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— Rudy Francisco
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Hey so like many of you, I saw that article about how people are going into college having read no classic books. And believe it or not, I've been pissed about this for years. Like the article revealed, a good chunk of American Schools don't require students to actually read books, rather they just give them an excerpt and tell them how to feel about it. Which is bullshit.
So like. As a positivity post, let's use this time to recommend actually good classic books that you've actually enjoyed reading! I know that Dracula Daily and Epic the Musical have wonderfully tricked y'all into reading Dracula and The Odyssey, and I've seen a resurgence of Picture of Dorian Gray readership out of spite for N-tflix, so let's keep the ball rolling!
My absolute favorite books of all time are The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Classic psychological horror books about unhinged women.
I adore The Bad Seed by William March. It's widely considered to be the first "creepy child" book in American literature, so reading it now you're like "wow that's kinda cliche- oh my god this is what started it. This was ground zero."
I remember the feelings of validation I got when people realized Dracula wasn't actually a love story. For further feelings of validation, please read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. There's a lot the more popular adaptations missed out on.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is an absolute gem of a book. It's a slow-build psychological study so it may not be for everyone, but damn do the plot twists hit. It's a really good book to go into blind, but I will say that its handling of abuse victims is actually insanely good for the time period it was written in.
Moving on from horror, you know people who say "I loved this book so much I couldn't put it down"? That was me as a kid reading A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Picked it up while bored at the library and was glued to it until I finished it.
Peter Pan and Wendy by JM Barrie was also a childhood favorite of mine. Next time someone bitches about Woke Casting, tell them that the original 1911 Peter Pan novel had canon nonbinary fairies.
Watership Down by Richard Adams is my sister Cori's favorite book period. If you were a Warrior Cats, Guardians of Ga'Hoole or Wings of Fire kid, you owe a metric fuckton to Watership Down and its "little animals on a big adventure" setup.
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry was a play and not a book first, but damn if it isn't a good fucking read. It was also named after a Langston Hughes poem, who's also an absolutely incredible author.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a book I absolutely adore and will defend until the day I die. It's so friggin good, y'all, I love it more than anything. You like people breaking out of fascist brainwashing? You like reading and value knowledge? You wanna see a guy basically predict the future of television back in 1953? Read Fahrenheit.
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee are considered required reading for a reason: they're both really good books about young white children unlearning the racial biases of their time. Huck Finn specifically has the main character being told that he will go to hell if he frees a slave, and deciding eternal damnation would be worth it.
As a sidenote, another Mark Twain book I was obsessed with as a kid was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Exactly what it says on the tin, incredibly insane read.
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin is a heartbreaking but powerful book and a look at the racism of the time while still centering the love the two black protagonists feel for each other. Giovanni's Room by the same author is one that focuses on a MLM man struggling with his sexuality, and it's really important to see from the perspective of a queer man living in the 50s– as well as Baldwin's autobiographical novel, Go Tell it on the Mountain.
Agatha Christie mysteries are all still absolutely iconic, but Murder on the Orient Express is such a good read whether or not you know the end twist.
Maybe-controversial-maybe-not take: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is a good book if you have reading comprehension. No, you're not supposed to like the main character. He pretty much spells that out for you at the end ffs.
Animal Farm by George Orwell was another favorite of mine; it was written as an obvious metaphor for the rise of fascism in Russia at the time and boy does it hit even now.
And finally, please read Shakespeare plays. As soon as you get used to their way of talking, they're not as hard to understand as people will lead you to believe. My absolute favorite is Twelfth Night- crossdressing, bisexual love triangles, yellow stockings... it's all a joy.
and those are just the ones i thought of off the top of my head! What're your guys' favorite classic books? Let's make everyone a reading list!
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metamorphesque · 2 days
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"The Unbearable Lightness of Being", Milan Kundera (translated by Michael Henry Heim)
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academic-vampire · 3 days
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“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
-Albert Camus ☕️🌙
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thoughtkick · 1 day
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The soul usually knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.
Caroline Myss
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feelingsoftheday · 3 days
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You glow different when your soul is happy.
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quotefeeling · 2 days
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Working on myself, by myself, for myself.
Unknown
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caruccio · 2 days
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She believes it's hard to love her and I love her like it's breathing.
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perfectfeelings · 2 days
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Please be patient with me. Sometimes when I’m quiet it’s because I need to figure myself out. It’s not because I don’t want to talk. Sometimes there are no words for my thoughts.
Kamla Bolanos
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thehopefulquotes · 2 days
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Loving you was like going to war, I never came back the same.
Warsan Shire
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perfectquote · 1 day
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No, you’re not wrong to expect a love that respects and values you for the person you are. You’re wrong to expect anything less.
Unknown
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— Nipuna Mehta (via @nipsyyy)
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thepersonalquotes · 2 days
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Shop
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prokopetz · 7 months
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If you're lamenting the fact that you used to be able to shoot through a 500-page novel in like a day when you were in middle school and now you can't, it's worth bearing in mind that a big part of that is because when you were in middle school, your reading comprehension sucked. Yes, mental health and the stresses of adult life can definitely be factors, but it's also the case that reading is typically more effortful as an adult because you've learned to Ponder The Implications. The material isn't just skimming over the surface of your brain anymore, and some of the spoons you used to spend on maximising your daily page count are now spent on actually thinking about what you're reading!
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academic-vampire · 1 day
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𝔴𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔡𝔦𝔡 𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔱𝔦𝔪𝔢 𝔤𝔬?
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thoughtkick · 3 days
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Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what’s going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That’s the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still.
Haruki Murakami
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