Edda van Heefmstra Ruston Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 1984 by George Orwell - YesWar and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - No [started]Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - YesCatcher in the Rye by J D Salinger - NoA Passage to India by E M Forster - NoLord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein - YesTo Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee - YesCrime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - No [started]Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - YesJane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë - YesAs with others, I've been tempted to go back to W&P and C&P to see if I am more up for it this time. Then again, I think I've been halfway through Catch-22 for the past 5 years, so maybe I should finish that first.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isis Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Slightly bemused by one line from the article though:I don't understand why this is supposed to be surprising, since it covers both "people who buy books merely to put them on the shelves to impress visitors" and "people who buy or borrow more than one book at a time and need somewhere to put the ones they can't start straight away". I own lots of books I haven't read yet. That doesn't mean I have no intention of reading them and it seems a weird thing to conflate with "lying about books you've read".Yeah, that is weird. Am I supposed to hide the books I own, which I haven't read yet? So, that would mean having two classics bookcases, one for those I've read and another for those I haven't read yet... Yeah. Unlikely. Books take up way too much room here as it is, despite being ruthless about chucking books out.You're only lying about books you haven't read if, when someone asks you if you've read that book on your shelf you say yes, when you haven't. What a shitty survey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry. Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 From the list, I've read 1984 (liked it, loved the oppressive feeling of it), Lord of the Rings (which is probably my favorite book series of all times, I've read LotR, The Silmarillion and The Hobbit many times), Crime and Punishment (Dostoievski is one of my favorite writers, I've also read The Brothers Karamazov, The Demons, The Double, and some others), Pride and Prejudice (I loved that book when I was a teenager, I also read Sense and Sensibility) and Jane Eyre (which I liked).Never heard of A Passage to India, and I only heard about To Kill a Mockingbird this year, in this forum.One Hundred Years of Solitude, Boquitas pintadas, Hopscotch, Don Quixote, The Slaughterhouse, MartÃn Fierro, Ficciones... those are the classics in this side of the world I think, judging from what we read in school. From that list I haven't read Ficciones, Don Quixote (only a children's version) and The Slaughterhouse.Who wrote The Slaughterhouse? I recognize (and have read all but Boquitas pintadas) the other titles, but this one intrigues me for some reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowborn Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Who wrote The Slaughterhouse? I recognize (and have read all but Boquitas pintadas) the other titles, but this one intrigues me for some reason.El Matadero, de Esteban EcheverrÃa. Oh, not a book, but a short story. Damn, now I feel cheated. In 2º Polimodal, my teacher divided us into groups and assigned one classic book to each group, we had to read it and write a report. A group got El Matadero, mine got... Hopscotch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kat Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 1984 by George Orwell - YesWar and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - No Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - YesCatcher in the Rye by J D Salinger - YesA Passage to India by E M Forster - NoLord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein - YesTo Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee - NoCrime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - NoPride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - NoJane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte; - Yes (I think. I'm pretty sure I read this one for a class in college.) I'm usually pretty open about the fact that I hated reading classic literature in school and there were only a few books I read for English class that I liked. Surprisingly, Faulkner and Steinbeck were among those. I also liked Catcher in the Rye, but I was 14. I'm pretty sure if I went back and read it again, I'd think it was irritating. I was a pretty bad English student in school, and never should have been put into the honors classes, where all my teachers expected us to be great at analyzing literature. I was socially inept/immature and this made it very hard for me to relate to almost any of the books I read. I specifically went out to choose a college based on how few literature classes I could get away with taking.Ironically after all that I've ended up spending most of my time online talking about books and I go to conventions to talk about books and hear people talk about books. :lol: Turns out I was mostly just put off by what was considered a classic and what was not. Maybe if my English teachers had actually had a free reading requirement, I could have found something I liked about those classes, but instead I just kept the books I enjoyed reading to myself. Oh well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tears of Lys Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 For those of you who have not read A Passage to India, and I count myself among you, there was a film made of it. I have no clue whether it's true to the book or not.Great review by Roger Ebert: http://www.rogereber...e-to-india-1984The marvelous director David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Bridge on the River Kwai) did the honors on this film as well. And there's a fantastic cast.There are so many of us in this thread who have either never read this book, nor even heard of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suttree Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 i have personally started all of them, but a lot of classic literature is fucking shit. Well glad we got that cleared up. :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaime's Wench Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Good to hear I am not the only one! I had to blag having read Great Expectations for a seminar once. Really, at the age of twenty, I had far better things to do with my time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kairparavel Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Passage to India is an E.M Forster book (Room With a View, Howard's End, and others I haven't read) and it was adapted into a movie in 1985. It was nominated for just about everthing except best craft services at the Oscars.For those of you who have not read A Passage to India, and I count myself among you, there was a film made of it. I have no clue whether it's true to the book or not.Great review by Roger Ebert: http://www.rogereber...e-to-india-1984The marvelous director David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Bridge on the River Kwai) did the honors on this film as well. And there's a fantastic cast.There are so many of us in this thread who have either never read this book, nor even heard of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tears of Lys Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Well glad we got that cleared up. :rolleyes:Yeah, really. Such an statement should be required to come with a great big, fat IN MY OPINION. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tears of Lys Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Yeah, but did you link a Roger Ebert review? :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Visenya Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Take that back!Er, why, it was the most boring book I've ever had the misfortune to read, Oh Elizabeth,Oh Mr Darcy, Kitty stop coughing to amuse yourself, really?, it's inane 18th Century chick lit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Someone in outer space Myshkin just imploded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecryptile Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Cryptile's Classics:The Left Hand of Darkness - LeGuinRingworld - NivenTime Enough For Love - HeinleinThe Space Merchants - Pohl & KornbluthThe Demolished Man - BesterStormbringer - MoorcockThe Book of the New Sun - WolfeFoundation - AsimovThe Martian Chronicles - BradburyDune - HerbertEnder's Game - CardHyperion - SimmonsLOTR - Tolkien Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry. Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 El Matadero, de Esteban EcheverrÃa. Oh, not a book, but a short story. Damn, now I feel cheated. In 2º Polimodal, my teacher divided us into groups and assigned one classic book to each group, we had to read it and write a report. A group got El Matadero, mine got... Hopscotch.OK, just bought an e-book collection of his, including "El Matadero," because I'm that curious. And you got stuck with Rayuela? :o Certainly not the easily of things to discuss, although I loved it when I first read it back in 2006 or 2007. Always meant to re-read it (in a different fashion), maybe I'll do so later this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myshkin Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Always meant to re-read it (in a different fashion), maybe I'll do so later this year.Do you mean in the linear fashion, instead of hopscotching around the book like you're supposed to? You'll miss the best parts! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myshkin Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Someone in outer space Myshkin just imploded.Why? I've been pretty vocal in my scorn for 19th century English lit. Now if anyone's got anything bad to say about 19th century Russian lit I'll punch them in the face. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 People should worry less about classics, whose completion is of uncertain worth, and more about logical fallacies, economics, and a whole host of more pertinent subjects.That said people should use fiction to broaden the variety of views they can understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard Posted September 9, 2013 Share Posted September 9, 2013 Why? I've been pretty vocal in my scorn for 19th century English lit. Now if anyone's got anything bad to say about 19th century Russian lit I'll punch them in the face.Flip pack to the first page and look for comments about Crime and Punishment. :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry. Posted September 9, 2013 Share Posted September 9, 2013 Do you mean in the linear fashion, instead of hopscotching around the book like you're supposed to? You'll miss the best parts!No, I meant hopscotching in a different fashion, just to see what happens then. First few dozen sections have to be read linearly, if I recall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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