Personally I think that Girl in Hyacinth Blue will probably be labeled a classic.
I agree that the stereotypical English Professor or Literature PhD doesn't have the same taste that we do - but they do read with more care, experience and expertise and I'm sure we could learn a lot if we took (another) class in literature. Another place to look would be the book review pages of a major Sunday paper like the New York Times or the San Francisco Chronicle. Nobody actually has the authority to label a book Classic or Great. A professor, or more likely an English Department, decides that the college students could learn a lot from a book, so the teaching of said book gets added to the curriculum. And sometimes the students get different ideas out of the book than the professor did, so when the book is getting taught the professor might actually learn something too. Lots of people are members of committees that award prizes to books, for example the Newbery awards are famous for children's lit. The National Book Review is a name that comes to mind for new adult books - I'm sure you can search and find all sorts of sources. But perhaps one of the things that truly gets books recognized as classic is whether people keep on reading them - if they endure in our hearts and minds because of relevance to the basic human condition, rather than only the current fashions. There's also a book series called "Junior Great Books" - including Kipling, Aesop, etc. To be frank I've never heard of Garden of Eden. Before you give up on Heminway try Old Man and the Sea - short and the favorite of many who have expressed reluctance to read the classics. "Strange and hard to read" does not mean bad or good. Neither does light, or accessible, or even fun. Bad or good, great or classic, have more to do with the richness of the experience of reading it and then savoring the thought about it after you're done. Really though, I'm not a professor or even a lit major. I just know that the few courses I had in college, years ago, really helped me get a lot more appreciation out of the books I did read back then. And I know that with more help I would enjoy a lot more. So - I continue to struggle on because I feel so much more joy and satisfaction when I do succeed than when I just read escapism. I liked my fast food analogy, but if it didn't work for you try another: Sometimes we just want to stroll through the neighborhood park and see pretty much the same trees and kids and squirrels - but once in a while it's worth the effort to go backpacking overnight in order to get to the top of the mountain. LLR Cheryl --- secapps <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Still, what does make something a classic, > or great book, and who > decides this? And, are there great books being > writen right now? Do people > label them great or classic now, or do they > wait for years before deciding > this? > > Thanks, Susie Cheryl Share books, share fun! See: http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/cherylllr Have you told a friend today? http://bookcrossing.com/tellafriend Archives and email list settings: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BookCrossing Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BookCrossing/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
