Modern novels are great, but don't forget to read some classics
By Isabel Choy Hui Yi |
February 29, 2012, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
"THE Hunger Games" series by Suzanne Collins, "The Percy Jackson" series by Rick Riordan, books by the famous author Jodi Picoult and many more are enjoyed by young adults nowadays. They pick up the novel and relax in a corner, opening the book and flipping through the pages as they read on and are hungry to find out more about the main characters. Bookworms like myself really enjoy reading during our free time. However, as more modern books are published, we forget the art of the classic stories by Shakespeare, Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, among many others.
Though they may use old English words and can be hard to understand at times, these classics are very well written and are often studied in literature during middle school to help us appreciate the old English language being weaved and spun into long interesting tales. Through the author's descriptions of the main character's environment, they also allow us to view the difference in the surroundings then and now. Books such as "Gone With the Wind" involving drama in a civil war; "Pride and Prejudice" about arrogance and status keeping a couple apart; and "The Phantom of Opera" about a ghostly man falling in love with an actress, are all top classics that people still read and enjoy.
Having said that about the classics, I believe that no matter what we read, modern or not, reading helps us boost our linguistic skills to a much higher level.
Though I very much enjoy reading modern day novels, I do believe we should try to read some literature as it benefits us in our future studies, and helps us understand how life was in the author's time. Hence, we should read more and help ourselves more to a bigger helping of books, classic or modern.
Though they may use old English words and can be hard to understand at times, these classics are very well written and are often studied in literature during middle school to help us appreciate the old English language being weaved and spun into long interesting tales. Through the author's descriptions of the main character's environment, they also allow us to view the difference in the surroundings then and now. Books such as "Gone With the Wind" involving drama in a civil war; "Pride and Prejudice" about arrogance and status keeping a couple apart; and "The Phantom of Opera" about a ghostly man falling in love with an actress, are all top classics that people still read and enjoy.
Having said that about the classics, I believe that no matter what we read, modern or not, reading helps us boost our linguistic skills to a much higher level.
Though I very much enjoy reading modern day novels, I do believe we should try to read some literature as it benefits us in our future studies, and helps us understand how life was in the author's time. Hence, we should read more and help ourselves more to a bigger helping of books, classic or modern.
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