czarval
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
Posts: 607
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Post by czarval on Oct 6, 2006 1:19:42 GMT -5
Count of Monte Cristo is SOOO good. I had to read it for school and I was really pressed for time, so I read the first third, skipped the middle and got the info from the internet, and then read the last third. I was soo disappointed that I hadn't read it all because the beginning and ending were soo good. So I read it again later, beginning to end, and it's one of my ultime favourites. Plus, I imagine Edmond Dantes to be really a sexy guy Alexandre Dumas is a really good author. I like Count of Monte Cristo, but my favourite of his will always be The Three Musketeers.
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Post by bookaddict on Oct 10, 2006 14:04:55 GMT -5
I also really enjoyed Fried Green Tomatoes book and movie. The book of course was better, but the movie was also well done.
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Kristie
Novel turned into BBC miniseries
"If a book is well written, I always find it too short."
Posts: 7,214
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Post by Kristie on Oct 10, 2006 14:57:12 GMT -5
Count of Monte Cristo is SOOO good. I had to read it for school and I was really pressed for time, so I read the first third, skipped the middle and got the info from the internet, and then read the last third. I was soo disappointed that I hadn't read it all because the beginning and ending were soo good. So I read it again later, beginning to end, and it's one of my ultime favourites. Plus, I imagine Edmond Dantes to be really a sexy guy Alexandre Dumas is a really good author. I like Count of Monte Cristo, but my favourite of his will always be The Three Musketeers. I read the Three Musketeers later after I'd finished Count of Monte Cristo and I didn't like it very much. Maybe it's because I really liked the movie and the book seemed so boring in comparison. It wasn't as boring as some things I've read, but it took me a while to finish it.
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czarval
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
Posts: 607
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Post by czarval on Oct 11, 2006 13:34:14 GMT -5
The book took me a long time, the first time, too. All the political wrangling kept interfereing. I found it's one of those books I like the more times I read it.
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czarval
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
Posts: 607
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Post by czarval on Oct 11, 2006 17:31:47 GMT -5
I know what you mean. I think I finally broke 100.
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Post by gilmoregirls021 on Oct 24, 2006 19:34:41 GMT -5
1984 by George Orwell Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Animal Farm by George Orwell The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
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zeldafitzgerald
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
ancora imparo
Posts: 1,948
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Post by zeldafitzgerald on Oct 24, 2006 20:27:44 GMT -5
my favorite classics (so far, in no particular order)
pride and prejudice by jane austen the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald walden by henry david thoreau slaughterhouse five by kurt vonnegut on the road by jack kerouac
but this could be much different soon, I just graduated from college and was horrified at how many classics I've missed during my education/personal reading. So I'm now focusing on catching up, starting with the brontes.
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jen4219
First poem written for Mother’s Day
Posts: 31
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Post by jen4219 on Oct 25, 2006 17:30:44 GMT -5
In no particular order:
Le Fantôme de l'opéra by Gaston Leroux Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
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jen4219
First poem written for Mother’s Day
Posts: 31
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Post by jen4219 on Oct 25, 2006 19:39:04 GMT -5
but this could be much different soon, I just graduated from college and was horrified at how many classics I've missed during my education/personal reading. So I'm now focusing on catching up, starting with the brontes. Same here! I feel like I got cheated out of my literary education. I once asked the head of the English department at my college if they would offer a variety (or maybe even just one!) course focusing on various classic novels and he said the school wouldn't consider it because "there wasn't enough interest" in it. I couldn't believe it. It was at that moment I realized my education failed me.
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zeldafitzgerald
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
ancora imparo
Posts: 1,948
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Post by zeldafitzgerald on Oct 25, 2006 22:54:25 GMT -5
I also think it stinks that they made kids in my high school read such....how do i put this....."dry" classics... I guess. If you don't already have a passion for reading developed on your own, you're certainly not going to develop it in high school. However good "A Tale of Two Cities" is - it's not really going to make non-readers excited about reading on their own. In high school I was never required or asked to read Pride and Prejudice or The Great Gatsby. These are very accessible, fun books that millions enjoy and are great works of literature. I think high school education should have a mix of interesting, engaging classics and also wonderful contemporary literature.
I'm thankful my parents are serious readers and helped me develop my passion early on. Because school did nothing for it....
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Isa
Administrator
Posts: 6,995
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Post by Isa on Oct 26, 2006 7:33:23 GMT -5
I didn't even have to read a novel in high school One teacher asked us to read one novel, but said there wouldn't be any test on it so it was more or less optional, and I ended up being the only one in the class who read it. So I did a lot of reading on my own, but I felt so cheated when I got to uni and saw that most of the other students had already read so many great books and wrote so many essays... So yeah, my high school was really lame.
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Post by bookaddict on Oct 26, 2006 8:29:52 GMT -5
Yeah, I had the same problem. In Quebec we have a cegep system before University, and it's set up similar to university. It for the transition. That was where I read a lot of great books, if it wasen't for cegep I wouldn't have read them in University. I think a lot of university professor's believe that students already read a lot of classics so they don't want to do it again. I would love to take a class on just classics. I took Victorian lit, and the 18th and 19th century novel...those classes were fun.
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jen4219
First poem written for Mother’s Day
Posts: 31
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Post by jen4219 on Oct 26, 2006 18:04:11 GMT -5
It's one thing to not teach the more or less "dry" classics to students in high school because for the most part, high school students can't truly appreciate them. But as an English major in college, I expected to dive into some of them and actually learn something, but it never actually happened. I took three separate classes that dealt with the Romantic Period, but I couldn't take even one on Tolstoy or Bronte. I did and still do a lot of reading on my own, but sometimes, it's nice to have a discussion about them. Which, I suppose, is why I stumbled across this group.
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Post by Dominique on Oct 26, 2006 18:34:26 GMT -5
we didn't really read many "classics" in high school. We mainly did either Shakespeare or just random books. I did an extension class in my last 2 years that taught Frankenstein and Pygmalion for a creator/creation topic and crime fiction the entire next year (which kinda sucked because I'm not really a crime ficton kinda gal)
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