Is Innocents Abroad the one with the European tour?

Yep. I read it as the tourists wandering around Europe with this "These are the Great Sights" itinerary, each "great" to be crossed off with grim determination, and totally not getting why they were great. Eh, maybe it's not the best rec. in the world. I was in a really cynical mental place when I read it.

Still, I'm clinging to my Wilde and Saki love.

As with so many things, a good introduction helped us immensely (we only read introductions AFTER the book though now, as plot points and surprises are very often given away). But for those of us not well studied in the history of the time the books were written, the introduction or a study guide are the only way things make sense.

Mmmm, a good introduction is a work of art. I'd hugely, hugely recommend Dorothy Sayers' introduction to the Divine Comedy to anyone planning on tackling it anytime soon. She brings a huge amount of scholarly weight to bear, and then uses it in light, clear, incredibly accessible language, and she writes out of large personal love; the Divine Comedy was a shiny multifaceted endlessly delightful toy to her, and she wanted to make sure everyone else had as much fun playing with it as she did.

And Chesterton's loving and admiring intro to Love and Freindship, Jane Austen's collected juvenilia.

Of course, because I'm a bitch, I also have saved somewhere a perfectly horrid intro to an omnibus condensed version of the Palliser novels, written by some odious self-important prick at a Midwestern English department sometime in the late 60s, who bloviated a great deal about how much Trollope's characters talked and how he really needed an editor to prune him down so you could actually find the plot (completely ignoring the fact that Trollope's plots, by his own admission, by and large suck, and if you cut out all the conversations you've destroyed everything that was best about him).

I keep it mainly to give myself a fresh charge of outrage every now and then at the editor's arrogance and impudence, but it's also interesting as an example of how huge the shift can be, over a single generation, in an author's reputation and in the literary and academic establishment's perception of what's important and worthwhile. For the same reason, it's also kinda fun (in a frequently appalling way) to read turn of the century, 1950s, and current intros to Austen and the Brontes.

I love To Kill a Mockingbird. (That was one of the books that made me hate my freshman year English teacher. She was a "this is how you're supposed to interpret this book" teacher. I totally disagreed with her interpretation, but when I tried to start a discussion, I was always told that I was wrong. I tried to back up my interpretation, and she'd point out that the teachers guide disagreed. This was one of the most frustrating classes I ever took.)

Also seconding any recomendations for Candide. I read that one twice senior year of high school -- it was a summer reading book for French, and then read it during the year in English. That's another one where the French version has some great language that doesn't always translate well to the English, but the English is also great.

My favorite Dickens is probably David Copperfield, with Great Expectations a close second. I read David Copperfield in a class on Victorian marriage, so that's still sort of the perspective I tend to approach it with, but I love the way the female characters are constructed -- how they all take on different aspects of femininity, and almost none of them get it quite right to be able to fit into their world.

As for more of the kids classics, the one I'll keep going back to is Huckleberry Finn. I read Tom Sawyer when I was 10 and loved it then, and Huckleberry Finn at 13 and also loved it, but I think Huckleberry Finn has held up better as I've gotten older.

I tried to back up my interpretation, and she'd point out that the teachers guide disagreed.

Hate! I figure if your argument's only basis is that some guide agrees with you? You've lost. (Unless you're a nuclear engineer and the guide involves avoiding a meltdown of some sort. In which case I'll back away from the argument respectfully. But in literature? Pthipbt!)

One of my favorite lit. teachers once handed back a paper I'd written, saying something along the lines of, "I disagree with your entire arguement, but you supported it just fine. So you get an A-." If I hadn't overindulged in commas I might have gotten an A. Then we spent the rest of the semester debating our sides.

Yeah, I'm not to good with anything that includes the phrase "supposed to." I remember having a discussion with a friend of mine, where she was saying that our high school English classes only taught us how to summarize other people's criticism into a term paper, not how to figure out our own. I was totally confused by this; every paper I'd written had referred to published criticism, but I totally had my own analysis and defense of it. We finally figure out that, when we were reading something, and there was a statement like, "The use of the word X symbolizes Y," she read that as, "This is the accepted interpretation, so it's what you're supposed to think if you want to look like you know what you're talking about," and I read it as, "This is this author's interpretation -- hmm, but couldn't it actually symbolize Z? There was another similar passage, wasn't there, that looked more like Z? And that other passage, over there, really makes it look like Y isn't a good interpretation. And what about W?"

Man, that was many posts. You may all blame Polter-Cow for reminding this thread is here. I certainly do.

I am in the corner with the folks who are wondering what in the hell they have being doing with their reading time. My Lit-City consists of a familiarity with Will's Castle, Alcott's Cottage, and a really well detailed, this is my 'hood knowledge of the spires and habitats of science fiction.

I will duck back out of the discussion, I think, because my impulse toward analysis is aimed at other fields. However, the cut-and-thrust in here since July 1 has been very stimulating. I thank you all for that.

Jilli if you haven't read Frankenstein you should. I love it to peices. Although I've never gotten into Dracula.

When people were talking about Shakespeare it reminded me of the Childcraft set (well partial) that Grandma E had when I was growing up (she gave me the books). The first book is nursery rhymes, songs, and poetry for younger children -- lots of Mother Goose, but also Christan Rossetti, Rober Louis Stevenson, Longfellow, Vachal Lindsey, etc. Book 2 is poetry for older children-- the previously mentioned poets and Shakespeare, Dickinson, Millya, Wordsworth, Swinburne, Tennyson, Browning. And The Highwayman which is wonderfully dark and beautiful and I tried to memorize it when I was 9 or so. I remember reading it over and over and then Grandma E holding the book while I tried to recite it back from memory. I never did memorise it all the way.

I'm not sure if they even make Child Craft anymore, this edition is from 1954 but I see various editions in anitque stores or used bookstores. Any of the new parents should have this.

We weren't exactly talking about poetry but I had to share that.

Also I highly recommend House of Spirits by Isabel Allende, it's one of my favorite novels.

Askye, yes! I am looking at my set of 1954 Childcraft proudly displayed, right above the set of 20's-era Book Trails that my mother grew up with. Love them to death, even now. My mom gave ours away when I went to college, but she found a set for me later--one of the perks of having a Mom in the used book trade.

I don't have the full set and I want it. I keep seeing various volumes that I don't have but they are "my" edition. I'm not sure off the top of my head what volumes I'm missing because I only have the first 2 over here, the rest are with my other books at Mom's.

In the volume with short stories there is a story about a girl living in the piney woods and it's nearly Christmas and she wants this beautiful doll, but her parents can't afford it and instead her mother has her baby on Christmas so she gets a gift better than a doll.

I made that sound hokey and maybe it is a little but Dad used to read it to me, because we have piney woods here -- just a different sort than were described in the story.

My mother gave that edition of Childcraft to my half-sister, who sold it in a yard sale. My sister and I have not forgiven either of them.