I hate to admit it but I only read “Of Mice and Men” about 2-years ago. I loved the story, it was incredibley powerful and I get why that is a classic.
So are there new classics today?
A couple of books that I have read that are modern that I think can last are:
The Painted House - John Grisham
Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card
Stand by Me - Stephen King
The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, Book 1), The Wandering Fire (The Fionavar Tapestry, Book 2), The Darkest Road (The Fionavar Tapestry, Book 3) - Guy Gavriel Kay
Those are some of the ones I always mention to folks who ask me about a good book.
I wasn’t sure if Shirley Jackson was modern or classic but if modern than:
There are very few books that I have read so far in school that possess enough moral or intellectual value. The one that I like was Animal Farm (don’t know how to italicize, so you are going to have to deal with plain text) by George Orwell. I also enjoyed Lord of the Flies and Brave New World. That’s basically it. All of them were written in the 20th century.
I can’t remember any other books, and that means that they provided little material that was worth remembering. The books that are now being given out to read are very scarce in any prodigious theme that forces me to think. All the other books began repeating their morals.
Also, I have always found Shakespeare to be overrated. Let me bathe in the flames to come.
PS: If anyone can recommend any good books that have forced you to think, I would appreciate it. Although I know that there are other threads about this, I would just like to find some good non-fiction as well.
[quote]OctoberGirl wrote:
Natural Nate wrote:
Print is dead.
nooooooo!!! I don’t read books on my computer.
Doesn’t anyone take a book and go sit somewhere and read anymore?
[/quote]
I was just making an obscure quote. Come on, someone get it!
Actually the whole “get rid of printed books and read them all online” thing was tried several years back. Stephen King played a big part. But fortunately it didn’t work out.
[quote]belligerent wrote:
there are no new classics… the nonfiction genere is totally bankrpt nowadays[/quote]
There are no children here and go ask alice are two unbelieveable nonfiction books. The former was published in the late 80’s-early 90’s and the latter was published in the late 70’s, I believe.
[quote]belligerent wrote:
there are no new classics… the nonfiction genere is totally bankrpt nowadays[/quote]
Surely this is a joke.
Ha Jin, Bret Easton Ellis, J.M. Coetzee, etc…
If you don’t find social value or statements in these, well, I just don’t know what to tell you.
[quote]OctoberGirl wrote:
Natural Nate wrote:
Print is dead.
nooooooo!!! I don’t read books on my computer.
Doesn’t anyone take a book and go sit somewhere and read anymore?
So if Orwell profiled the future, is the new Orwell, William Gibson?
[/quote]
I read all the time, but I don’t think any of my reading will ever be considered classic. I don’t think Star Wars books can qualify. Although the first Timothy Zahn trilogy is pretty damn good.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
OctoberGirl wrote:
I wasn’t sure if Shirley Jackson was modern or classic but if modern than:
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
We read that in school. That story creeped me out. Similar (in the vaguest sense) to The Island (the Michael Bay movie).[/quote]
Do you mean the movie with Ewan Macgregor? That was a book first.
hhhmmmm I always thought of The Lottery as a cautionary tale of what may have happened if a pagan cult had survived to modern times retaining the original ways of worship.
A lot of religions and cults still exist today from ancient times but they have mutated.