Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Which of the following classic is the best?

I have to read one of these for Summer Reading for my AP Lit class. Which one would you choose?





All the King鈥檚 Men Robert Penn Warren





Color Purple Alice Walker





East of Eden John Steinbeck





Life of Pi Yann Martell





Plainsong Kent Haruf|||In my opinion East of Eden is the best written. Good v. Evil book - mirrors Cain and Abel. I love this book!





Life of Pi - very good read and fairly quick. Worth reading.





Plainsong - The quickest read on the list. You can actually skim parts and it will still make sense. Some people love this book. I thought it was okay.|||As you're reading the book you'll notice that characters that have names that begin with C are evil (like Cain), and A named characters are good (like Abel). It's such a fantasic book, I hope you enjoy it!

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|||Color Purple|||Colour Purple - or - All the King's Men





Hope that helps ^_^|||Color Purple by: Alice Walker because my sister seemed to like it.|||for female prolly colour purple|||Color Purple|||The Color Purple|||I absolutely loved East of Eden, so I'd vote for that one.





I enjoyed Life of Pi as well, but I don't think of it as a "classic", though it's still a very enjoyable book.|||Go for the stunning simplicity of Steinbeck.|||None.





You have Steinbeck (generally good), and I've heard good things about All the Kings Men, and I've never heard of Palinsong... the other two are pure dung in my personal opinon.





Why don't they let you choose someting GOOD?





Ask if you can read Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harret Beecher Stowe. Not P.C. these days, but it is probably the single most influental book in American History. According to Stowe's son, when Abraham Lincoln met her in 1862 Lincoln commented, "So this is the little lady who started this great war." I would say that helping to start the Civil War makes that book a bit more important than anything on your list. When you get 150,000 men to march into the middle of Gettysburg Pennsylvania and start shooting each other over anything Yann Martel or Alice Walker write, I'll reconsider that statment.





OR you could read almost anything by Charles Dickens... Great Expectations is my favorite, but Bleak House (who can forget the case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce?) is good too.





If you MUST read Stienbeck , read Travels with Charlie. That's a great book. I really enjoyed it.





On Human Bondage by Sommerset Maughm is excellent.


http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/38/76/fra鈥?/a>





C.S. Lewis' THAT HIDEOUS STRENGHT is fantastic. I think it is his best work, though I am also partial to The Great Divorce.





The Mote in God's Eye is widely considered to be the best Science Fiction Novel ever written. Larry Niven (one of the co-authors) said that the hardest thing to write is a good alien, you have to write where they think AS WELL as you do, but DIFFERENTLY. Very difficult to do, but he, (and Jerry Pournelle) pull it off beautifuly.





What about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? What about Edgar Allen Poe? The guy practically invented the horror story, detctive fiction and crime fiction. Where would network televison be today without him? THAT is an influental writer!





What about Kipling? In 1907, Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English language writer to receive the prize, and he remains today its youngest-ever recipient.





What about Jules Vern? Inspiring several generations of engineers to make things like submarines and trips to the moon ought to count for something.





Then there is Hawthorne (I'm undecided on him, but he should be mentioned).





There is Beowulf and Gilgamesh, the first story in English and the first story EVER, as far as we can tell. There is Homer and Iliad and the Odyssey and Vergil's Aeneid.





Michael Shaara's THE KILLER ANGELS, which is on the Military Academy's required reading lists. (I had to read it three times when I was in Army Officer Training).


Here is a link to the Spark Notes so your teacher won't have to do any work in order to let you read it.


http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/killerange鈥?/a>





Speaking of Military Academy reading lists, STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlien was on the required reading list at all three academies at one time or another, I am told. Raises a lot of good points, and makes you think outside the box.





My advice is go ask your teacher to read something GOOD, and argue your way out of the list of dreck she gave you to choose from|||Definitely Steinbeck--he's an incredible writer! Life of Pi is supposed to be interesting, but haven't read that one.








PS: Come on, now, sicking Gilgamesh on the poor kid?! He'll go crazy analyzing the philosophy in that! Poe is always a thrill, even if the works are much shorter than typically allowed.|||Mmm. I've heard great things from fellow graduate students about _East of Eden_. Plus I rather like Steinbeck. So I'd choose that or _The Color Purple_.





I had to read _Anna Karenina_ over the summer for my AP lit class.|||Color Purple by Alice Walker|||OK I am older so I am going old school with "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker (which I just saw in Chi-town at the Cadillac Theatre as a musical) or "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck. I am not dismissing the other choices; truth be told they are all excellent choices; it is a matter of personal opinion. Read any of these books and you will be the richer, my friend.|||'East Of Eden'|||My personal choice is East of Eden by Steinbeck. The Color Purple and The Life of Pi use more contemporary lanugage and might be easier reads though. Good luck!|||humpty dumbty sat on a wall too!

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