Awesome, I haven't heard of half of this list. This will be great shelter-in-place reading.
Re:Tom Stoppard's Arcadia (2009)
by throwaway_pdp09 on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @03:31AM
(#24118034)
Well, at leats they had Canticle, so well done for not being totally closed, but the problem with this and many reading lists is it's just. so. predictable.
Authors in the above I have not heard of: Laurie R. King, Christopher Fry
I'm not saying these are bad but the list focuses on what's well known, not what's obscure and perhaps better. In that sense it's gutless. It invites you down the well trodden paths where there's no risk of upset, all carefully vetted. And it makes me sad because it seems to want to usher people into conformity, of not being open to new ideas. Don't scare the horses.
I don't have time to list books I'd find interesting, but this is depressing for me.
Re:Tom Stoppard's Arcadia (2009)
by throwaway_pdp09 on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @01:43AM
(#24128908)
...aaand the inevitable downvotes. Not "you're wrong, here's why", just a surly response that you don't like it. I made my point clearly enough, the lack of a constructive response kind of backs up that being stuck in a rut is a good thing in literature.
(I suppose it could have been down to me not offering an alternative reading list, but I don't think that's all of it)
I found the list, it may be missing some poems but this is largely what we covered:
A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller Jr
Arcadia - Tom Stoppard
Dulce et Decorum est - Wilfred Owen
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Kindred - Octavia E. Butler
Life of Galileo - Bertolt Brecht
Pygmalion - George Bernard Shaw
Suicide in the Trenches - Siegfried Sassoon
The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King
The Lady's Not for Burning - Christopher Fry
The Mortal Immortal - Mary Shelley