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I’ve always been an avid reader, but came out of high school with a profound dislike for nearly every book and author I had been ‘forced’ to read for class. Years later, out of curiosity, I made a list of all those books/authors and started working my way back through them to make sure I’d been fair.
I was surprised to find I liked many of my old demons: Dickens, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Shakespeare, Conrad, most of the British Romantic poets, a lot of the Modern poets - the list goes on - even Cry, The Beloved Country (which, at 16, I was convinced was the most wretched book ever inflicted on anyone).
I’m still not a fan of Thomas Hardy or Nathaniel Hawthorne, and I doubt I’ll ever finish Moby Dick, but I DID give them another try.
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