Wow, been awhile since the last post. Oh, those lazy summer days.
Anyway, something I was thinking about today..
Many times, classics are on sale for cheaper, simply because they're older and more 'common'. For example, today on my break I picked up 3 books for 10 dollars in some new deal they had. They're all books I've been curious about for awhile, so I snatched them up gladly, but it still makes me wonder:
What qualifies a classic? Maybe in 100 years, there will be some contemporary books that virtually everyone has read, and that are reprinted by every company under the sun. For now though- can anything be lifted to the level of Shakespeare, Austen, Dostoevsky, Dickens, etc? Who decided that these books should be deemed 'must reads', put on numerous booklists and read by millions worldwide?
Just curious, is all.
Random fact: has anyone heard of the website 'lists of bests'? Its one of my book-obsession things...in the 'books' section, it gives you thousands of lists, and you can check off the books you've read and complete the lists. It sounds silly, and perhaps I'm a bit biased- (I'm a huge organization freak (read: OCD), and I really, really love lists) but it's kind of neat ...I only do the definitive lists, or award lists (because frankly I don't care what books Joe McSchmo from Kansas thinks are worth reading), and yes, there are some books that I don't care for and won't bother reading, but there are also books that I've been introduced to which I really enjoyed.
So...did this post have a point? Not really...read classics! Read contemporary! Read everything! Reading is cool! Huzzah!
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1 comment:
To be honest, of the Wordsworth Classics on sale, there weren't three I wanted. I was almost sad, actually. Of the titles I was interested in, I had already bought copies.
There are a lot of great classics out there. But I too wonder which contempory books are going to be considered in the future?? Makes you wonder...
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