02-09-2013, 08:20 PM | #121 |
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In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez (one of the books on the 10th grade list that I had never heard of :-) is currently selling in ebook form for $1.99 and the Sony Store and Amazon.com!
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02-09-2013, 09:15 PM | #122 |
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If so, that's a problem. If I think it couldn't really happen, it will feel fake. I couldn't get through Frankenstein. Since there's plenty else I do like, it's no loss for me.
However, if a book is good, it couldn't really be all made up. Harry Potter fans surely think that the emotions the characters experience are like those real people experience. I read one Potter book and didn't buy into it. Could be I was missing something. We're in a fantasy book boom. There may be an even bigger boom in Ayn Rand books, as shown in the right-hand column of these links: 100 Best 20th Century Novels 100 Best 20th Century Nonfiction Books Just because a genre is trendy doesn't tell us whether the trend will continue. No one can predict how long these booms will last. It could be that Tolkien characters are actually less "all made up" than Rand characters. It depends on whether real people placed in extraordinary circumstances would really think or interact as these authors portray. Last edited by SteveEisenberg; 02-10-2013 at 01:01 PM. Reason: removed unnecessary words |
02-10-2013, 12:14 AM | #123 | |
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I agree that there are HUGE holes in this list - Classics that many of us would have been assigned, and are probably still truly on the English Lit menu in the US. Mark Twain, Pearl S. Buck, Whitman, Orwell, Chaucer, Thoreau, Dante, Joseph Conrad, Melville, Jack London, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and many more classics were on my school's list, and are still regarded as major classic authors, but I don't see any of them here. Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage was the book we had to go along with Civil War lessons. Where is that? I read a number of the books on their list in college, not high school. I think Molière was assigned at the college level too. Honestly, those plays were a bit naughty for my High School, even conceding that many MTV videos back in the 80's were already worse. Spoiler:
IMO this quiz is hopelessly skewed toward the 'mod.' In fact, I have seen a number of these books promoted recently (Cod, SOn of the Morning Star, the Civil War books) which makes me wonder how many are fairly new? That wouldn't test general familiarity to classics |
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02-10-2013, 12:28 AM | #124 | |||
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02-10-2013, 12:32 AM | #125 |
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Spoiler:
I've read most all of the books on BelleZora's list and 51/100 of BelleZora's other list. Definitely saving that link for future reference Yes, Narnia has essentially been given two slots on both lists. Maybe they meant the rest of the books for the other one. I am a bit surprised to see Milne there. My Mother read those to me when I was small, and I read them to my kids at kindergarten age. Charlotte's Web, Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, and The Secret Garden are usually an option in the middle grades (4th-7th), not high school. On the whole, though, I'd expect more 10th graders to know this list than the other one, though they may not have read them all recently Last edited by Shushan; 02-10-2013 at 01:01 AM. |
02-10-2013, 12:40 AM | #126 | |
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Twas a slow, buggy poll and dreary I clicked on 'til I was weary of many a sad book of yesteryear Oh how I remember tapping book reports and character mappings anxiously awaiting my English paper scores (no, I had no teacher named Lenore) but now I'll read these NEVERMORE ...well maybe a few. |
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02-10-2013, 05:06 AM | #127 | |
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But did it say somewhere "100 Best English Language Books"? Maybe I missed that. Or did they just assume there isn't anything else worthwile? (yes, I mean "originallly written in English", of course) |
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02-10-2013, 05:58 AM | #128 | |
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Now, those who can suspend disbelief and accept the new rules of a fantasy novel (and even get enjoyment out of knowing and understanding those rules) have no issues enjoying fantasy, but that is not the masses. |
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02-10-2013, 06:43 AM | #129 | |
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But I can't believe somebody used an invisible energy wave summoned by their mind to move a starfighter out of a bog.....
. and forgetting to bring the bog roll to wipe it off before flying off to save the Galaxy....again. Cheers for saving the Galaxy but your fighter smells like the back end of a pigstye But I can't believe somebody used an invisible energy wave summoned by their mind to move a starfighter out of a bog Quote:
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02-10-2013, 12:41 PM | #130 | |
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02-11-2013, 02:30 PM | #131 | |
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Look at all the things we take for granted now that were "science fiction" decades ago. Cell phones, video calling, space travel, organ/limb transplants etc. Regarding the FB list, I've read 36 books on there.I'm currently reading The Hobbit, but didn't finish it yet so it wasn't counted. Last edited by voracious71; 02-11-2013 at 02:39 PM. |
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02-11-2013, 02:40 PM | #132 |
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Oh, well.
One read : Candide. Because hey, i'm french, and you can't escape Voltaire in classes then), a few i heard of, most of them unknown to me. |
02-11-2013, 03:13 PM | #133 |
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I've read Steinbeck back in secondary upper school here in Sweden. But I where surprised that they had put Fahrenheit 451 on the list and not 1984 or A brave new world that I would consider are far more important books.
And it is not so strange that american high schools are focusing on their own litterature. In Sweden we focus a lot on August Strindberg because he had a huge impact on the swedish culture. When I went to the university I've read a class only about Ingmar Bergman, but the funny thing was that it was held in english by a canadian professor Marc Gervais. But I missed Goethe, Dickens or Döblin. I even found it strange that there where so little modern american litterature (from after the 1950's). |
02-11-2013, 03:33 PM | #134 |
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My 14 yo LOVES Shakespeare and is upset that the teacher is making them read a simplified modern English version since she's already read a lot of his works.
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02-11-2013, 03:51 PM | #135 |
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Your 14yo is the exception to the rule.
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