Don’t Damn Me!Dipping into the Literary Classics
Written by Paulie on October 27th, 2008For quite some time — I’m not sure quite how long — I’ve been meaning to read the so-called “Classics.”
Some of them really appeal to me, others i’ve read good things about, and some don’t appeal to me at all. So i decided to start the ball rolling, and just this afternoon (Minutes before i started writing this post) I placed my order on Amazon.co.uk.
The books I’ve started with are as follows:
“Wuthering Heights (Penguin Popular Classics)”
Emily Bronte;
“Robinson Crusoe (Penguin Popular Classics)”
Daniel Defoe;
“The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Penguin Popular Classics)”
Robert Louis Stevenson;
“Dracula (Penguin Popular Classics)”
Bram Stoker;
“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Penguin Popular Classics)”
Mark Twain;
“Macbeth (Penguin Popular Classics)”
William Shakespeare;
“The Christmas Books: A Christmas Carol; The Chimes; The Cricket on the Hearth (Penguin Popular Classics)”
Charles Dickens;
“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Penguin Popular Classics)”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle;
“The Railway Children (Wordsworth’s Children’s Classics) (Wordsworth’s Children’s Classics)”
E. Nesbit;
As I’m sure most people have, I’ve at least seen the films and TV shows dedicated to a few of the titles above, and I’m sure at one point, probably when i was younger and an avid library-goer, I may even have at least partially read some of them.
Macbeth stands out from the rest, because I have absolutely no interest in the writings of Shakespeare. Call it being uncultured or ignorant, or just uninterested, but his writings have never really appealed to me. The only reason I’m buying it is, because we’ll be covering it in my night class early next year, for one of the pieces of coursework.
Who knows, I may read it and actually like it. Stranger things have happened.
As part of this little push into the literary world and trying to appreciate what are widely realised as “The classics,” I’m going to try and force myself to review every book i read, from this day forth. Darryl gave me the idea for that, so it’s him you have to blame, when you get fed up of my pillaging the works of revered authors, with my own opinions and understandings, gained from my reading experience.
As part of that, i’m actually going to put some effort into my reviews, rather than the usual little diddies i scribbled together just for the sake of it. So bear with me and try not to hold your head in your hands too much, as you despair at my efforts. 
