Saturday, January 5, 2013

CLASSIC READS - Some Things Never Change


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.
 
 

View CR2013Banner.jpg in slide show

 

Visit the hoppers!

Participants in the Classic Reads blog hop (#NewClassicReads).



10 comments:

  1. I got this version of Wuthering Heights for Christmas. Can't wait to see it, but not now. Must finish first draft.

    8 chapters to go!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so exhausted.

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    Replies
    1. 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.

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  2. Truly 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.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Greg for the heads up about Roger Zelazny and the Amber series - on my TRL

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  3. Very good post.

    That is a mouthwatering list of authors you have put together. Many gods and goddesses of writing in there :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you - they are obvious choices, and there are so many more wonderful authors...

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  4. I 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!

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    Replies
    1. Yes definately love / hate desires. They behave almost like wounded animals, with deep instincts. Great character wells.

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  5. Thank you so much for taking part in the hop, Elisabeth! I wish you lots of success with your debut!

    My best,
    Terri

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