Constant Reader discussion

In the Shadow of the Wind thread, I said that I might have loved this book when I was younger. Do any of you feel that way about any recent books you've read? Or can you think of books that you read when you were younger that would not appeal now? What books have stood the test of time for you?

I'll confess that when I was a teenager I absolutely loved Ayn Rand's books, but I know they would not hold up for me now. Then I was clueless about the philosophy and politics of her message and just thought they had some very romantic male figures. Now I'm embarrassed to admit that I was so smitten with them.

I have a whole category of books like this. In my mind, the category is called something like pretentious adolescent boy lit (think On the Road, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the Naked Lunch). Now I've grown out of transgression for its own sake, and I find this type of thing tiresome and puerile, but when I was younger I think I viewed it as a window to another world/another kind of person or a kind of escape. It's even possible that I thought reading this type of thing would transform me into a different type of person.

Past Nicole was also a lot more patient with some of ways women are used (or excluded, or invisible) when transgression is the goal.

Lynn wrote: "I'll confess that when I was a teenager I absolutely loved Ayn Rand's books, but I know they would not hold up for me now. Then I was clueless about the philosophy and politics of her message and ..." I agree with you! Ayn Rand was fine when I was a teenager but thankfully I've moved on - in so many ways.

My first "serious books" were by Taylor Caldwell. It was like "Oh my God, there ARE books without romance." After Caldwell, then I started on James Michener's books. I too read some Ayn Rand - she seemed so radical to my conservative upbringing and I appreciated that.

I first read The Catcher in the Rye in my late 50's......hated it. Not the writing, but the book. If that makes any sense. I truly wonder if I'd read it as a teenager what my reaction would have been.

I still love Taylor Caldwell, have for 50 years. :)

I loved Mary Stewart when I was young.... not as much now. I guess her books seem too light, or old-hat now.

I made it through The Fountainhead when I was a kid, wonder if I would now.

Cateline wrote: "I first read The Catcher in the Rye in my late 50's......hated it. Not the writing, but the book. If that makes any sense. I truly wonder if I'd read it as a teenager what my reactio..."

I still love Taylor Caldwell also, and like you Mary Stewart's are light reading and don't hold my interest. I also liked Victoria Holt when I was much younger, now I find them silly.

Ahhh, yes. Forgot about Holt. Oh, and I think I'll dig out some old Helen McGinnis, just to check them out.......

I'm just back from Hannibal, Missouri, getting my fill of Twain quotations and small town kitsch. It made made me wonder if I would find Letters from the Earth as acerbic and brilliant as I did as a kid of nineteen.

I read it as an adult (with Classics Corner, I think) and loved it.

A series that didn't hold up was Ian Fleming's James Bond. They are silly compared to Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne.

A couple of summers ago, I decided to read the books that I read when I was in high school. My reaction to The Catcher in the Rye was, "Wow, this kid is having a bad day!" To Kill a Mockingbird is still beautiful. John Knowles' writing in A Separate Peace is as cinematic to me as it was back then, placing me as a keen observer of a world I'll never know.

I'm avoiding Lord of the Flies. N I have a copy of 1984 but am in no hurry to risk the nightmares I had at age 15 when I read it for the first time.

I hope the discussion for The Shadow of the Wind isn't completely over. I'm almost finished reading it.

Carol wrote: "A series that didn't hold up was Ian Fleming's James Bond. They are silly compared to Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne."

Hardly anything holds up. I myself don't find Fleming any sillier than Ludlum. The particular energy of Catcher in the Rye and Naked Lunch are no longer mine, but I don't regret
what I once invested in them. Many of the formal experiments of the 60s don't interest me now -- they have become social documents, bound up with the contemporaneous social and political changes of the time, which I have no wish to betray or belittle now that we have become so worldly-wise, and have moved beyond the unevolved hippies. I find I can't read Faulkner any more -- I don't have the stamina. Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird are important books (at least to Americans who share this particular history) but so is Life on the Mississippi. I myself am more vulnerable to Heart of Darkness. The time will come when such matters will have the same importance as the question of whether Mr D'Arcy's fortune is large enough has for us now. And yet we continue to read Shakespeare. I find that as I get older, A Midsummer Night's Dream fades and The Tempest becomes more and more interesting. My house is full of books. They are all old friends. Some of them I don't see much of anymore, and with others I no longer have much in common. If we happened to meet on the street it would be a very distant encounter, and to share a few minutes and a glass of wine would be quite impossible. But I'm glad I knew them.

Haven't cast any into the sea yet, Charles?

Carol wrote: "A series that didn't hold up was Ian Fleming's James Bond. They are silly compared to Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne."

Some do, some don't. I reread 5 or 6 (Flemings) a while back and enjoyed them for the most part. But Ludlum, while exciting, annoys the hell out of me. The number of italics he used absolutely drove me around the bend!
I couldn't read him any more.

The one that comes to mind as not holding up is The Harrad Experiment.

When it came out, it was RADICAL. Co-ed roommates in college? Wow. Etc.

Now it's a laugh.

I went through phases. When I was a child, I read Gone With the Wind religiously every summer. Then I had a serious James Michener phase with Steinbeck on the side, then in early college years my favorite book was Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins, and I liked Vonnegut and Flannery O'Connor, along with a large dose of sci fi. As an adult, I've had several more phases, biographies, science writing, self-help (thankfully a short-lived phase, got v. bored!), thrillers. Now I read most anything, but tend to notice much how good the actual writing is, how well constructed and how well it flows.

I'm reading Faulkner now after a 40 year gap and find I'm liking the books more ( not all the same books). Ditto for Hardy. Don't think I want to read Tess again.

I do want to re-read some Anya Seton and have wondered how The Winthrop Woman or Katherine will stand up. Authors I still enjoy are Georgette Heyer, the occasional Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers....you can see a trend.

I definitely have noticed I have lower tolerance for violence, particularly against women.
Well, that turned into more than I planned!

I find this topic so interesting because I have been thinking a lot lately how my reading tastes have changed just in the past 10-20 years. I am currently reading The Invention of Wings and I know I would have liked it more when I was in my 20's. I find it interesting, but I'm not as smitten with it as a lot of other reviewers. On the flip side of that, I am also currently reading Lila by Marilynne Robinson and I love the writing so much more than I think I would have in my 20's.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a true classic for me. I love it every time I read it, no
matter my age. I read it in high school, in college, and to my daughter when she was a teenager. She is now expecting my first grandchild, a little girl whose name is Harper Leigh.

Karen, it's funny that you mention The Invention of Wings. I started that and read 2 chapters before deciding I really didn't care for it. I'm not certain why, whether it was the characters or the writing style itself. I also wonder if I might have liked it more several years ago. I did like The Secret Life of Bees. I have a feeling I wouldn't as much now.
My "sugar" factor has gone way down.

Why, Sherry?. I think there are a lot of books I read young that would frustrate or bore me now, most obviously Gone With the Wind (as mentioned by Lynn in Saint Louis.) But I would really love to think of one that I've read later and had Sherry's reaction to. I can't. I'm gonna look over my list and see if anything pops out at me.

And I feel compelled to point out there is a huge difference to Sherry's reaction to 'Shadow' and books that "don't hold up." Whole different animal! The notion of rereading Harrod Experiment now is thoroughly comical!! Literally, Miss Jessie, the idea made me laugh!

Interesting stuff, tho, all of it. Glad I was old enough when I read Ayn Rand to know that even if I found her stories readable, her philosophy was bs

Tonya, back in TX

Portia wrote: "Haven't cast any into the sea yet, Charles?"

No, but some seem to have gone off and drowned themselves. At least, when I go looking I can't find them.

Tonya, you asked me why I felt I would have enjoyed Shadow more as a younger person. Mainly, I think I have less patience now. The book wonders around time and place. That doesn't usually make me impatient, but there was no "imperative" for me to read. When I was younger I really enjoyed books that had magical elements (and obviously I still to, because Life After Life is one of my favorite books). I suppose there is some combination of length, language, plot, character and readability that in the wrong combination don't pull me along.

Sherry, settling in with my second cup of coffee

Sherry wrote: "Tonya, you asked me why I felt I would have enjoyed Shadow more as a younger person. Mainly, I think I have less patience now. The book wonders around time and place. That doesn't usually make me i..."

Interesting. I'm almost the exact opposite in that I am far more patient (all the way around) with slow moving, meandering sorts of books.

Stupidity and its offsprings are the things that still makes my blood boil, in books and life.

Cateline wrote: "Sherry wrote: "Tonya, you asked me why I felt I would have enjoyed Shadow more as a younger person. Mainly, I think I have less patience now. The book wonders around time and place. That doesn't us..."

Well, that, too.

Charles wrote: "Hardly anything holds up. I myself don't find Fleming any sillier than Ludlum. The particular energy of Catcher in the Rye and Naked Lunch are no longer mine, but I don't regret
what I once invested in them. Many of the formal experiments of the 60s don't interest me now -- "

Charles, thanks for your thoughts. We wouldn't be maturing as people if we didn't go through all our stages of preferences. If we are still reading the same books we read in our twenties, maybe we're not challenging ourselves.

I'VE GOT IT! I was between 20 and 25 or 6 when I met and really liked a woman who was a gigantic Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe fan. Kept after me - because i was a Lord of the Rings fan - until I got the set and started to read. I didn't finish. At the time I never thought to myself that I would have loved them years before, but chances are I would have.

I realize they are YA books, but this woman read them over and over as an adult; certainly there are books shelved as YA that I have read and recommended. That was not my biggest trouble with Lion.

Glad I remembered one!

Tonya in Tx.

My house is full of books. They are all old friends. Some of them I don't see much of anymore, and with others I no longer have much in common. If we happened to meet on the street it would be a very distant encounter, and to share a few minutes and a glass of wine would be quite impossible. But I'm glad I knew them.

Beautifully put, Charles.

Tonya wrote: "I'VE GOT IT! I was between 20 and 25 or 6 when I met and really liked a woman who was a gigantic Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe fan. Kept after me - because i was a Lord of the Rings fan - until I got t..."

Tonya, I read them all to my sons two or three times and loved them in that context. I don't know about reading them for myself though....

I read Ayn Rand in high school and loved them but I was a Republican like my parents until I was 18 and decided her ideas didn't work. Like others have said, I think I liked the romance. They were perfect for a high school girl in the early 60's. I now marvel that a grown woman would have wanted those relationships.

Sherry, you have described my experience with Shadow of the Wind. I think the author is succeeding at what he wanted to do, but I am not drawn in by the book. And I think "loss of patience" defines my problem. It is just taking too long to get wherever it is going. I agree that when I was younger I might have luxuriated in the fantastic tale gradually being spun out. Now - more aware of "so many books, so little time" perhaps and with less time to read per day - I vaguely resent all the hours for what feels like a kind of fanciful story. I could be getting ahead in my "read your own books" challenge! :)