Books, books, books...

[Tanukitsune]

I recently got a library card and got a book on American Short stories and I MUST KNOW:

 

-Is Nathaniel Hawthorne's any good, I've loved the short stories I read of him.

-I just read "The Ransom of Red Chief" and does the rest O.Henry even come close to this amazing short story?

[jennegatron]

I recently got a library card and got a book on American Short stories and I MUST KNOW:

 

-Is Nathaniel Hawthorne's any good, I've loved the short stories I read of him.

-I just read "The Ransom of Red Chief" and does the rest O.Henry even come close to this amazing short story?

 

O Henry has some really delightful stuff. I remember really liking The Last Leaf. Gift of the Magi, is really delightful even though it's become a culture reference so common as to strip away some of the magic.

 

I have a very hard time judging the quality of Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter is read in a ton of high school English classes, and it is mostly impenetrable to 15 year olds. I do remember liking Young Goodman Brown though, which is one of short stories we also read. Maybe revisiting The Scarlet Letter now would mean something else.

 

If you like the Ransom of Red Chief, you might like Flannery Conner's work, especially A Good Man is Hard to Find.

[Tanukitsune]

I've heard of the Scarlet Letter, but I didn't know who wrote it until now, but I guess I already know the best short stories from O. Henry since, like you said, it's everywhere now. 

 

I'm sure I'll find some of their work on Scribd, if not all of it.

[Woodfella]

I've been unsettling the other passengers on my commute to work by cackling to myself as I read American Psycho. Hip!

[tberton]

I haven't read The Scarlet Letter, but I've heard good things. 

[jennegatron]

I haven't read The Scarlet Letter, but I've heard good things. 

 

Really? I don't know of anyone who's read it 1. voluntarily and 2. liked it.

It's probably the book I hated most in high school as the prose is totally impenetrable as a result of when it was written (to a 15 year old me.)

I know that it's important to challenge kids to read things too hard for them so they learn, but there must be a better book for that than The Scarlet Letter.

I always felt the messages of hypocrisy and misogyny were better delivered by The Crucible at that age, even though I know it's meant to be an extended metaphor for the McCarthyism. Because of its origins as a stage play, it makes it much easier to engage with the material in a classroom. 

It's hard to teach literature!

[Mangela Lansbury]

I read the Scarlet Letter in 9th grade because I had to. It was way more engaging than Great Expectations, so I was alright with it. I really liked the class discussions we had about some of the gender issues portrayed in the work.

I revisited it a few years ago. It's actually really good! I'm glad I was introduced to it so I could come back to it later and get more out of it.

[jennegatron]

Part of it may be that I was a teenage girl who bought whole heartedly into the misogyny that was taught to me (and I continue to unpack those feelings regularly) that it would have been very hard for me to work with and acknowledge the gender dynamics occurring in that book. It seems like a good one for grown ups, maybe not for teen me though?

[Gormongous]

It seems like a good one for grown ups, maybe not for teen me though?

 

I mean, that's often the case with the books that teenagers are made to read in school. The Great Gatsby is the best example, because it's a short read yet terrible to give to teenagers who have never experienced loss or compromise. It's a book to read when you're about to turn thirty, not when you're sixteen and wondering why Gatsby won't just fuck someone cheaper.

[tberton]

I really like The Great Gatsby and haven't read it since I was sixteen. I actually liked most of the books we read in high school, or at least the ones I finished. I may be an outlier though.

[Mangela Lansbury]

I mean, that's often the case with the books that teenagers are made to read in school. The Great Gatsby is the best example, because it's a short read yet terrible to give to teenagers who have never experienced loss or compromise. It's a book to read when you're about to turn thirty, not when you're sixteen and wondering why Gatsby won't just fuck someone cheaper.

Catcher in the Rye was assigned to some kids in my high school, and it was the worst. They were all just like yeah man, Holden is fuckin sweet, nothing matters, man, let's all be assholes. I don't think that's a book you should read until you're old enough to know that the main character isn't an aspirational figure.

[jennegatron]

I checked out Catcher in the Rye from the library when I was about 11 or 12, and it might have been the only book I ever quit at that point in my life? I got like 25 pages in and hated Holden so much that I couldn't handle it and quit because he was so insufferable. 

[Woodfella]

I liked the books I read at that age at school, To kill a mockingbird, Gatsby. Mostly because the teacher was ace and really loved the books she was teaching.

[jennegatron]

To Kill a Mockingbird was my favorite childhood book, and I will forever resent my 9th grade english teacher for doing his best to ruin it & Fahrenheit 451, both books I'd read on my own and loved.

I remember liking the Great Gastby too, but the only books that stuck with me were Lord of the Flies & Things Fall Apart.

[Gwardinen]

I envy you all the things you were assigned to read as teenagers. The most interesting thing I got to read at that age was the Importance of Being Earnest. Oh and we read the first Harry Potter book for some reason.

[Max Ernst]

Hey you guys should read Charles Portis because he wrote True Grit but all his other books are so good.

[seamus2389]

We were assigned Roll of thunder hear my cry which was focused on a young black girl and her family in the south in the 1920's when I was 13. I still have my copy of it but haven't since then.

 

Later we  read  How many miles to Babylon which was about a lower class Irish young guy who goes to WW1 with his upper class Anglo-Irish friend and Of mice and men.

 

I finished reading The Bees: A Novel which is a novel from the point of view of bee called Flora 515 and her life and the life of the bee hive she is part of. Really interesting angle and reminded me of this short story called the cartographer wasps and the anarchist bees which also features the seemingly common conflict between wasps and bees.

[agorman]

My school had us reading Silas Marker in seventh grade. That decision still baffles me. I should re read the books that were impenetrable to me in Junior High and High school

[tberton]

Catcher in the Rye was assigned to some kids in my high school, and it was the worst. They were all just like yeah man, Holden is fuckin sweet, nothing matters, man, let's all be assholes. I don't think that's a book you should read until you're old enough to know that the main character isn't an aspirational figure.

 

Catcher in the Rye is my favourite book ever and I read it in high school, but I don't think it's was until I was a bit older that I realized how much I really liked it. Holden Caulfield is one of my favourite fictional characters, but never have I aspired to be like him. In fact, I think I like him so much because of the things I dislike about myself that I see in him. Every time I read the book (around 6 times now, I think) I'm struck with an immense sense of pity and sadness. He's just a little boy pretending to be an adult and terrified of actually becoming one. Heartbreaking.

[pabosher]

I envy you all the things you were assigned to read as teenagers. The most interesting thing I got to read at that age was the Importance of Being Earnest. Oh and we read the first Harry Potter book for some reason.

Earnest is a perfect play in my opinion. What a brilliant piece of writing.

[Gwardinen]

Yeah I wasn't being sarcastic when I said it was the most interesting, I actually did kind of like it. But it's legitimately the only thing I remember reading at school that I enjoyed (except, again, the first Harry Potter).

[osmosisch]

I had to read The Cement Garden in high school. That fucked me up.

[Trip Hazard]

I tried to read The Cement Garden in Uni, but had to stop cause I could feel it fucking me up.

Y'all are lucky for reading Gatsby/Mockingbird/Rye in school. It wasn't until Uni (and beyond) that I read those. Mind you, I got to study Of Mice and Men in secondary school so it would be churlish of me to complain

Also: Silas Marner is great, I've read it a few times. Genuinely funny, heartwarming, moves along at a brisk pace and not a difficult read. Heard people complain about it loads recently but I just don't get it

[I Saw Dasein]

Hey you guys should read Charles Portis because he wrote True Grit but all his other books are so good.

 

Seriously "Dog of the South" rules so much, Ray Midge is an Ignatious J. Reilly-level crank. 

[Max Ernst]

Masters of Atlantis is also cool and good. But Gringos is my favourite.