Well, It is interesting that you taught Ruissian and Russian literature for many -years. I lived in Russia for 7 years- Until last December- I defend a lot of Russian literature that tends to get a negative review because the person read it at too young an age- i.e. In secondary school- or they have not read enough good Russian literature to counter authors they do not like. As for a great book to start with I always recommend Master and Margarita by Mikael Bulgakov. Many people in the west have never heard of it or only heard of the book. Most of my Russian friends say this is the best Russian novel ever written. I tend to agree.
Speaking of Russians. Ayn Rand should have stuck to Philosophy and shorter pieces of fiction. her "Anthem" is not bad and quite autobiographical. I think here philosophy also interesting to read. However, Atlas Shrugged- I
won't even go there. Poor is a nice way to start.
Harry Potter/Davinci Code- Never read it- Never will- Life is short enough and there are too many good books out there. Interesting point-
Most Russians and Japanese who bought Harry Potter books in English never read them. In fact most of my friends in Japan and Russia could not get through the first few pages. However- Sales were huge.
Sales were huge for Titanic too.. Does that make it an Epic for all time?
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Originally Posted by radleyp
You can't "test" a book to determine whether it's "good" or "bad", you can only express your opinion of it and that's what we're doing here. I don't know if that's a worthwhile exercise, since it's too easy to take potshots at what we don't like (it was W.H. Auden, I think, who said he didn't review books he didn't like for that very reason). I taught Russian language and literature at a university-level for 20 years: that does not make me an "authority", but simply a better-read judge (at least where Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc... are concerned). And I do disagree with many of the opinions expressed here: Da Vinci, to me, was a very good thriller, the Harry Potter books (which I listened to, in recordings by Jim Dale) were delightful, L.Ron Hubbard absolutely unreadable in the way Tom Clancy and Ayn Rand are - use maximum verbiage for minimum content, a common ailment in SF books which is why I rarely read them.
The expression is "de gustibus non EST disputandum".
And congratulations to those of you who have responded to Lobolover: I can't, since I don't understand most of what he wrote, save that he is in strong disagreement.
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