The classics.

I know these book are more English-literature books and it's probably not that famous in Belgium. I still wanted to read these books because they are quite famous and must read books. So I wanted to read why they are so good and highly recommended. Those books have some perspectives you never thought you would find in a book. And here's why:

To Kill a Mockingbird.

Author: Harper Lee.
Pages: 309 pages, Paperback.

Genre: Classics, fiction, literature.
Published: 23 May, 2006.
Goodreads rating: ★★★★☆ (4.28)

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." 

This line is just it. This book takes time in 1930's and you read how rasiscm was back in the days. You read it from a five year old perspective and the way that's written is amazing because it's not in Atticus (the hero) perspective, but from a five year old girl 'Scout' and everything makes sense how Harper Lee wrote it from a little girls perspective. However, it took me quite a time to read it, because sometimes it was hard to read. But then again, I wanted to read to the end of the book.

Storyline:

'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'
A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl, Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch. Harper Lee explores the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties. The struggle for justive. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming-of-age story, an anti racist novel, a historical drama of the Great Depression and a sublime example of the Southern writing tradition.

The Catcher in the Rye.

Author: J.D. Salinger.

Pages: 230 pages, Paperback.

Genre: Classics, fiction, literature.

Published: 30 January, 2001.

Goodreads rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.81)

As I read this book, I thought it was about an adolescent that doesn't want to grow old, like his past was horrible and it feels like he wants to relive it but like a good way. Not the horrible past but a 'good past' kinda way. You cannot always follow the character because he's like always depressed and nothings good, nothings matter.. I think it's a sad story. The message that the book gave me is "growing up is not easy, and you gonna lose things and people that you love and things will get hard, nut you need to enjoy the little things in live and appreciate more." And that's why I recommend this book. Because we need to aprreciate the small things in life and hold on to the things we love en the memories we love.

Storyline:

The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand discription, he leaves his prep school Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once to simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it. There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, underground voices- but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faitful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry if mixed pain and pleasure. However, like most lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he keeps most of the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or sets aside with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handle it to keep.

J.D. Salinger's classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Tim's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Moderd Library and it's readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for it's liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.

Love,

DarkBlue