Sunday, August 28, 2016

Which Classic Book Have You Not read And Why?

Only one?

BWAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAHAH!!!!

Oh, wait, you're serious?

A lot of them. I have not read THE GRAPES OF WRATH. I've read parts of it.

I have never so much as opened the spine on MOBY DICK, because I've heard from NUMEROUS sources that it's long-winded and boring as all hell.

CATCHER IN THE RYE? Nope. I might, some day, but there are all these other books I want to read more.

Here's the thing: Classics are classics. They are also open to interpretation. Some of them get a good rep and some do not. My God, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is one of my all time favorite novels. It's brilliant. I've read volumes of Arthur C. Clarke, H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, Anne McCaffery, Robert Heinlein, Fred Saberhagen, Jules Verne, Sheridan LeFanu,  H.G. Wells, Edgar Alan Poe, Mark Twain, Gene Wolf, Shirley Jackson, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Michael Moorcock, Marion Zimmer Bradley,  Lloyd Alexander, J.R.R. Tolkien, Larry Niven,  and that's the tiniest sampling. To me those are classics. They have a depth of work. They told stories that enthralled me and still do. I found their works compelling and delicious and eye-opening.

There are so very many I have not read enough of as yet, like Isaac Asimov (Some, not enough), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert E. Howard, Ursula K. LeGuin, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Stephen R. Donaldson, Lois McMaster Bujold, Cormac McCarthy, Terry Pratchett, Diana Gabaldon, Mary Stewart, Neal Stevenson, Stephen Erikson....a nearly endless list of modern masters.

So why would I then make myself read works that do not have any desire to read, merely because a handful of academics decided they are required reading? I am not in high school. I never attended college. I imagine there are a few books that I SHOULD read, but I'll get to them if I have the time.






On a completely unrelated note, there's THIS: 


A mosiac novel 
by Charlaine Harris 

Coming June of 2017. 






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