Good (interesting) books for freshmen who needs to find a book of quality literature.?

Question

I need a book that I am interested in to read for school. I really don't like to read older literature (I know, shame on me). But I need one that my school will count it of "literary quality."

Thanks!

Answer 1

Embraced By The Light
http://www.embracedbythelight.com/leftside/embraced/ebtlindex.htm

Answer 2

Some shorter ones I've enjoyed:

Bobok/The Gambler - Dostoevsky
Lay of the Last Minstrel - Sir Walter Scott
The Four Million - O.Henry
The Prince - Machiavelli
The Pearl - Steinbeck
Cannery Row - Steinbeck
The Garden of the Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse

Medium to Long:

Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game) - Herman Hesse
All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Notre Dame de Paris - Victor Hugo
The Stone Angel - Margaret Laurence
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas
Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott

Just my opinion mind you; great literature touches on things that are not bound in time - and in such a way that our distraction by the dated styles, technology and manners of speech do not impede our flow of thought about the relevance of the story.

You'd figure if a human being lived for more than 300 years they must be doing something right (unless they're a vampire of course) - for the same reason, there's cause to believe that something worthwhile must be in some of these classics to keep them on the shelves of booksellers up to this date.

Good luck!

Answer 3

The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare. Wonderful book about a boy who lived in the time of Jesus, and his struggle to accept him. But if you aren't Christian...

Calico Captive - Elizabeth George Speare. This is about a girl who lives in America during the time when the Indians were present, and how she is captured by Indians, survived the gauntlet, and then ends up in a rich ladies house. Read it a long time ago, so I forgot a lot, but I loved it for some reason. Both these are good, quality literature.

Answer 4

The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, as suggested above, is a great book. I personally love Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, the Satanic Verses) however I'm guessing that you're doing a book report and might not want to blow through something 500+ pages long. So here are a pair of unimpeachably great, and short books:

Candide, by Voltaire
Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles (warning, this one is NOT an upper.)

Answer 5

All the books written by Alexander dumas and charles dickens plus Ivan hoe and ofcours shakesphere are all great books with literature and you do not want these then go to fictions like Edgar Wallace where you can find lots of good britian english which is very difficult to digest.

Answer 6

If you want some-thing that seems easy but can be complex -
Read the Narnia books beginning with 'The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe' Do not watch the film. Read as an adult and look for symbolism. Clue the author was religious.

Answer 7

There are actually quite a few literary books from the past that are still interesting reads. Yes, the styles in which they were written are much different than what we expect to read nowadays. But you can still find many gems. Here's a few I read and loved when I was in high school.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: classic novel of the Romantic era. Very interesting, very easy to read. Nothing at all like the Hollywood movie version.

Dracula by Bram Stoker: done entirely in the form of letters and newspaper articles by and about the main characters.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller: a WWII satire with plenty of wit and humor, but also very troubling at times. Definitely interesting, written close enough to modern years that it should be easy to read.

The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway: I like this one better than A Farewell to Arms, which most schools read as the obligatory Hemingway novel. The Sun Also Rises is very sad at times, and it's written in that sparse Hemingway style, which makes it easy to read at first glance, but make sure you pay attention to the deeper meaning. Hemingway would write fifty thousand words and cut it down to twenty thousand. Those thirty thousand missing words are still important, they're just in the subtext now.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: very good book from this notoriously flamboyant author. He captures the decadence of life in the upper class Victorian era.

If there's a specific genre you really like, you might also want to look at classic novels within that sphere. For instance, if you like SF or fantasy, you might want to read Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, or Le Mort D'Arthur by Mallory. Look for books that fit with your particular interests.

Answer 8

Catcher in the Rye
Any book by S.E. Hinton
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
The Hobbit

Answer 9

Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged - a classic story of a strong woman, the men who love her, and American government gone wrong.

Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay - set in mid-20th century NY this pulitzer winner tells the story of two cousins who go on to build a comic book empire.

both are just inspiration wonderful stories. I love them.

Answer 10

Any of the books on this list (see link).