My Favorite Classics

I'm not someone who's read a lot of books that are considered classics.  (Something I hope to change in the future.)  Most of the "classic" books I've read, I've read because of school.  Still, I've really enjoyed a lot of these books.  Here are three of my favorite "classic" books.

The Chosen by Chaim Potok.  I had never heard of this book until it was one of our summer reading options for AP English.  I'm not even sure if it's technically considered a classic even, but I'm counting it.  I think this is the only book on the list where I actually cried while reading it.  It's a great book about friendship, which is one of my absolute favorite things to read and write about.  It also takes place during World War II, and as a huge history nerd, I love reading historical fiction.  Not only that, but I learned a lot about judaism from this book.  You can read my review here.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.  When I first started reading this book, I was really weirded out by it all.  By the end of the book though, I absolutely loved it.  It's very interesting to think about and analyze.  The author wrote about how he was scared the world would really be, which is kind of a scary thought.  What's even scarier is that we've definitely moved towards the world described in the book.  Huxley's world may be an extreme one, but it's definitely obvious where it all came from.  You can read my review here.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.  I'm not going to lie:  the first time I ever heard of Wuthering Heights was when I was reading Twilight.  After that I heard more about the book, and I was intriqued by it.  We were supposed to find a classic book to read for English 11 Honors, and this was immediately the book I looked for.  It's not a happy book, but it's really interesting to read.  I hate virtually every character in the book, but they're all so interesting.  You can read my review here.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  I had heard of this book before, but I had no clue what it was about when my English 11 Honors class began to read it.  I was really surprised about how much I liked this book.  I've seen some people criticize the book because it's not an acurate representation of the south at that time, but I don't think that really matters.  I think it's a wonderful book.  You can read my review here.

The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter.  I was having a really hard time coming up with a fifth book, so I was looking through some of the books I've read on Goodreads.  Then, I stumbled across this book that I read over a year ago for English 11 Honors summer reading.  I'd forgotten how much I love this book.  It was about a part of American history that I didn't really know about:  Native Americans capturing white kids and women and making them a part of their society.  Again, I love a lot of historical fiction.  I think it definitely shows the Native American side (and the side of those taken captive) very well.  Unfortunately, I read this book before I started doing book reviews.

Book Review: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

ISBN:  0673583503

Release date:  December 1982 (originally published in 1960)

Publisher:  Warner Books (Note: The cover pictured is not the cover of the book I read.)

Read from February 21st to March 9th, 2011
Rewards:  Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1961)
Synopsis from Goodreads:

Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus--three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up.

I was excited when my English teacher told us we were going to be reading this book.  I'd heard a lot about it, and everyone I knew who read it talked about how great it was.  I think everyone in my class enjoyed reading it as well.

I've read some negative reviews on Goodreads that criticize the book saying it's naive or idealistic.  I can see where their coming from, but I don't think that makes it a bad novel.  It may not be very realistic for a man to defend a black man in the south (or anywhere in the U.S. for that matter) during the time period when To Kill a Mockingbird takes place, but I don't think that really matters.  It is, after all, a work of fiction.  I also don't think naivety is necessarily a bad thing in certain cases, but I don't want to talk much about that.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and I'd definitely recommend this to others.

*I'm not really to happy with this review.  It's probably because it's late.  I'm tired, and I don't know if any of this will make sense after I've slept.  I may come back and edit this later, but I felt like I needed to (finally) get it up.