Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. Just exquisite.

I read that book in my early twenties after being assigned Angle of Repose in college. Both incredible books

yes! Both were some of my favorite books in my early 20's. I'm 47 now--I need to re-read them.

I think I will too! I’ll probably get homesick as a Western gal

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. Just exquisite.

I read that book in my early twenties after being assigned Angle of Repose in college. Both incredible books

yes! Both were some of my favorite books in my early 20's. I'm 47 now--I need to re-read them.

Anonymous wrote:All the classics you read in high school. You wouldn’t believe how differently you feel about then as a middle-aged adult.

I honestly don’t think I really grasped a single novel I read in high school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jane Eyre. Loathed it as a teen. So hard to understand back then (30+ years ago). Love it now.

I've read it three times, not out of great love, but once as a young teen, once in my late 20s at the Beach when the pickings were slim and once in my late 40's for a book club. Felt differently about the characters each time. Still wouldn't list it as one of my favorite books, but that experience of growing and changing with it was amazing.

My teen and I both read Jane Eyre concurrently a few months ago (I had read it as a teen, but didn’t remember much about it), and neither of us really understand why it’s so many people’s favorite book ever. (So many people have told me it is.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jane Eyre. Loathed it as a teen. So hard to understand back then (30+ years ago). Love it now.

Funny, feel the exact opposite. I thought it was romantic as a teen. As an adult, Rochester & Jane's relationship seemed eff'd up and don't even getting me started on the ex locked in the attic...

I just started rereading Jane Eyre this week! I'm 44. Your comment reminds me of Wuthering Heights, through. When I read it as a teen my mom told me she thought Heathcliff was hot, and my reaction was "are you crazy? Heck no." I reread it again about a year ago...and my opinion has not changed.

On newer books, I loved the two books (so far) in the Thursday Murder Club series. I don't think younger me would have loved a book about a bunch of 70-somethings in a retirement community but I'm just old enough now, with parents in their 70s, that i think it's funny and charming.

Ha, yes, that was my more or less my impression of Wuthering Heights as a teen/young adult too : all the protagonists are crazy and the whole book is enjoyably overwrought and silly. So I have never felt compelled to re-read it. But perhaps I should, and like the first PP on Jane Eyre, would now go the opposite direction and find new depth and literary meaning!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me, Marianne Robinson is completely unreadable schlock. That was me in my 30s, 40s and now 50s. And my dad, who tried reading her in his 70s agreed.

Hahaha. I’m OP. Thanks for that; I’m off the hook! Thanks all for the other suggestions. I had seriously considered whether to read my HS kid’s English syllabus.

Highly recommend this! My DD is in middle school, but this year there were two books that I “always sort of meant to read.” Your kid will judge you harshly for not finishing, so it’s a great motivator to actually read/re-read all those Great Books you have been hoping to get back around to someday.

I like memoirs. I feel like I'm making sense of my life, trying to decide if I made good decisions and reading memoirs is a way to see others going through this same process.

Anonymous wrote:All the classics you read in high school. You wouldn’t believe how differently you feel about then as a middle-aged adult.

Yep. Good lord, was Gatsby not the book I read in HS.

I can verify that after about age 50 you can read a book you read 10, 20 or 30 years ago and not realize until halfway through it that you have read it before. It's one of the delightful perks of aging. Same goes for some movies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jane Eyre. Loathed it as a teen. So hard to understand back then (30+ years ago). Love it now.

Funny, feel the exact opposite. I thought it was romantic as a teen. As an adult, Rochester & Jane's relationship seemed eff'd up and don't even getting me started on the ex locked in the attic...

I just started rereading Jane Eyre this week! I'm 44. Your comment reminds me of Wuthering Heights, through. When I read it as a teen my mom told me she thought Heathcliff was hot, and my reaction was "are you crazy? Heck no." I reread it again about a year ago...and my opinion has not changed.

On newer books, I loved the two books (so far) in the Thursday Murder Club series. I don't think younger me would have loved a book about a bunch of 70-somethings in a retirement community but I'm just old enough now, with parents in their 70s, that i think it's funny and charming.

Anonymous wrote:Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. Just exquisite.

I read that book in my early twenties after being assigned Angle of Repose in college. Both incredible books

Anonymous wrote:Jane Eyre. Loathed it as a teen. So hard to understand back then (30+ years ago). Love it now.

Funny, feel the exact opposite. I thought it was romantic as a teen. As an adult, Rochester & Jane's relationship seemed eff'd up and don't even getting me started on the ex locked in the attic...

The buttocks and the banjo

In 10th grade, we had to read 6 books from a list over the course of a year and do a reader response journal that was handed in. 2 of the books I read were Tess of the D'Ubervilles and Madame Bovary. I can't imagine how funny it would be to read my reader's response journal to those two books now, and I should probably re-read them at some point.

Books that should be re-read once you have children include the first couple books in the Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing series - re-reading the chapter about Fudge's birthday party was so fun as an adult.

Anonymous wrote:Jane Eyre. Loathed it as a teen. So hard to understand back then (30+ years ago). Love it now.

I've read it three times, not out of great love, but once as a young teen, once in my late 20s at the Beach when the pickings were slim and once in my late 40's for a book club. Felt differently about the characters each time. Still wouldn't list it as one of my favorite books, but that experience of growing and changing with it was amazing.