Constant Reader discussion
Constant Reader
>
Maybe When I Was Younger...
date
newest »

message 1:
by
Sherry, Doyenne
(last edited Oct 19, 2014 08:53PM)
(new)
Oct 19, 2014 08:34PM

reply
|
flag


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



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.

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.




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.

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.

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.

When it came out, it was RADICAL. Co-ed roommates in college? Wow. Etc.
Now it's a laugh.


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!

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.

My "sugar" factor has gone way down.

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

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

Sherry, settling in with my second cup of coffee

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.

Well, that, too.

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 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.

Beautifully put, Charles.

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.

Books mentioned in this topic
Life After Life (other topics)Lila (other topics)
The Invention of Wings (other topics)
To Kill a Mockingbird (other topics)
1984 (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Marilynne Robinson (other topics)Robert Ludlum (other topics)
Ian Fleming (other topics)
Ian Fleming (other topics)
Robert Ludlum (other topics)
More...