4 days ago
05 December 2010
And YOU get a chapter! And YOU get a chapter! EVERYBODY GETS A CHAPTER
For the five people who didn't have to read them in high school, Oprah's final book club picks (until she launches her own network next year) are a Dickens doubleheader, A TALE OF TWO CITIES and GREAT EXPECTATIONS. (Actually, I can't remember whether the latter was required reading in high school or not. First sign of aging?) As is obvious but worth pointing out, Charles Dickens is a dead white man.
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7 comments:
That post-title is pure win.
For what its worth, A Tale of Two Cities is one of my favorite books. Great Expectations is good . . . I can think of Dickens stories I like more, but you can't realistically assign David Copperfield or Bleak House for a book club.
I really like both those books, I just wonder if it's so critical to expose audiences to them now as opposed to a more obscure pick.
Did you ever finish BLEAK HOUSE, by the way?
GREAT EXPECTATIONS was not strictly required, but it was on a list of books (also including TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES and THE AGE OF INNOCENCE), any one of which was required.
Also, ours was the last year to read A TALE OF TWO CITIES in tenth grade: they changed the curriculum because it was "too difficult for sophomores".
Oh good grief, A TALE OF TWO CITIES is not that hard. What did they substitute, do you know?
Unfortunately, senility has set in and I do not remember. It's possible that they moved it to twelfth grade (I know that the AP English class of 2000 was reading it in twelfth grade at the same time we were reading it in tenth grade, so that leads me to suspect it hadn't been in the tenth grade curriculum very long: it's a long book to make someone read it twice).
??? I think we read this book in ninth grade (1971).
I never finished Bleak House. Its my next big project, after I finish Infinite Jest (which I'm working on right now).
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