Marjorie Writes a Book on Love

[Emme]

38 minutes ago, Wenny said:

I've always mentally picture internet forms in real life settings. Tumbler = dark cafe or a hotel room, Facebook and mommy forms = Large parks with lots people and now Freejinger = Belle's library. 

Right now I can't really finish a book because my 2 year old comes over and wants to have it read out loud. 

I always coveted that library. (Yes fundies, I coveted something! clutch your pearls!)

[MadameOvary]

35 minutes ago, Emme said:

I always coveted that library. (Yes fundies, I coveted something! clutch your pearls!)

Double sin points for it being a library.  

[Four is Enough]

Great Expectations.

The Scarlet Letter.

Anything Austen.

Heart of Darkness.

IMO, high school literature has a lot to answer for.

 

I think ANY book for ANY age should be fodder for the adult reader. I remember my mother telling me, when I came home from the library with Dr. Seuss books, "Oh, I love these. I read them, and when your brother got the from the library, I read them again. And I'm reading them now, with you." And she read them later, with my sister, as well.

I've read books that were assigned to my kids to read, mainly because none of my kids are good readers, and I wanted to help them understand what they were reading, but also because I'll basically read anything that I pick up. I categorically refused to read Pride, Prejudice and Zombies, because I totally despise Austen, but pretty much anything else is fair game for me.

[Ungodly Grandma]

1 hour ago, twinmama said:

Totally remember sneaking my mom's copy of The Thornbirds when I was a young teenager. Haha!

My parents were conservative, first generation Irish Catholic. We moved to a condo in Westchester when I was about 10 or 11, and there were neighbors a little younger than my folks. I ended up babysitting for many of those young families, and read most of my "sex education" during the long evenings while the kids slept. Books my parents would never had had, like Updike, Jacqueline Susann,  Candy, Lolita, all sorts of racy novels, as well as the occasional Playboy.  And the immortal Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex ...But Were Afraid to Ask. Pre internet googling!

[paulypepper]

16 minutes ago, Ungodly Grandma said:

My parents were conservative, first generation Irish Catholic. We moved to a condo in Westchester when I was about 10 or 11, and there were neighbors a little younger than my folks. I ended up babysitting for many of those young families, and read most of my "sex education" during the long evenings while the kids slept. Books my parents would never had had, like Updike, Jacqueline Susann,  Candy, Lolita, all sorts of racy novels, as well as the occasional Playboy.  And the immortal Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex ...But Were Afraid to Ask. Pre internet googling!

I got my 'sex ed' from snooping in my Dads' dresser drawers...most definitely a great mix of not only great authors, but the 'naughty' stuff as well. All the books you mentioned and more...umm, did you ever babysit me?

[louisa05]

59 minutes ago, Four is Enough said:

Great Expectations.

The Scarlet Letter.

Anything Austen.

Heart of Darkness.

IMO, high school literature has a lot to answer for.

 

 

I left teaching in 2010. At that time, here is a partial list of what was being taught at the school: 

Animal Farm

The Crucible

Of Mice & Men

The Things They Carried

Romeo & Juliet

A Raisin in the Sun

To Kill a Mockingbird

The House on Mango Street

The Great Gatsby

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Into the Wild

Macbeth

Hamlet (honors only)

Pride & Prejudice

A Tale of Two Cities (honors only)

I know I'm forgetting some of the stuff taught to juniors--that is the one course I never taught there. We only had an honors course for senior lit. And, aside from these major works, lit anthologies with short stories, poetry, essays, etc... were used. 

I never encountered Heart of Darkness until college. I don't think it is common anymore outside of AP/IB courses--not in my area at least. And the AP/IB people are not trying to encourage your love of reading but rather teach for literary merit. Again, the problem has long been that somehow we have decided that reading is only for pleasure. English class does not exist for you to develop a love of books. We need to stop pretending it does. 

Our curriculum also taught some books in other courses including theology and American government. Theology kids read several memoirs and a couple of novels along the way--don't remember what they all were. We had our government students read Warriors Don't Cry about the integration of Little Rock Central High School. 

[OyToTheVey]

I have my moments when it comes to reading. I used to hate reading but it was mostly because my English was horrible and I didn't understand a lick of what I was actually reading. But in college I started reading a lot. In my 'adult' years, mind you I'm not an adult mentally, I've reread and read classics I read in high school like Great Gatsby. I hated that book in high school. HATED. I reread it a couple of years ago and I have no idea why I hated it so much. It's a pretty great book. The only books I still hate to this day is Lord of the Flies, Grapes of Wrath, and Crime and Punishment. Those were just torture. I refuse to reread them as an adult. Since high school I've read Catcher in the Rye and Anna Karenina. I also read the others by Fitzgerald. I love the society subject matter. But in the last 2 years, I've been working like crazy and don't really read much. I read YA stuff that's easy to digest. TBH my favorites that I've read lately are John Green books. I google Top 100 YA books and see what interests me from that lol 

[HereticHick]

2 hours ago, HarleyQuinn said:

For some reason I can't find the post I wanted to quote, but yeah. An 18 year old writing a book on love is laughable. Especfially the fundie type of "love" IE arranged marriage and sexual oppression. 

Perhaps Marjorie  can write a book on how she narrowly escaped arranged marriage and sexual oppression

[devoe364]

On 5/23/2016 at 10:56 PM, sophie10130 said:

As an adult I exclusively read young adult fiction. I don't know what it is, but it really draws me in. Plus I love the fact that it's not going to be too dark to really get to me.

So much this. Tamora Pierce (definitely on the fundies no-no list) is my absolute favourite.

I don't want to be depressed when I read. I can be depressed enough in real life. 

[Kyoo]

My AP English haterade all went to Moby Dick.  I cannot begin to tell you how loathsome I found that book and now, even 25 years post high school, I get a bit twitchy thinking about it.

OTOH, I've gone back and re-read some of the books I had to study in high school.   I've some some of them (Madame Bovary comes to mind) much more enjoyable when I can just read to enjoy the story rather than trying to remember all the little details and pick out metaphors and all that jazz.

[16strong]

3 hours ago, Kyoo said:

My AP English haterade all went to Moby Dick.  I cannot begin to tell you how loathsome I found that book and now, even 25 years post high school, I get a bit twitchy thinking about it.

OTOH, I've gone back and re-read some of the books I had to study in high school.   I've some some of them (Madame Bovary comes to mind) much more enjoyable when I can just read to enjoy the story rather than trying to remember all the little details and pick out metaphors and all that jazz.

I hated Animal Farm, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Hatchet. Animal Farm I hated because talking animals creep me out. Dorian Gray had no redeemable characters, and Hatchet (which I read in elementary school) was just stupid to me. Loved Jane Eyre, Catcher in the Rye, and a Modest Proposal.

[twinmama]

10 hours ago, Ungodly Grandma said:

My parents were conservative, first generation Irish Catholic. We moved to a condo in Westchester when I was about 10 or 11, and there were neighbors a little younger than my folks. I ended up babysitting for many of those young families, and read most of my "sex education" during the long evenings while the kids slept. Books my parents would never had had, like Updike, Jacqueline Susann,  Candy, Lolita, all sorts of racy novels, as well as the occasional Playboy.  And the immortal Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex ...But Were Afraid to Ask. Pre internet googling!

Oooh I remember seeing "The Joy of Sex" on my best friend's parents' bookshelf. We never looked through it, but I remember thinking "my god it's RIGHT THERE IN THE LIVING ROOM WHERE ANYONE COULD SEE IT!" and being so shocked. lol 

8 hours ago, OyToTheVey said:

 Since high school I've read Catcher in the Rye and Anna Karenina.

Ohh as an adult I have tried and tried to read Anna Karenina and failed every time. First, the names I can not keep straight. Second, the pages are like tissue paper thin with super teeny words. I let myself off the hook for ever reading it and donated it to Goodwill. I'm currently going through a true crime phase, so I'm reading a book about the Martha Moxley murder. My dad grew up where it took place and it's interesting to read about it's history, in addition to the crime details etc.

[LadyBlue]

On 2016-05-24 at 6:33 PM, Mrs. Figg said:

OMG! I was a trashy romance novel reader very early, too! Haha. I can't imagine my 11-year old reading them right now. 

Add me to the list of trashy romance readers. I still read them fairly often, although I have to be in the right kind of mood and then I'll just whizz through a half dozen Amanda Quick or Johanna Lindsey books. If I'm really bored, I'll read Harlequins too.

I wasn't an early advanced reader, but by grade 6 I was pretty precocious (especially considering I was a year younger than most of the kids in my grade) and I read John Jakes' North & South trilogy. I vividly remember some of it and I can't believe my dad let me read them (they were his books) Of course, I was also secretly reading a couple of other books I found hiding in my parents bookshelves around that time..... a Xaviera Hollander and a Penthouse letters book.

My mom also got really annoyed with me reading books she considered beneath me (mostly romances at that point in my early 20s) and one visit her and dad came to my place bearing the first 5 books of Wheel of Time.

Ironically, despite having a BA in English, I've never actually read most of the books listed in this thread as ones people hate. In high school we did Julius Caesar (the teacher didn't like Romeo & Juliet), Macbeth & Hamlet. We also did one novel study a year, but the only one I remember is To Kill a Mockingbird. Then in uni I took a Canadian Lit course, a course on dystopian novels, one on scifi, a Shakespeare class, poetry, children's lit, etc; nothing that really involved classics. Although I think having to read Neuromancer made up for at least some of them.....

[morri]

I had enid blyton bpoks too but only in German so I guess they cleaned them up upon translation. I used to listen 5 friends and the aventures series on tape.

catcher in the rye is oone of my fav books.

[Avalondaughter]

On November 15, 2015 at 2:07 PM, bingbangboom said:

Ah, HP. Always wanted to read it but I'm probably too old now for it to seem quite as magical as it could've been while I was younger.  

 

Thanks again, Jesus school for ruining my adolescence.

Meh.  You didn't miss much.  I read it as an adult (I am old enough to be an adullt when it was published).  If you read it as an adult and have read fantasy your whole life, you realize HP is boring and formulaic.  It repeats a hundred fanstasy/fairy tale cliches and is populated by one-dimensional stock characters.   I hate the way those books have dumbed down the genre.

[Ungodly Grandma]

9 hours ago, twinmama said:

 I'm currently going through a true crime phase, so I'm reading a book about the Martha Moxley murder. My dad grew up where it took place and it's interesting to read about it's history, in addition to the crime details etc.

Now htere is a thread for us, true crime! Especially the Moxley murder. I was living just over the border in NY when that Kennedy cousin killed her!

[caszandra]

21 hours ago, TShirtsLongSkirts said:

I also loved Enid Blyton. Mallory Towers was my favourite as a teen, and The Faraway Tree as a kid. Apparently now they have updated the Faraway Tree characters' names to Rick and Franny instead of Dick and Fanny, which I think is a great loss

I found and bought the original Faraway Tree collection book at a charity shop a few years ago. I read the Enid Blyton Amelia Jane books when I was wee but preferred to read Roald Dahl, The BFG was my fav but I had nearly all of them and kept them and currently I'm reading them to my kiddo at night. I also loved the Worst Witch series by Jill Murphy and have the full collection on my book shelf.

As a teen I read a book called Tomorrow, When The War Began by John Marsden and really enjoyed it, never knew at that time it was part of a series with another series set afterwards as well, found them all online and bought them a few years ago and had a great time reading them. I have also bought a few other books and series that I enjoyed when I was young to share with my kiddo when she is older. By the time I was mid teens I was more into reading Stephan King and V.G Andrews, sad to say that I can't remember most of the books I had to read at school, probably blocked them from my memory lol

[Ungodly Grandma]

42 minutes ago, Avalondaughter said:

 I read it as an adult (I am old enough to be an a dull when it was published).  If you read it as an adult and have read fantasy your whole life, you realize HP is boring and formulaic.  It repeats a hundred fanstasy/fairy tale cliches and is populated by one-dimensional stock characters.   I hate the way those books have dumbed down the genre.

I disagree about HP, and read it as an adult. The wealth of detail in the society she created is magical all by itself. And I thought the characters were well done, many of them. There were so many.

[EmCatlyn]

1 hour ago, Avalondaughter said:

Meh.  You didn't miss much.  I read it as an adult (I am old enough to be an adullt when it was published).  If you read it as an adult and have read fantasy your whole life, you realize HP is boring and formulaic.  It repeats a hundred fanstasy/fairy tale cliches and is populated by one-dimensional stock characters.   I hate the way those books have dumbed down the genre.

One person's "stock characters" are another person's "archetypes."

It is fascinating the way different books appeal (or don't appeal) to different people.  I think that Harry Potter is great children's literature.  It is not a book I would reread over and over as an adult, but I might have done so if I had encountered it as a child.

What Rowling does very well is mix up myth with the ordinary life of children. She sets a medieval style fairy tale in the "real" world of automobiles and school and jelly beans.  The broom replaces the bicycle, quiditch repllaces soccer/football or hockey or baseball or cricket (name your school sport of choice).

Yes, it is very simplistic. But it is also humorous. It doesn't take itself too seriously (a lot of fantasy does). It is a series I was glad my children had.

 

[devoe364]

7 hours ago, LadyBlue said:

Add me to the list of trashy romance readers. I still read them fairly often, although I have to be in the right kind of mood and then I'll just whizz through a half dozen Amanda Quick or Johanna Lindsey books. If I'm really bored, I'll read Harlequins too.

Funny story about how I got into Romance Novels...

I loved the Baby Sitters Club. Obsessively. I think I pretty much had every single book at one point. I spent a ton of money on them. My Mom wanted me to move beyond that, and introduced me to Jean Plaidy. So I started reading historicals.

I accidently picked up a Romance Novel (don't know who it was by) in the library at 14. By 16 I had discovered bodice rippers.

I still read A LOT of historical fiction and a lot of it is romance. Mary Balogh is a favourite of mine. I also have everything Bertrice Small ever wrote (I spent a lot of money on ebay to make that happen) and I even have an autographed copy that she sent me of Philippa. I am still hopeful that they will publish her last book, even though her main characters are total Mary Sue's. 

I read Harlequin. They go on sale with Kobo often enough that they are cheap and I love to read. 

[OyToTheVey]

16 hours ago, twinmama said:

Oooh I remember seeing "The Joy of Sex" on my best friend's parents' bookshelf. We never looked through it, but I remember thinking "my god it's RIGHT THERE IN THE LIVING ROOM WHERE ANYONE COULD SEE IT!" and being so shocked. lol 

Ohh as an adult I have tried and tried to read Anna Karenina and failed every time. First, the names I can not keep straight. Second, the pages are like tissue paper thin with super teeny words. I let myself off the hook for ever reading it and donated it to Goodwill. I'm currently going through a true crime phase, so I'm reading a book about the Martha Moxley murder. My dad grew up where it took place and it's interesting to read about it's history, in addition to the crime details etc.

I'm russian so the names aren't an issue. For me the problem is the funky translations. Like I know it would make sense in Russian but the English translations don't make sense. 

[Kyoo]

I haven't been able to get in to Anna Karenina on several attempts.  I love, love, love Crime & Punishment, though.  I think I have a general preference for Dostoevsky over Tolstoy.

[19Kittens]

Current faves are the romance novels at my local dollar store! Right now I'm reading Always by Lindsey Sands.

[FJismyheadship]

Animal Farm, All Things Bright And Beautiful, Hatchet, and Corrie Ten Boom's books I couldn't get through. All except Hatchet were books my mom handed me. She got so mad when I couldn't or wouldn't read them lol. I remember Animal Farm and All Things Bright And Beautiful "I bought you those books and you don't appreciate them and won't read them!"

Corrie Ten Boom was because I was obsessed with Anne Frank. She said to me after I checked out a couple of biographies "There was more to the Holocaust than Anne Frank!" Then came the Corrie Ten Boom books. I think I could read them now maybe? 

I read Elsie Dinsmore as a child, but now I can't get through them. 

Oh! Those of you who read Sweet Valley, did you read Francine Pascal's 20 years later book!? It made me cry. I couldn't deal with it. I finished it, but I kind of hated Francine after that.

[Maggie Mae]

On 24/05/2016 at 5:58 PM, xlurker said:

I fought with my kids' teachers all thru elementary school.  They were readers, good readers, yet I consistantly had teachers saying they should not be reading the books they were as they were "too far advanced".  Huh?  I would always read a book (say Nancy Drew) before I let the kids start a series.  While they read it we would talk about it so that I knew they understood what they read.  I believe the teachers actually wanted them to "read down" to the level of the majority of the rest of the class.  I felt if they were capable of reading/understanding something more challenging they would have been bored with "Sally got a new puppy"     

No Child Left Behind at it's finest.  No one should ever discourage reading, or quelch a love of learning....

 

This reminds me of the scene in "To Kill a Mockingbird" where Scout goes to school and the new-to-the-area teacher, Miss Caroline, finds out that Scout already knows how to read. And is really upset and angry about it, telling Scout to not read because Miss Caroline needs to teach her using the new progressive model of education.