Today more people can communicate their thoughts into words and those words can easily end up in books. It is a liberating time, a cycle of change and freedom. In many ways it is times like this, with so much change, that we need our classic reads.
The past few years have been dynamic for authors. There are more writers being published via eBooks and print on demand (POD). Exposure of existing authors is heightened with the rampant growth of social media and marketing via author platforms.
The classics help our society remember what we are gauging our future against.
Classics are a reference to excellence that we can use as a measure of our own success today and in the future.
The classics prevail over time and language, with truth exposed in the characters and story. Some basic human truths make a story appeal over centuries. No matter the date written, the human spirit is visible in a classic, and is readily identified.
There are obvious classics which we have probably all read from Homer’s Iliad to Stephen King’s The Stand. Some classic writers that quickly come to mind are listed below, trying to find at least one author per letter. There are many more:
Agatha Christie
|
H.P. Lovecraft
|
John Steinbeck
|
Sidney Sheldon
|
Arthur Conan Doyle
|
Harper Lee
|
Jules Verne
|
Stephen King
|
Bram Stoker
|
Henry David Thoreau
|
Kurt Vonnegut
|
Thomas Hardy
|
C.S. Lewis
|
Herman Melville
|
Leo Tolstoy
|
Truman Capote
|
Charles Dickens
|
Homer
|
Mark Twain
|
Udall, Brady
|
Dan Brown
|
Ian McEwan
|
Mary Shelly
|
Ursula Markus
|
Dante Alighieri
|
Isaac Asimov
|
Nathaniel Hawthorne
|
Uzma Sadaf
|
Edgar Allan Poe
|
J.D. Salinger
|
Oscar Wilde
|
Victor Hugo
|
Emily Bronte
|
J.K. Rowling
|
Percy Bysshe Shelley
|
Virginia Woolf
|
Emily Dickinson
|
J.R.R. Tolkien
|
Philip Pullman
|
William Blake
|
Ernest Hemingway
|
Jack London
|
Plato
|
William Faulkner
|
F. Scott Fitzgerald
|
James Joyce
|
Quinn, Spencer
|
William Shakespeare
|
Franz Kafka
|
Jane Austen
|
Ralph Waldo Emerson
|
Xavier, Francis
|
George Eliot
|
John Grisham
|
Ray Bradbury
|
Yann Martel
|
George Orwell
|
John Irving
|
Robert Louis Stevenson
| |
H. G. Wells
|
John Milton
|
Rudyard Kipling
|
I had difficulty finding a classic author for the letter Z. I humbly hope someday my name may be used to fill in this gap, not presuming classic status on my part.
Please in the coming year look for my book debut…
BREAKING CURSED BONDS by Elisabeth Zguta
Happy reading and writing to us all!
Best of luck in your 2013 endeavors.
Enjoy the clip from the 2009 Wuthering Heights - one of the best versions on screen. The rest of the clips that follow can be found on YouTube - find listed in my channel.
I got this version of Wuthering Heights for Christmas. Can't wait to see it, but not now. Must finish first draft.
ReplyDelete8 chapters to go!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so exhausted.
Melinda - good that you read the book first. Film always take liberties. That said, I still like the film versions too, but they are different than the book.
DeleteTruly a modern post on an enduring subject. Loved your post. I would humbly suggest Roger Zelazny for your "z" author. His Chronicles of Amber series created a vivid world with well-defined characters. He also did "fluff" but it was all cleanly woven genre fiction.
ReplyDeleteThank you Greg for the heads up about Roger Zelazny and the Amber series - on my TRL
DeleteVery good post.
ReplyDeleteThat is a mouthwatering list of authors you have put together. Many gods and goddesses of writing in there :)
Thank you - they are obvious choices, and there are so many more wonderful authors...
DeleteI read Wuthering Heights for the first time last year as part of a read-along. I really enjoyed it! The characters are the sort that you love to hate!
ReplyDeleteYes definately love / hate desires. They behave almost like wounded animals, with deep instincts. Great character wells.
DeleteThank you so much for taking part in the hop, Elisabeth! I wish you lots of success with your debut!
ReplyDeleteMy best,
Terri
Thank you Terri
ReplyDelete