Summer lovin'..

..book club.

So I've been reading a lot of crap lately, well not necessarily crap, but brainless, fluffy stuff.

Since the new Great Gatsby movie came out (which I heard was not good) I've been thinking about how literature is wasted on high school students.

I think that by forcing 16 and 17 year old kids to read the classics, you ruined the classics  for them.  Most of us read Huckleberry Finn or the Great Gatsby in high school.  Some of us even read the Russian greats: Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, especially if you happened to have Fares Sawaya as your teacher at Troy High.

But really, what teenager can truly appreciate these books?  You have no life experience and its not like a high school teacher can explain the sexual relationships of the characters.  We all got the stripped down, sanitized version of the stories.

So, I've decided to read, or in some cases re-read, some serious literature over the summer.

I found this list by Wikipedia on the 100 Best Books of All Time, this same list has been adapted and is on Goodreads.com here.

What is interesting about this list is that it was composed by 100 writers, meant to reflect literary works from all time periods and countries.  The list isn't in any sort of ranking, except that the writers agreed the Don Quixote  by Miguel de Cervantes is the best literary work ever.

I've decided to start with Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.  I've read this book before and loved it, but I haven't read the new translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky.  Here is a link to the book on Amazon.

To be completely honest though, I've stopped buying books.  I read so much that I could probably populate my own library by now.

I use my public library quite a lot and my iPad even more.

I've found some of the obscure books on the list in .pdf format but my all time favorite place to get books is The Ultimate EBook Library aka tuebl.  Tuebl is a Canadian library where you can download tons of epubs for free.

So join me this summer in a literary book club, choose a selection off the 100 best book list and let me know how you like it.

No pressure to read what I'm reading or time limits, try reading a book that you had to read in High School.  Maybe even one that you hated.  Who knows, maybe you'll love it!

Keep me posted:)