About the classics...and while you're here, enter a giveaway!



Goodreads Book Giveaway

Every Time We Say Goodbye by Liz Flaherty
Every Time We Say Goodbye

by Liz Flaherty

Giveaway ends April 15, 2016.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
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Promotion is a crapshoot. Ask any writer and she'll tell you. And she'll complain endlessly about it--okay, maybe that's just me--and then she'll promote some more because that's become a huge part of the publishing game. So, if you're not busy, wander on over to Goodreads and enter to win one of five copies of Every Time We Say Goodbye. Thank you for entering. I hope you win and I hope you love the book.

Okay, commercial's over. What shall we talk about? I know! Classics!

There was this thing on Facebook that was a list of 100 books that BBC thought we'd only have read six of. Having read thousands of books in my life, I was sure I'd do well. Hmm.... I'd read 21, which I didn't post on Facebook with my son's 28 and my daughter-in-law's 35. My immediate reaction was guilt. My second one was that I can't get back any of those hours I spent reading Steinbeck.

Here's the challenge, in case you're interested. Let us know how you did. What do you wish you'd read and what do you wish you hadn't?

Have a great week!

Comments

  1. Hey, Liz. I've read 51 (English degree and I learned to read from my father's bookshelves--and how weird is it that I'm slightly ashamed enough to feel I need to explain), but I share your Steinbeck regrets. I want to read Crime and Punishment, which my son re-reads regularly and Catch 22, and His Dark Materials, which I have because I don't know how many people have recommended it, but for some reason, I haven't read it. I also want to read Alice in Wonderland again. The first time I read it, I was so young, the Cheshire Cat scared me half to death--and I never touched it again until I was forced to read it in a Victorian Lit class. It's one of my favorite books ever. Thanks for a great post that has sent me book shopping, Liz! Wishing you all the best with Every Time We Say Goodbye!

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    1. Thanks, Anna! And I'm ugly-envious of that 51. I loved Alice in Wonderland, too, but never re-read it. That's something else I suppose I should confess--other than Anne of Green Gables and everything Louisa May Alcott, I've never re-read classics, even Jane Austen. Hmmm...

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  2. my one bugbear about goodreads, and that's why i won't use it, although somehow i'm on it, is i'm in the Wrong Country! As always. Same with any give away. Again that's why i won't do them, because if I plastered only for UK readers on it, I'd be accused of being mean. Sigh. Can't find the link for the BBC quiz, daft I know as the BBC is one of the main channels here. But I've read a fair bit of Jane Austen, ought to as she was educated in the town i live in, also love Thomas Hardy, George Orwell.

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    1. As you know, Clare, we can't please everybody! I'd love to send to anywhere in the world, but it would break me. The link is the words "Here is the challenge". Thanks for coming by. I tried to read Orwell (didn't work) and I think I've read Hardy, thought I didn't take credit for it in the quiz because I wasn't sure.

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    2. I got 39. Didn't tick the ones i'd seen as films, which would have made it 60 or so. :)

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  3. I got 26. It might be more, but some of them I wasn't sure whether I'd read the book or seen the movie!

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    1. Me, too! And there were a few that I'd read the Classics comic books of when I was a kid. I enjoyed them a lot, but thought maybe I shouldn't count them. :-)

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  4. Pish posh, the BBC! Every Jane Austen book makes it and they left off Edith Wharton altogether and "The Age of Innocence?" Biased much? LOL "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" or anything by Albom is a classic? That's news to me! "Stuart Little" by E.B. White didn't make the cut? Really! What about "The Bonfire of the Vanities" by Tom Wolfe and their own Dorris Lessing's "The Golden Notebook" which I read three college summers running?

    I'm not going to lower myself by giving my score. Plus, I've forgotten if I read some of these or just have seen them on other ridiculous classics lists! I've read about a gazillion books since! Definitely remember reading Anna Karenina at least two times. "The Bell Jar?" Duh!

    Can we at least agree that creating such a list is the ultimate in self-important arrogance and not to be taken seriously?

    Cathy Shouse

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  5. I think the lists are fun, Cathy, and "classics" was my word, not the BBC's. I used it because many of the books ARE classics and I hadn't read a bunch of them. Being romance authors gives us a different POV, I think, because our genre is so maligned by the literati police. I'm more pleased that I've read thousands of books--yes, counting numerous Little Golden ones--than worried about what ones I've read.

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  6. My response was meant to be sarcasm, Liz! I enjoyed checking their list as well. :) Any conversation about books has my attention!

    Cathy Shouse

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  7. I only got 18!! But, most of the "Classics" aren't books that I've want to read, and therefore haven't unless I was forced--Anna Karenina in College--agh!
    And I think I should've gotten seven credits for the Harry Potter saga, not just 1. LOL

    I wonder how they come up with these lists, though. Like I think The Outsiders by S.E.Hinton should be on it as that book is one easily one of the creators of the YA genre.

    Oh well, onto reading what I want to read. LOL

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    1. I know. I thought that was a crazy list, too, although it being BBC probably took S. E. Hinton books out of the running. I never thought of seven credits for HP, but I earned them, too! I was disappointed there was no Nathaniel Hawthorne, because I had to read him in high school. Never again. Never ever. Thanks, Margie!

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  8. bahaha - Steinbeck is awfully hard to get through, isn't he? I haven't seen that list, but I always fare poorly on those list things...mostly because I find a new (even classic-but-new-to-me) author and have to binge on all their books...and get sidetracked from whatever the list was all about in the first place!

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    1. ...and now I have to confess I did well on this list - 68 out of 100...with a solid half coming in high school and college. I'm a little bit shocked!

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    2. Actually, in all fairness, I did like a few of Steinbeck's things, and loved the movie of Grapes of Wrath (but that was only because I loved Henry Fonda), but I hated more than I loved. I binged on Jane Austen my junior or senior year of high school--I think that was the only reason I survived Hawthorne!

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    3. If you want some Steinbeck that is quite readable, try Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. :)

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    4. I should. It's been years since I've read anything of his. I don't think I even liked The Red Pony, and didn't EVERYone like that?

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