book Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books You Haven't Touched Since High School (we don't have this yet, alas).  I think it is pretty flattering to most of us that he thinks we made it through 50 classics while in high school.  Maybe I hit that many by the end of college, but I wasn't tearing through them like crazy as a teen.

But I think he has a good point.  Just because you checked a classic off your list a few years/decades ago, doesn't mean you should be done with it forever.  I am not a fan of rereading books...there are so many new ones I want to tackle!  But the times I have taken the time to go back and revisit classics, I'm amazed by how different they are than I remember.  And that is because when you reread you bring new things to the book...your own broader perspective and gained experiences.  The two books that come to mind for me that I loved even more when I reread them as an adult:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  As a teen this was pure history to me, oldy time things happening to oldy time people.  Now I read it with enormous respect for Atticus Finch as a character and a father, and someone I hold in high esteem.  I worry more for the kids in the book, and I have more context for the struggles and evolution their culture is going through.

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster.  I distinctly remember picking this up as a teen because it was short and I heard it was romantic.  Both these things remain true, but what really surprised me was just how funny this book is...it is filled with quiet humor that went completely over my head the first time around, but was just delightful when I listened to it on audiobook (I've linked to the cd here).

What classics have you re-discovered in your grown-up years?  Which books have you been meaning to re-read, but just haven't gotten around to it?