I hadn't thought of that before, that so many of the books I read as a child were so old............We had no TV, either, so I read the way kids now might play video games or watch TV: constantly! And I read what there was, I had no way of buying books for myself, neither money nor bookstores. I daresay it gave me a taste for Victorian literature, a taste I still have and indulge a lot!truehobbit wrote:You spelled Anne without an "e"!
vison, thanks for the info! I remember now that Pearl said in her first post that the Wilder books were written in the thirties - they do sound a lot like older stuff, I think. As to Montgomery, I think you can count something written before WWI with the 19th century more than the 20th.
But in your case it really seems that whatever books you could lay your hands on often were 19th century.
Is it still the same today? What did others read? Or, when you buy books for your kids, do you look for Tom Brown's schooldays and Francis Hodgson Burnett or do you browse the modern literature section?
And you should read some Astrid Lindgren!
My kids were never the readers I was. Although my oldest son and I shared a liking for certain kinds of scifi. I don't think he reads for pleasure now, not at all. My younger son also read some scifi and fantasy, he liked Raymond E. Feist (who I cordially loathe). But we both liked the Dragons of Pern books.
My grandsons have both read The Little House books, partly by having them read to them, and partly by reading them to us. They liked them, more or less, but whether it's just because they're boys or because there are so many other things for kids to do, they don't read an awful lot. I require them to read for at least a half hour a day, though, so they get through books at a pretty good clip just the same. And their school has an excellent, excellent home reading program, I can't praise it enough. They both read well above their grade level. Tay, who just turned 11, has really loved the Lemony Snickett books. Oz, who is 8 1/2, liked Danny, Champion of the World, and he reads the Magic Treehouse books and some others. I wish they would read more, but I guess they read more than a lot of kids these days.
I can't picture either one of them sitting down and reading the books I read, to be honest. I think they would find Burroughs to be a real chore, and would they read Dickens? I doubt it. Tom Brown at Oxford? Oh, yeah, sure! And yet by the time I was 11 I had read most of Dickens and an awful lot of other "mature" work.
I think I was very lucky as a child. No TV, and living out in the back end of nowhere. So I didn't get my head messed up with a lot of pop culture, and it still isn't. I mean, my head might be messed up, but not in the common way.......a more superior way? Just a jest!
I still read a lot, but by no means like I used to. I used to get through a book a day or maybe every two days, and that's not an exaggeration. I am a very fast reader and yet my comprehension is good. Certain books I read over and over and over, such as LOTR. And many more. I think I've read it the most often, but there are many others I've read a dozen times or more.
One friend of mine is absolutely baffled by my habit of re-reading books. And I asked her, if you hear a wonderful CD and buy it, do you listen to it only once and then put it away, saying, "I've heard it once, so I won't listen to it again?" She just shrugged. She doesn't "get" what I "get" out of books. Books are like music to me, or looking at a great picture, the art of the writer is a pleasure I can enjoy again and again.
I browse bookstores in a fog, to be honest. I have some knowledge that there are great writers among us yet, but oh my word the amount of crap! Still, I know and love Alice Munro and Rohinton Mistry and John Cheever and Jane Smiley and many others. It's just that if I buy or borrow a book by someone I don't know, so often it's awful and how can you tell? If I pick up Trollope or O'Hara, I KNOW it's wonderful and I'm going to love it again. I read many book reviews and sigh. I have a kind of fixed interest in great writing, and so much of what is written now isn't great. The stories might be timely and important, but will anyone be reading them in 100 years?
My reading time is precious to me now. I tire very easily. Yet I can still lose myself in a book, and still do.
I am reading Rilla of Ingleside, right now, for the umpteenth time. And The Claverings. And still toiling away on Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. And that biography of Alexander, and a few others. I ordered some books online today from ABE books. I ordered: the 4 volume Master of Hestviken, by Sigrid Undset. (I have read Kristin Lavransdattir by Undset many times, but have never read the Hestviken books.), The English Orphans, by Mary Holmes, a Victorian tearjerker that I lost years ago and look forward to weeping over again, Loose Chippings, a weird little fantasy that I still have only it's held together by elastic bands, The Green Madonna, which I read in Highschool and could never find again. I love ABE books, they have EVERYTHING.
Sorry to ramble on.