The Book Thread Book • Page 148

Hamlet is so, so good. Watch it after you’ve read it—helps to see it on stage or on screen (the Kenneth Branagh version is pretty good if I remember correctly).

Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill is great. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams too.

I recently read Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s Life is a Dream, which ruled. A 1630 play that honestly could’ve been written today.

 

I think my favorite Shakespeare plays are Julius Caesar and The Tempest, if you want to check out more of his, too.

 

I def will be. Just wanted to start with hamlet but def wanted to check those out. I was a little shit in school and never read classic books haha

 

My senior year of college I read 12 Shakespeare plays in one semester in a one on one class while also writing my thesis on Lord of the Rings. Suddenly understanding why it took me 3 years to really read for fun after I graduated.

I much prefer the comedies and the tragedies over the histories, but some of the histories are truly magnificent.

 

There’s a trend on Twitter that’s actually pretty fun, people are listing their “7 classics to get to know them.” Here’s my list.

if I could add more, I think I’d also include:

Plath - The Bell Jar
Wordsworth - The Prelude
Shakespeare - Hamlet
Pessoa - Book of Disquiet
Dillard - Pilgrim of Tinker Creek

what are your guys’ 7 classics?

 

Tolkien - Lord of the Rings
Orwell - 1984
Rilke - Letters to a Young Poet
Brontë - Jane Eyre
Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray

Some combination of Wordsworth’s poems, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, the Spanish Romantics, and a smidge of Byron and Tennyson.

 

Mine is just 7 Redwall books

 

I read quite a bit, and I have always read quite a bit, but the number of classics I’ve read is embarrassingly low.

 

Yeah I never did the assigned reading in high school and what got me back into reading as an adult was horror and fantasy, so I'm struggling to come up with classics I've read

The Great Gatsby
The Haunting of Hill House
Frankenstein
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland
Huckleberry Finn
Animal Farm
A Study In Scarlet (maybe? I don't remember much)

If we're counting LOTR put that at the top

I don't really know what's a "Classic" and what is just a classic

 

I like to use “classic” liberally. I think we ought to be giving more books that title anyway.

 

Went a bit out my way with my latest read. I was in a book shop and picked up In Ascension by Martin MacInnes.

It's the story of Leigh, who left her home and family. Fascinated by the undersea she is an expert in marine biology. When a trench in the Atlantic is discovered, Leigh hopes to find evident of earth's first life forms but instead finds more phenomena across the world that suggests a pattern, questioning everything we know about our own beginnings.

In Ascension

I'm really enjoying this so far. It's hopeful and poignant and mysterious. Not too much science fiction for my fantasy-filled mind but if it keeps going, I can see this being my 2nd five-star read this year!

 

Great list, really cool to see The Heart is a Lonely Hunter on there.

 

I love that book so much.

I’ve also read McCullers’ Member of the Wedding which is great, but not a masterpiece like Lonely Hunter. Unfortunately couldn’t get into Ballad of the Sad Cafe at all.

 

I don’t think I’m enjoying Babel, but I’m going to stick with it for at least another 100 pages or so. It’s just..extremely heavy-handed so far, and the magic has been relatively uninteresting. I do like the linguistic aspect of it though.

I agree with the sentiment of the book, obviously, but every character being egregiously racist or sexist and the main characters talking like they’re from this decade is just very distracting.

 

I know it’s a popular book. Widely acclaimed and all the rest. But I agree. I didn’t like it. I can get into Kuangs writing however. It flows elegantly well.

not to take away from those that do enjoy it. I just really struggle with academia books and this cemented that for me.

 

Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy is INCREDIBLE. I found Babel to be beautifully written, and not quite up to the hype.

 

I finished In Ascension by Martin MacInnes and this is my favourite read so far this year. It was engaging, mysterious, full of science and wonder about human beginnings. It covered familial hope and loss. I just loved everything about this.

 

currently reading Hamlet!

 

I’m glad I stuck with Babel! I am about halfway through and I still have problems with it - namely, the tone is sometimes jarring, or uneven; the characters a bit flat at times, and the oft comic book villain-esque dialogue, but the scope of its ambition is undeniably impressive and I’m finding so much of the linguistic and historical aspects fascinating. Her prose is great, too, and I went from not really wanting to pick the book up to badly wanting to read more and more of it. I will say, though, that the “tonal retort to Jonathan Strange” comes off a bit pretentious as does the defensive introduction and the random, weird footnote about astrology being fake, haha. I do appreciate the passion, though, because this book and its subject matter clearly mean a lot to her.

 

The last act is absolutely spectacular. If you're staring to come around, then you should love it.

 

Currently reading an ARC of The Ferryman by Justin Cronin and I fear I may have hyped up In Ascension too much as my favourite read so far.

This is Brave New World meets The Truman Show and its fantastic sci-fi.

 

I haven’t read it, but I feel like a lot of fantasy that breaks through like this did is very ham-fisted

 

Every time I see Justin Cronin's name I think about how interesting the first half of The Passage was, then how bland to mediocre the rest of the trilogy was and get sad again.

 

hahaha thats true! I really enjoyed The Passage but then....
BUUUUUUUT this has kept me entertained so far and i'm like 400 pages in.

 

Good news!