The Nightstar Zoo

Just to check and see if anyone reads the older stuff around here, what's your favorite work of fiction over 50 years old?

My personal fav would have to be Beat to Quarters by C.F. Forester

T S Eliot's The Waste Land. I'll show YOU fear in a handful of dust!

* plugs The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson again

And 1984 and Animal Farm, both by George Orwell.

You LIKED those 850 lines of insanity?

/me still has a headache from the last time he read it.

Ditto, Ger, on 1984 and Animal Farm.

DT. It's 850 lines of insanity. What's NOT to like?

Time Machine was pretty darn good.

20,000 Leagues was absolutely amazing.

1984 and Animal Farm both are definitely stories to read and remember, and most importantly, to remember that they are *NOT* instruction manuals kthx.

But I think my favorite old fiction would have to be the Sherlock Holmes stories. Amazing work.

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"A Conneticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court" by Mark Twain was excellent.

Wow. Good question.

Kipling, but /which/ poem? So many excellent choices.
Or... or.. Blake and his wackiness. Or Coleridge's drugged stupor of a pleasure dome or albatross-phobia. Or the first known novel - Beowulf. Or the first surviving literary pun, in Homer's Odyssey.

There are So Many Choices!

Let's go with Kipling's "Oont". Just cuz.

-John

...they're not?



*scraps those plans

Is Asimov's work 50 years old yet?

*Runs to shelf to check*

Yes! Than practicaly any of Asimov's earlier works are good. Also, although it sort of goes with out saying The Lord of the Rings is good (I think it is 50 years old, at least the first part is. Did he publish Return of the King before or after 1954? It escapes me.)

I actualy really like some of Steinbeck's work as well, especialy Of Mice and Men.

Copyright is counted from the author's death. Asimov died in 1992. Tolkien died in 1973. Neither of those dates are 50 years ago. Or 75 years ago.

Vorn

The original copyright date is also in the information on the back of the title page.

Huh? When did copyright come into the convo?

I got confused about something. Nemmind.

Vorn

Oggy said "kthx". I am terrified.

Oh, La familia de Pascual Duarte is pretty dang good, too. It's sorta like Hamlet. Only everybody dies FASTER. And the main character really IS utterly insane.

What's that in english Woap? It sounds familiar.

Both Orwell choices are great, but I'll go with Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (1953).

The Grapes of Wrath.

The Foundation trilogy. The later books weren't bad, but they neither have the same feel as the first three nor are 50 years old yet. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a close second.

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The Family of Pascual Duarte. Spanish novel. I translated it if you want to read it.

You mean somebody actually likes this book?

My fave is probably The Scarelt Pimpernel

It is ok. Definitely not his best, but I have read worse.

Asimov rocks. He is one of my favorite authors ever.

And for some reason Animal is the first person to agree with me that The Grapes of Wrath is a good book.

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
Crazy fantasy written by a mathematician.
By the way, the answer to the hatter's riddle is, "Because the both make notes, although they are flat."

I'd always heard it was "Poe wrote on both."

Incidentally, did you know he (Charles Dodgson AKA Lewis Caroll) was very fond of children... in a... certain... way?
Nevertheless, they're good books. He was a great poet.

You mean "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" I've always preferred the answer "Poe wrote on both."

Edit: Apparently I've been beaten to the punch.

Ooooh.

By the by, love the signature. That song rocks.

Okay... need to keep this on-topic...

Uh... The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is also goody.

The early Heinlein short stories. By His Bootstraps, And Built A Crooked House and of course there is always Lifeline.

I really liked Silas Marner by George Eliot. It was a nice, touching story that I probably enjoyed more than I should have. Except for the unnecessary bar scene that dragged on for 20 hours.