Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Summertime Summertime Sum-Sum Summertime
I think I am finally safe in saying that winter is officially over. We finally have consistent warm weather and it looks like it's here to stay. Yay!!! And so begin the glorious days of lounging in the sunshine while reading a great book. Back in January, I made some reading resolutions. One of those resolutions was to read a challenging book-something I've been meaning to get around to. And what better time to do it than summer! Now, what to read? I was thinking Pillars of the Earth, or maybe something by Rushdie, Dickens or Thackery. A few summers ago Oprah chose Anna Karenina for her book club and I trudged through it and absolutely hated it! I do not want a repeat of that. Any suggestions on what I should tackle?
3 comments:
Of course this is very subjective, but here are my suggestions...
Flowers for Algernon, Jane Eyre, To Kill a Mockingbird and Rebecca.
Books to avoid like the plague...Jude the Obscure, Moby Dick, Tristram Shandy, and anything by Joyce or Faulkner!
How about Little Women?
Or some children's classics...Charlotte's Web, Little House in the Big Woods, The Borrowers, The Secret Garden, Mary Poppins or the Ramona books?
Haven't read Flowers for Algernon, but the other three are winners. If you want to do Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities is GREAT--much better than the depressing other stuff he did. Also in the same vein is The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orzcy--two stories set in England during the French Revolution, and both very interesting. Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers are good, as is The Keeper of the Bees by Genen Stratton-Porter. We don't have it here at the library, but it's VERY good. Unlike anything you've read before, I'll bet. G S-P wrote A Girl of the Limberlost, but avoid that one.Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe is good, and the language isn't too inaccessible, either. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is fun, and the movie tie-in with Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth, Rupert Everett and Judy Dench makes a great pairing. It's challenging to read b/c it's a play, but combining the two is perfect. A YA novel that is fairly challenging and has a great plot with some classic myth connections is Edith Pattou's East, which we do have in Youth Services.
Hope that gives you some good options--happy reading!
Heidi
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