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If Hemingway goes over your head, you better stick with romance novels.
I've never read Cooper, but I recall the story about him is that basically he was a guy reading a book and complaining about how bad it was, and his wife told him he should write one if he thought he could do better.
I also remember reading he did things like change a character's name in the middle of a book, and leave story lines hanging.
If Hemingway goes over your head, you better stick with romance novels.
I will have to write down some of these les.
I finally read Catcher in the Rye recently. Great book. I don't get why it was so controversial. Different time, I guess. I am currently reading 1984 and Wuthering Heights. Hopefully will finish both soon.
One of my favorites is The Natural. I don't think I will ever get over the ending.
I was going to suggest that too.
I'm a big Hemmingway fan, but my favourites of his are For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Moveable Feast.If Hemingway goes over your head, you better stick with romance novels.
Whether YOU consider it cheating or not is irrelevant - do you reference the source? If not, you are plaigarising and there's no grey area there at all.
However, my comment was not about whether "it works" or not, it was about whether you actually learn anything - there is a very big difference between passing a course and actually learning/improving your mind. Short cuts may allow you to pass the course, but I doubt you learn much by taking them.
If you only read someone else's version of the book then you are cheating yourself. How do you know you won't see different things in the book than the Clift notes guy did? Being at university, you should understand the value of proper research from primary sources, or that "top 100" univesity of yours isn't doing its job.
If you are at a "Top 100" university and can't bother to go to primary sources I don't know what to say except that maybe the auditors ought to look at your uni a little closer because it's not doing a very good job of teaching you about academic integrity.
Incidentally, while we're one upping each other, my university is consistently rated in the Top 20 IN THE WORLD, 16th, 18th, 16th in the last three years in the Times survey.
speaking of Hemingway, I loved The Old Man and the Sea, simple but classic.
Crime and Punishment and The Idiot by Dostoevsky are also winners for me.
Two other great books I've read are A Clockwork Orange and Siddartha.
Definitely read and then see A Clockwork Orange. The book isn't at all colorful in terms of its textless expression of place and other details so when you see the sophistcated and transcendental imagery the movies adds to it it feels like a seperate experience from reading the book.
Basically, the books pithy, so the movie keeps the whole story but adds the stunning imagery.
As for Siddartha, it's just a great, short read that can enable you to think differently about how you live.
Last edited by Ronaldo McDonald; 07-09-2007 at 03:16 AM.
The Outsiders was always one of my faves. I don't read too many books, but I'd have to say Demon In My View is my favorite book.
It's not a book but more of a short story, Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" is probably my favorite story of all time
Amazing book...!!! read that one!!! NOW
Night is good, required reading in a lot of schools too. John Steinbeck (author) is good, last thing I read from him was The Pearl. Not a favorite but a good read.
Technically not an author, but Arthur Miller is a classic playwright, all his stuff are good reads and life lessons.
I cannot get into Toni Morrison.
I am currently reading Grapes of Wrath and it is really good.
The Good Earth is a fantastic book and so is Confederacy of Dunces. Both are pulitzer prize books. Another great book I have read is Shogun. I love James Clavell's books and have read all of those (Taipan, Shogun, Noble house) several times.
Forgot this one...I have read this book 3 times. My son read this 2 years ago and loved it as well.
One of THE BEST short stories ever.
I forgot about The Good Earth.
Great book.
I'm reading 1984 right now....weird ass book.
Out of the books I've read in the past year, Cat's Cradle and Native Son were pretty good.
Walden; or, Life in the Woods -- Henry David Thoreau
I try to read it at least once a year.
Did I insult you some way?
I heard a comedian say one time that every book was in the dictionary....you just have to put the words in the correct order.
Modern-day masterpiece: The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
Where the Wild Things Are
Of Mice and Men
you should read some more Hesse then. Siddartha is ok, but Damian was much better imo. Steppenwolf is also quite good.
Man, I couldn't get into Steppenwolf at all.
Death in Venice, too. Guess I don't like German authors.
I love to read, especially all those books that teachers assign for students to read. I read Middlemarch for fun- all 800 pages of it. But Catcher in the Rye did nothing for me- maybe because it had been so hyped beforehand.
Of course it's cheating. You do not read the book and you use the information provided by someone else as "your" analysis of the book. So unless you cite the Spark Notes in your papers, you are cheating.
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