Book Beach Bunny

Freebie: My Favorite Classics

 Top Ten Tuesdays is a freebie week this week and I’ve been looking to get back into reading classics. Truth be told I’ve never had a particular easy time with them. Partly because I never like having things that I “have to” read and partly because of school through the years.

 So I used this as a little memory refresher of the ones I loved and the ones that have stayed with me:

Lord of the Rings

The ultimate fantasy. The ultimate story of good vs. evil. I actually didn’t read this one in class but on my own and before the movies came out. The first thing I knew about it was my mother had a fear of hobbits growing up because her mother had forced her to read it. I loved it anyway! I think Aragorn might be my first fantasy husband.

Wuthering Heights

This one actually was a school read but was helped along considerably by a wonderfully cheesy early 90’s movie version with Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche. (And really if you’re going to have anyone play those infamous characters those are pretty top-notch casting choices.)

This is one that I want to read again to see if I still love it now that I’m older and more cynical.

Alice in Wonderland

Ah, the book that had me convinced of other worlds and door ways to wild, wonderful and (as I got older and learned more about it) somewhat creepy adventures. If I’m ever lucky enough to publish my own writing one day there’s a lot of threads that are influenced by this story. I recognize that already.

My two favorites however :

A Tale of Two Cities

We read this junior year in Honors English and I actually was excited to read this one. I couldn’t understand the love for the book and no one was really “getting it” but my mother kept saying, “Keep reading. Keep reading. It will all make sense in the end.”

And then I read that last page and it really did all fall into place and it clarified the rest of the book for me. (And other people in the class.)

It was really a case of everyone going, “Now we get it!”

Crime and Punishment

In my high school there were multiple Honor English courses for the first three years and then 2 Senior AP courses. Literally, this was the book that weeded out the students. People dropped like flies just at the idea of having to read Crime and Punishment.

It was strangely the only book the teacher that year actually seemed to enjoy teaching so I wound up having a really great experience with it. We put Raskolnikov on trial and I played Sonia, his girlfriend. It was perhaps the most I participated in four years of school. I was so proud I read it and aced it that I have always had a particular love for the story.

It’s funny how with the classics, especially the experiences around reading them, color my love (or dislike for them.) Hopefully, I knock a few off my list to read this year.