prunus
Tick tock.
Yes, seconded.
Books to get a teen started on classic literature
- Thread starter Cloo
- Start date
Yes, seconded.
depending on personality again, I reckon a lot of teenagers might find the more light hearted stuff (wodehouse, 3 men in a boat etc) a bit twee... I mean I loved it but I really read everything then. so I think a bit more dark/psychological stuff might work. maybe even stuff that's a bit "unsuitable for children" (within reason). like Dostoevsky or Hemingway (I know wrong century), or some proper Dickens like a tale of two cities. Camus l'etranger. Orwell "down and out..." I'm just thinking of books that genuinely got me to love reading serious stuff, not just feel obliged to.
(sorry it is all male white authors, that was just me at the time; I have since consciously rectified this.)
also tell him that if you read 2 or more pages a day you will improve at computer games.
(sorry it is all male white authors, that was just me at the time; I have since consciously rectified this.)
also tell him that if you read 2 or more pages a day you will improve at computer games.
philosophical
Well-Known Member
One absolutely fantastic book, but not of the period, is the life changing ‘Left hand of darkness’ by Ursula K. Le Guin.
She wrote a lot of sci-fi and fantasy (like the Earthsea quartet) which appeals to the young, but the central idea in ‘Left Hand’ will stay with the reader for life. I especially recommend it to teenage boys.
She wrote a lot of sci-fi and fantasy (like the Earthsea quartet) which appeals to the young, but the central idea in ‘Left Hand’ will stay with the reader for life. I especially recommend it to teenage boys.
hitmouse
music obfuscation technology
Seconding this.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Around that age I went: Cancer Ward > House of the Dead > Dead Souls > Sketches from a Hunter's Diary iirc. Ticking off a bunch of old Russian dudes. Made me feel dead clever!
like this, and I did similar... I think with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky both it is important to not just go for their shorter ones, the longer ones are actually easier, more gripping and just better. dostoevsky prob best for teens as he's a bit more emo.
maomao
普費斯
Is that an IGCSE? No coursework on English GCSEs anymore. Agree about the grind, reading three books including a Shakespeare play in two years is utterly soul destroying. When I was at school I read and wrote about Camus (my own choice) for part of my coursework.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Yeah, I am thinking of iGCSE. Endless rewriting of PEEL paragraphs about the Curious Incident, Of Mice and Men and Romeo & Juliet. Poor kids.
maomao
普費斯
No OMAM anymore, it has to be UK lit cause Tories. And the grade race and application of the Mark scheme at GCSE has become such a twisted monster that PEEL paragraphs don't cut it anymore. The school I've just left was teaching students an 11 'step' process (to be learned by rote) for writing a completely nonsensical paragraph. And the results have gone up so it must be the right thing to do.
maomao
普費斯
There's a poetry unit too, both the main ones have one poem by a BAME author. There's a new unit that has more but I'm not very familiar with it.Seems to have changed a lot (for the worse) since I was at school thenwe did some contemporary poems from Caribbean writers as well.
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
Emily Wilson
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
While it's nearly 40 years since i was starting o-levels, but that's how i found english lit - dissecting and analysing books rather than reading them and no thought of actually enjoying the experience.
pretty much put me off reading for a long time (and must admit that a lot of the books mentioned on here are books i'm aware of the existence of but haven't actually tried to read. maybe i should take this thread as a guide on where to start...)
being shoved in to doing o-level music had a similar effect on me.
i had hoped things would have got better by now.
meh.
Cloo
Banana for scale
Oh yeah, Ziggy isn't likely to be able to do well in it, it may be a subject we kind of write off but still worth helping him with the reading. Sadly I don't think that the government will change it in the next 3 years from the Tories' Public School fantasy that everyone should memorise lots of literature like the old days, Huzzah!
Elpenor
a clown’s heart and a mandolin
Very readable for what must be mid Victorian era too
And ( I found it) very relatable just as funny now as when it was written I should think
Idris2002
Christmas Eve, you know?
Would the poems of Robert Service have any appeal to the youth of day, with their stirring tales of weird goings on among the Gold Rush set of the Yukon?
I'm thinking of stuff like the Cremation of Sam McGee
More later!
I'm thinking of stuff like the Cremation of Sam McGee
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."
A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."
A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
More later!
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Anyone read Jew Suss? I have a 1927 edition that belonged to my grandma. She wanted me to read it, supposedly it's a classic. It was written by a Jew but was made into an antisemitic movie by the Nazis. It's been sitting on my shelf since shortly before she died and I dunno whether to give it a go.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
hitmouse Pickman's model get the feeling one of you might have?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Not me
hitmouse
music obfuscation technology
Me neither.
Fez909
toilet expert
This is a great list: Books for Children
Of those I've read from that list, I'd choose Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
And from those I haven't read, maybe Monkey. I have that sat on my shelf still and do keep meaning to get around to reading it. There's a new game (Black Myth: Wukong) just come out based on it, that is making a big splash in the news, so might resonate if he's a gamer.
Of those I've read from that list, I'd choose Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
And from those I haven't read, maybe Monkey. I have that sat on my shelf still and do keep meaning to get around to reading it. There's a new game (Black Myth: Wukong) just come out based on it, that is making a big splash in the news, so might resonate if he's a gamer.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
I just started reading it so I'll let you know if it's good or not.
ouirdeaux
Caring, Understanding, Non-judgemental Type
No, but I've seen the film, which is not exactly faithful to the book.
I think we're wandering off-topic here, as this is neither 19th-century nor likely to appeal to a reluctant anglophone reader.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Yep, agreed. I was just asking as it was a thread about classics. There's way more accessible ones out there I agree (not that I've read many)
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