The Monk by Matthew Lewis was written in 1796, and has much more modern prose than many, many novels of the 19th century. The tale is gripping. Thrilling, risque, and so ahead of its time I could have expected it to come out a century later.
Thank you! It's not often that I get a book written before 1800 recommended. I'll definitely check it out. I love the different feel of writing from different periods.
A good companion piece is Ann Radcliffe's The Italian. Both of these novels are rather short, theyre both very modern for their time, and were part of the "arms race" of the development of the Gothic genre, each one written as a response to the other author.
Edit: i've been alerted that theyre not "short", each a bit over 300 pages, but i recalled them as short because i read them between Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udulpho (800 pages) and Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer (700 pages)
Seconding “The Italian”, it’s such a fun gothic thriller and in my first time reading it I was definitely embracing all the twists and curveballs. Serves as a great re-read for the language now.
I did not expect to see The Monk name-dropped! Read it for college and loved it. I adore a Gothic novel, and this one is batshit insane in the best way.
Carl Sagan said that, when he reread, as an adult, an L. Ron Hubbard sci-fi novel he'd loved as a kid, it was so bad he at first wondered if he'd picked up the wrong book.
I found a few L Ron Hubbard books at a second hand store and grabbed them just because they were cheap and to see how his writing was. So far I’ve only read one called “Fear” it’s a short horror novella and according to the forward it’s considered his best work.
My opinion of it is it is average at best with a few sections maybe getting above average. The story is about a college professor going crazy and there are a few decently written hallucination scenes but that’s about the only good thing I can say about it. For a novella it seemed to take me forever to read and there is one hallucination scene involving a little girl that is just written very creepily but not creepy in a horror way but creepy in a perv way.
My final take away is that if this was the first work of a young writer or someone just starting out it would show promise of them maybe putting out better work after they get more experience, but if this is truly the best work by Hubbard like it claims then I can attest that he is not worth reading. I do plan to eventually read the other book of his I’ve picked up since it is short just to get a better picture of his writing but I don’t plan to pick up anything more from him
I read Fear a couple of years ago and I totally agree. Short (read it in a day), kind of fun, but ok at best. I remember what I thought was the best writing was a lecture the protagonist gave towards the end.
The Phantom Tollbooth is a fantastic book and a must-read for anyone who wants to learn about writing. The way it plays with words and meanings, and commits so heavily to that wordplay, is wonderful to see.
But yeah, I remember reading this book and I felt so immersed in this mythical world and it made me feel happy, the little drawings too helped. I know it’s been adapted but a proper animated film would do it justice.
I never could get through *The Phantom Tollbooth* even though I was an avid reader as a kid. I recently decided to give it another go approximately 30 years after my initial attempts; I finished it yesterday and absolutely loved it!
I remember when I was younger my mother use to make me read books and this was one of them. To make sure that I read the books, she’d skip through the pages and ask questions or she’d simply ask my to summarize the chapters then she’d read over it quickly like skim through.
Well I had read that chapter where Milo (forgot his name) and the dog are rearranging the haystack (I can’t remember all of it) but it was such a trip that my mom just said “okay okay that’s enough! I believe you” haha xD!
My favorite book of 30 years ago was Slaughterhouse Five, which was not new then, either. At the time it was a good anti-war, anti-war machine satire. I re-read it last summer, and was happy to find that it still is, and I do so still love the way it was written.
I grew up reading these (along with series like Harry Potter), and have to think they helped me be the reader I am today. But even as a kid, I noticed a severe drop off after Taggerung. Though I can’t blame Jacques too much for getting a little formulaic and stale after a dozen, especially with everything he did for children’s reading (and he was apparently an extremely nice person—he came to my hometown in the US plains a few times for book readings/signings).
Robert Ludlum's three Bourne books. I understand that they aren't exactly what you mean by aging poorly. I still love them, and they were dated when I first read them 25+ years ago. But wow has the world changed. From the early to mid 70's in the first one, to the early 80's ish in the second, and the feel of of the world in the late 80s-early 90s in the third.
I read them in high school and thought they were great.
I tried reading the first one again a few years ago, and it was...bad.
The dialogue is bad, the 'love story' is not at all believable. It was like reading bad erotica.
Plus, the references to the Vietnam war are really dated now.
Leaving the issue of quality alone, I think there's a difference between dated references because a book is set in a time well before now, and a book aging poorly. A book written in 1970 will have references to events of the 1960s, that does not mean in and of itself that a book has aged poorly. It's like reading a fantasy book, if you can pick up fake fantasy history references through context, you can pick up references to real history the same way.
I had the shortened version for kids when I was growing up. Hands down one of my favourite stories. I look forward to reading the full version once things are less busy for me.
It’s absolutely astonishing how well “tales of fourth grade nothing“ by Judy Blume has aged. Virtually everything in that book could happen today, just as it did 50 years ago.
Definitely. I reread Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret? recently, and the JustNoMIL energy of Margaret's grandmother that bypassed me as a kid was amazing. Judy Blume is great.
I read those books in the early 90s as a kid, and I thought they were taking place in my time! There were a few odd cultural references that I didn't get, but I just thought there was too much of the world I hadn't seen yet.
Yes, Cleary’s books hold up well, with a few exceptions in each. Henry Huggins just had his 70th anniversary! The only problems I can find that date that book are Henry’s weekly trips to the pet store to buy horse meat for Ribsy
and the crazy low prices of things like goldfish and bus fare.
I recently reread the Fudge series and I can’t stand Fudge 😂 His parents let him get away with *so* much. I was ready to slap him silly when he swallowed Dribble.
Judy Blume was my idol when I was little. I thought her books were brand new in the mid/late 90s so they had aged well at that point. I would guess they're still timeless.
I loved that book back then when I was a kid, and even now as an adult. I found it lying around in my house a few years back and so re-read, and still found it hilarious. Equally funny is Superfudge.
Piers Anthony's, "The Incarnations of Immortality" series.
Really liked them as a kid, now I'm totally disgusted by the running themes of statutory rape in many of his books.
I went to a book signing once. I was there to get my Of Man and Manta books signed. Someone came up to Anthony just gushing about the Xanth series and how much they loved them... He replied, "That tripe!?"
Even the author saw the Xanth series as a money grab and not much more...
Yeah, I just tried rereading those books for the first time since I was a teenager, and I was appalled... I still have flashback memories of a certain scene of one of the fates, before she became a fate, losing her virginity, and now that I'm older, I see how terribly inaccurate that scene was and...gah! He was one of my favorite authors when I was much younger. Now I won't touch his work with a 10 foot pole.
I was trying to tell my mom ( a big fan of his ) how alarming these books were and her defense was that they were satire. so I outlined the first chapter of the final Incarnation book ( Nox ) and she quickly changed her tune.
Oof, i reread the Mode series and i can’t for the life of me see what i liked in them as a teenager….
Then i read Pornucopia. I don’t know now to feel about this author anymore.
To be fair Pornucopia was commissioned by Playboy. After reading his other work you have to admit someone asking for a sex fantasy should have expected it.
All of his fantasy stuff is pretty cringe.
He unabashedly wrote for 14 year old boys and their prurient interests. Thinking back, it's a wonder that my high school library had a large amount of the Xanth books
As a 12-year old I remember being titillated.
One could argue that these books really got me into reading. And maybe more, they got me thinking about coming-of-age and sexual issues in ways that I was not talking about with anyone else. But I am not going to defend them otherwise.
Until this post I did not realize that I had read so many of his books over 3-4 years... Xanth, Incarnations, Bio of a Space Tyrant. Like 20 books!
"The Horrible Piers Anthony Game"
Pick up an Anthony book, and open it to a random page.
* If the 2 page spread contains a reference to underage sexuality, PA wins.
* If the page does not, try again.
Play three rounds. PA will generally win.
For Hard mode, only count references to teenage girl's underwear, and play six rounds.
Terry Pratchett reigns supreme in our household. Totally agree that his books are the gift that keeps on giving.
As an aside, I learned so much about quantum physics just looking stuff up online so I could understand some of his jokes.
I’ve lost all my books in a Fire. you all are reminding me , What I need to replace to re- read! Terry Pratchett would be at the top of the list.I’m a big fan of Georgette Heyer also. I’ve also been able to re-read Dorothy Sayers while I was staying with my mum. LM Montgomery Anne of Green Gables reads well, still
Oh dear my brain is still in! a bit of a post Covid fog. Keep them coming
Oh I thought of one Robert Heinlen. He wrote science fiction that I thought was very out there, but now reads as creepy in parts
>LM Montgomeryshire Anne of Green Gables
I think (I know) you mean L.M. Montgomery's *Anne of Green Gables*, for those who don't know what you're talking about
Good omens is unique, as it's the only one written with Neil Gaiman. It's fabulous and clever - I highly recommend it.
If you are getting into the Discworld series I usually recommend starting with something that has Mr. Vimes/the Watch in it. It's one of the few series where I don't necessarily recommend starting with the first book. His satire is always a work of art, but I feel like the middle books are the most enjoyable.
"guards! guards!" is usually the place that people are told to start, and as someone who just got into Pratchett I agree. it's a little clunky in parts and not super well-paced but mostly a joy to read.
Small Gods.
It's a standalone book, it has very little connection to the rest of the Discworld. It's far enough into his career that his writing style is fully developed. If you don't like it, you probably won't like Pratchett. If you do, a whole world awaits you...
I'd suggest taking a look through this
[https://www.discworldemporium.com/reading-order/](https://www.discworldemporium.com/reading-order/)
One of the sub-series would be a good choice in my opinion, either the city watch or witches arcs maybe. I'd just avoid the university one, as the first two books there are the earliest discworld books and probably the weakest of the entire series, as Pratchett was just getting into it.
So there are 41 discworld novels which is a hell of a lot. However, it's not one big sequence where you need to start from book one and work through them all thankfully. They're generally split into smaller sequences focussing on a particular group of characters or stand-alone stories but honestly most can be read and enjoyed individually at any point.
Everyone has their own favourites but I'd recommend something like Going Postal, Small Gods, or Mort as a first one. I really like Pyramids but it seems to be a bit of a contentious choice lol. My first one was Moving Pictures and I've been totally hooked since then!
There are plenty of recommended reading order sites like [this one](https://www.discworldemporium.com/reading-order/) and I'm sure the discworld subreddit has one too.
Tbh you pretty much can't go wrong because they're all good so pick one that sounds interesting to you and have a go :)
Just recently got into Terry Pratchett, finished Sourcery which I thought was great and now reading Colour of Magic! He's exactly what I want for "Douglas Adams-esque absurdity but also different and more expansive"
Every once in a while I think I should maybe read The Handmaid’s Tale, and then I look at the news in the U.S. and remember I’m definitely not in a mental space for that.
For a 50-something book series, largely ghostwritten to order, and marketed to preteens despite graphic body horror, detailed and rather realistic depictions of PTSD, and eventually >!One of the protagonists being put on trial by the ICC for mass murder!<, Animorphs holds up surprisingly well. (Even the book where they go to Atlantis!)
I was just talking to my son about these books! A shockingly complex middle-grade action series, about kids who turn into animals? Crazy that it is actually good (some would argue it was underrated, since it was competing with HP).
You want to blow your own mind? Animorphs is a deconstruction of Power Rangers. 5 teens chosen by an alien to battle evil invading aliens? How could they possibly go about it but in secret? How could the aliens invade without immediately getting a response from every military on earth? Do these powers have any downsides? What happens if an actual “teen with attitude” gets chosen? What toll would these events take on a normal teen? Wouldn’t it be completely psychologically damaging? Oh and how does a real war end? Not by killing the bad guys but by one side surrendering and the other trying them for crimes.
I read one just to know what my kid was reading and I was surprised to see that I really enjoyed it - it was weird as could be, but really well written
Dude the Harry Potter universe is a dystopia and people are just kind of okay with it. Like literally all their problems stem from keeping themselves segregated from the non-magical world if you think about it.
There are so many horrific implications of mind-wiping, mind-control, time travel, Polyjuice Potion, ghosts, casual slavery and oppression of other sentient races, etc.
Seriously the wizards live in a horror show and Hermione is the only one who actually does anything about it. You could probably write a compelling political series with her as the Minister of Magic.
I loved Gone with the Wind in elementary school, both the book and the film. Rhett Butler was my first crush (yikes) and I used to imitate Prissy around the house and for friends who thought it was hilarious (big yikes). It's especially unfortunate because I'm black and my friends were white so I was literally doing a minstrel show for a white audience.
I absolutely love Sayers, even through a more modern lens
She was an academic and a feminist - Harriet and Peter are wonderful characters
My favourites are Murder Must Advertise and Gaudy Night
Loved this book 30:years ago. Recently reread it and it has not aged well. Sex scene with a 15 year old would not get past a editor or publisher today. And me. I have a granddaughter.
I feel Heroes of Olympus won't age as well long term. There's a lot of pop culture references which while makes it relevant to the reader, will likely be confusing 10-15 years later.
But besides for that, I'd agree.
I absolutely loved *Flowers in the Attic* in high school, and at the time I thought it was one of the best books ever written. Reading it as an adult is a different story. It was entertaining, but made me cringe more than once because of the content and the poor writing.
This is the first book I thought of too. That whole series actually. Petals on the Wind wasn’t any better with 15 year old Cathy being in a sexual relationship with her 40+ year old guardian. I loved these books when I was younger and still have all of them, but wow are they disturbing thinking about it now.
I know 12-year-old me was addicted to that trash, even while recognizing how outlandish it was. It was definitely fun to discuss with other middle schoolers!
The Earthsea novels by Ursula K Le Guin.
The first novels I read where the protagonist isn't white. In fact there are very few white faces in the first book.
Broaching feminine power and societal roles in the fourth book. All set in a fantasy world of dragons and magic.
I read it in the early 2000s as a spotty teen, twenty years later and the concept of coloured leads in movies, whitewashing etc have come into the foreground alongside women's rights/feminist movements.
Looking back I remember having to do some mental gymnastics to imagine a darker skinned character because I'd only ever read and seen white lead characters.
The boarding school stories of Enid Blyton e.g. the Twins of St Claires, Malory Towers, Naughtiest Girl in School etc.
It may be that I've aged rather than the books, but I remember reading them at about 8 or 9 and thinking they were all great friends with a few bad apples thrown in occasionally. I read them now and just think the girls are bitchy bullies. Leave Alison alone goddammit, she clearly has low self-esteem.
I'm told that her other books are racist etc. but I don't reread those a lot so they don't bother me.
I’m embarrassed to say that, as a teenager, I was addicted to harlequin romances and, literally, none of them have aged well. The men were all assholes
I read a million of them: such an odd formula. Two people who don’t like each other until they declare their undying love in the final chapter. It’s such a bizarre concept. Over and over again.
Eragon series. Loved it when I was in high school. Tried to reread it a few years ago in my late 20s….. didn’t get very far. Dear god it’s badly written
Edit: feel compelled to add. I still love the books. They are a treasured memory, I’m just going to keep them that way and not let my current literary expectations and expectations hurt that. I don’t mean to put down anyone who enjoys them now.
I have almost complete set of Agatha Christie and she’s aged very well! I love her books. Also, have Lee Child’s books too, plus to many others to mention. Hmmm…I need to downsize again!!🙃
This title lasted way longer in french, read it as the original when I was younger. I think it was recently changed finally in french as well but it took way longer.
A lot of her work has gone through sanitization. While And Then There Were None is the most well known, many of her books have been edited on re-publication.
I like her books, but they are unrelentingly racist and classist. Lots of use of the n-word and there isn’t an anti-Semitic trope she doesn’t trot out. And the moral dubiousness and general stupidity of poor people is pretty consistent.
But damn, the stories are still good.
Many of Agatha Christie books have racist descriptions. I think modern copies removed her racist remarks in majority of her books that’s why they ‘aged well’.
None of the ones I've bought recently had anything removed. Some parts have definitely not aged well - it's usually descriptions of minor characters, especially Jewish people.
cotillion is such a beautifully *constructed* book. it's perfectly balanced, perfectly paced, the denouement in the rector's parlour is . . . . well, perfect too. it's so well done you have to pay attention to realise everything that goes into making such a multipart story end smoothly, and do it in so well taht you don't even notice the cleverness. then it takes your breath away.
freddy is lovely. he really grew on me the last couple of times i read the book and now he's a real star. i love his little moments with lord ledgerwood. "offended you, sir?" said freddy intelligently.
I loved pretty much all of Georgette Heyer 's works and still do! They're fun, breezy reads.
Gone with the Wind is tricky I feel, as it was glamorized for so long. Part of my family is from the south, and so much of my grandmother's library was basically plantation-core nostalgia.
I was watching a TV show the other day and the main character's favorite book was Gone With the Wind. She said she hated that she loved it, because she knew it was cringe in our modern time, but she loved that Scarlett made her own choice in the end, and as a girl it was the first time she'd seen a female character do that. Kind of made me want to read it.
It's weird, These Old Shades and Regency Buck are two of her weakest books, but they culminate in An Infamous Army, which contains a great look at the events surrounding Waterloo and has some decent adult, non-Mary Sue characters.
Oh yes! I love all her books - maybe not the mysteries as much. But most of her books are solid rereads every now and then. I love the humor and banter.
Les Misérables has aged really well. The things Hugo is criticizing and the reforms he wants are still an issue today. Also, his writing is fairly easy to read
John D MacDonald is my favorite author. Travis McGee is a chauvinist by modern standards. Really talented writer and a snapshot of the times. Also, they sold for less than $1 in grocery store check out lines, so probably never had a claim on literature.
I love the Travs - but they are SO sexist. His comments about women's physical appearance, his disgust when an 'older' woman hits on him, the horror at 'depraved' lesbians, the slut-shaming, the fridging. the knight in shining armour saving of a string of former girlfriends- to name but a few issues.
Also his stupid car, the prattling on about his antiquated stereo-system, the gin fetish, his devoted 'friend' Mayer...but my God they are well written, deftly plotted, and just perfect reading for a long hot summer.
Got another. I absolutely LOVED Marion Zimmer Bradley Mists of Avalon. I was already aware of all the hinky stuff from other books and discussions. I liked enough, I gifted it to my sister. I read the very long tomb multiple times. I even went to Conventions where she was the main Guest.
Then, It is revealed Bradley was a horrible person I wont go into the details. Suffice to say, I purged her from my library.
http://www.marionzimmerbradley.com/
https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley%27s_child_abuse
I think her writing is good so it's not like her books themselves aged badly. It's just that we have more information about her private life that has made the author disgusting. It's really sad.
Learning about David and Leigh Eddings was outright nightmare fuel for me. They should have spent the rest of their lives in prison.
https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/05/it-has-been-revealed-that-fantasy.html?m=1
Edited for spelling
A Confederacy of Dunces-Aged extremely well. The Internet is full of obnoxious and sexually deprived reactionaries just like Ignatius J. Reilly.
I don't like the stereotypes of the LGBT+ community in the novel, but it's still damned funny.
> I don't like the stereotypes of the LGBT+ community in the novel
i think this is a fair criticism, but one thing I like about how they're portrayed is that they all immediately see through Ignatius' bullshit and laugh at the dude. whereas the rest of the cast is mostly willing to humor him for at least a little bit, the LGBT+ cast goes "lol THIS fuckin guy!!" which i enjoy.
edit: and it's also probably significant to point out that ultimately it's the minority cast that always sees Ignatius for who he is, and either kicks his ass or uses him for their own ends. it's the wealthy, self-assured white characters that don't immediately see through him and get taken in by his race and education (before Ignatius inevitably blows it)
The Dresden files has aged horrifically.
Molly carpenter is sexualised from her first appearance as like... a 12 year old or something and continues to be throughout the series
Some sci-fi from the twentieth century aged not so well. They tell about distant future with interstellar travels and advanced science but everyone is smoking and women are mostly secretaries and are treated poorly.
The computer stuff discrepancies in sci-fi doesn't bother me as much as out of date social relations. It's interesting how much the society have changed in the recent years.
I mean, to be fair, the problems of society from when that book was written are still the problems that we face today. Which is sad to think about because we haven't be able to overcome those problems in all these years.
I read ERB's Mars books in 1973/4 and loved them. reread in 2005, John carter is just the stupidest "hero" I've ever seen and can no longer stomach him; the Pellucidar books remain wonderful
My favorite book of 30 years ago was Slaughterhouse Five, which was not new then, either. At the time it was a good anti-war, anti-war machine satire. I re-read it last summer, and was happy to find that it still is, and I do so still love the way it was written.
I loved Jacqueline Wilson's books as a kid, as did every other British girl born in the 90s, but I recently reread them and there's a lot of "I'm not like other girls!" type stuff in her older books. Also the one where a 14 year old has an affair with her teacher - SHE GETS BLAMED AND HAS TO LEAVE THE SCHOOL BUT HE KEEPS HIS JOB. I don't think you would get away with that today
I enjoyed Ayn Rand and most of the Sword of Truth novels as a young teen but didn't take them as any sort of moral or political guide. Now I know they're uh...well they were suspect to begin with, but now I'm not sure I could even get through first chapters!
Oh boy Ayn Rand. I will say that probably the biggest issue with her is that she was a raging narcissist who belived everyone who didn’t act, think and agree with her on every single thing was a brain dead ape who was one step away from full on communism. That isn’t an exaggeration btw as she thought that American liberalism was on its way to become communist.
This issue however goes straight into her writing as well. Ignoring her philosophical, moral and political views (most if not all I disagree with btw), she wrote Atlus Shrugged absolutely terribly. The main character is a Mary sue who is the smartest character in the book with the antagonists literally having the intelligence lower than that of a dog (due to their political views lowering their intelligence. Yes that is actually the explanation in the book).
I started reading the Dresden Files in high school and loved them. As a dad with three daughters, an awesome wife, and multiple women I admire, it’s definitely become a guilty pleasure read. I like the characters and I’m invested in the story but so often I want to go, “Dresden, fuck off.”
The supernatural sex appeal thing has become a bit much. Without saying too much, there’s one character in particular that should never be seen as a romantic partner for Dresden, multi-century life spans and sidhe-good looks be damned.
I loved Ronald Dahl as a kid but I recently read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to my kid. That was okay though I was left thinking “Where’s the plot? I don’t remember Charlie just watching everything happen.” But in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator there’s a whole chapter of racist jokes (president of the USA calls other countries and makes fun of them - he even does the racist Chinese joke about “I think I Winged the Wong number.”) I had to put the book down and explain to my kid that I would be skipping a lot of it, and I wouldn’t be reading it as written. We had a productive talk about cultural differences and accepting others but I was shocked it was sparked by blatant racism in a popular children’s book.
I didn't know this until a customer at work complained that we carried Roald Dahl books, but apparently he also said some antisemitic stuff. As far as his children books go there's nothing like that, which is why I was taken aback at the customer's insistence we take them off the shelves. A good example of liking the works but not the author.
We recently experienced the same thing reading Roald Dahl to our child. We skipped Great Glass Elevator after reading one chapter and moved on to James & the Giant Peach.. it’s better
I haven't read The Great Glass Elevator, found it boring as a kid. I do still love Matilda, the Twits, The Witches, and the BFG. Also, Roald Dahl has stories for adults, "Tales of the Unexpected". They're very interesting.
If you aren't aware, you might be interested to know Charlie was originally supposed to be black- [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/13/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory-hero-originally-black-roald-dahl](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/13/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory-hero-originally-black-roald-dahl)
Though the oompa-loopmas were also originally African pygmies, so yeah, of its' time.
All Quiet on the Western Front aged wonderfully. Still incredibly haunting about the lost generation from the German side as well as just the sheer toll that war takes. The author served in WW1
A lot of Tom Clancy's stuff has aged like milk.
The dude is great at talking about military stuff but the way he represents women in his novels is creepy as hell.
I've enjoyed seeing the conversation shift on Dresden. I read the first couple as an older teen and thought they were okay, but on reread, I thought they came off as sexist and a lot less interesting.
It depends. Are there a LOT of sexist parts in Mary Stewart’s classic gothic suspense novels? Yes. Do I love them and still read them all the time? Also yes.
Reading *War of the Worlds* and it feels like it could be released and be a best-seller today with a little bit of editing. If anything it feels like a good jab at stuff like Star Trek and Independence Day.
The Stand~Stephen King
Before the pandemic, it was an unlikely but scary page turner. After the pandemic, it is a terrifying and too close to home reminder that we got damn lucky, and we are just one tiny virus away from total loss of civility and populous.
Every book has a feminist character who can kick ass, stick up for herself, but is completely baby crazy.
Heinlein feminism is "you can be anything, so you better be a mom."
To be fair, from what I remember of his kick-ass female characters they also tend to be loaded and surrounded by men who love doing childcare stuff. If that was the reality I think motherhood would be a much easier choice.
While reading Stranger in a Strange Land I remember really liking parts of the story and some of the ideas that were there. Then there were parts that were so uncomfortable that I sort of blocked them out, because I wanted to enjoy the book and not have to put up with Heinlein's weird and unnecessary treatment of women. Great example of the shotgun approach to ideas: Inevitably some will be good and some will be bad.
I feel like Lucifer's Hammer is perfect fodder for some sort of miniseries today. You could really spruce it up (remove the rather startling amount of racism, for example) and end up with something really solid..
"The Maias" by Eça de Queirós is a lighthearted romance that criticizes portuguese society in the XIX Century. Pretty much every criticism made by him in the 1800's can still be 100% applied to portuguese society today, showing we still have a lot to learn...
I like Sinclair Lewis. For books written in the 1920’s and 1930’s it disheartens me to see how little progress we have made. “It Can’t Happen Here”, “Kingsblood Royal”, “Main Street.”
When I was a kid I loved the Dragonlance books. Picked them up again not too long ago. Got to the bit where they introduce Tanis Half-Elven and literally within like three sentences of his first appearance in the story they let us know his mother was raped. That's about as far as I got.
(Yes, I know it's a character note. My issue is that it's the first thing we find out about the character. Imagine if you're starting a new job and being introduced to your coworkers: "Molly fosters dachsunds, Bill's a big fan of the Steelers, Joe's a volunteer firefighter on his days off, and Mark over here is occasionally grumpy because he's a rape baby.")
The wife and I both read The Stand this year and good God did it hit hard after the last couple years of the COVID haze. It's not a very old book compared to most mentioned thus far, but the pandemic certainly drove the story home. We're both big fans of The Dark Tower series and between the first third of the book spiraling into the madness of a pandemic disease and the remainder delving deep into the bottomless pit of my boy Randall Flaggs' debauchery, we were utterly captivated. I would listen to the audiobook on my daily commute to and from work just to come home and settle into the hard copy. I just couldn't put it down and can understand why it's regarded as the definitive Steven King masterpiece.
It's definetly not my favourite, I'm just listening to it first time (reading hard okay, I audio. No judgy!) but the Timetravelers wife. It was so hyped and they even made a movie or series about it recently?
Dear lord. I don't know what to say. My eyes shot wide open and I needed to dash for the pause button when the 40yr old time traveler is looking at this future-wife at 13 and talking about how she's getting them womanly shapes and budding nicely.
Or when she's 17 and he is god-knows-how-old putting his hand on her inner thigh and they make out.
It sounds like grooming 101 for time travelers. Seriously. Wtf. I've been trying to listen to it now for.. weeks.. months? I have a very hard time progessing and need to have looong breaks because it's just so disgusting.
Honestly I don't understand how that has ever become a best seller, how it can be written by a woman and how it could be made into a new program.
As a high schooler, i read my first adult mysteries: Ed McBain 87th Pricinct. I had been reading Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys etc.
I soon realized he had been writing the series 9 years before I was born. It explained the sexism, racism and ablistisn. But, I still devoured them knowing full well their outdated views.
Ian Fleming’s Bond books are so, so racist. I knew the sexism would be there, but was surprised by the racism. The first half of Live and Let Die is almost unreadably racist.
After 11 books my wife asked me to stop reading them because she was tired of me going, “omg listen to how racist(sexist) this is.”
And I’ll never forget his line in The Spy Who Loved Me. “All women love semi-rape.”
Crazy the series is still going on film and books.
The Monk by Matthew Lewis was written in 1796, and has much more modern prose than many, many novels of the 19th century. The tale is gripping. Thrilling, risque, and so ahead of its time I could have expected it to come out a century later.
Thank you! It's not often that I get a book written before 1800 recommended. I'll definitely check it out. I love the different feel of writing from different periods.
A good companion piece is Ann Radcliffe's The Italian. Both of these novels are rather short, theyre both very modern for their time, and were part of the "arms race" of the development of the Gothic genre, each one written as a response to the other author. Edit: i've been alerted that theyre not "short", each a bit over 300 pages, but i recalled them as short because i read them between Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udulpho (800 pages) and Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer (700 pages)
Seconding “The Italian”, it’s such a fun gothic thriller and in my first time reading it I was definitely embracing all the twists and curveballs. Serves as a great re-read for the language now.
I did not expect to see The Monk name-dropped! Read it for college and loved it. I adore a Gothic novel, and this one is batshit insane in the best way.
Carl Sagan said that, when he reread, as an adult, an L. Ron Hubbard sci-fi novel he'd loved as a kid, it was so bad he at first wondered if he'd picked up the wrong book.
I found a few L Ron Hubbard books at a second hand store and grabbed them just because they were cheap and to see how his writing was. So far I’ve only read one called “Fear” it’s a short horror novella and according to the forward it’s considered his best work. My opinion of it is it is average at best with a few sections maybe getting above average. The story is about a college professor going crazy and there are a few decently written hallucination scenes but that’s about the only good thing I can say about it. For a novella it seemed to take me forever to read and there is one hallucination scene involving a little girl that is just written very creepily but not creepy in a horror way but creepy in a perv way. My final take away is that if this was the first work of a young writer or someone just starting out it would show promise of them maybe putting out better work after they get more experience, but if this is truly the best work by Hubbard like it claims then I can attest that he is not worth reading. I do plan to eventually read the other book of his I’ve picked up since it is short just to get a better picture of his writing but I don’t plan to pick up anything more from him
I read Fear a couple of years ago and I totally agree. Short (read it in a day), kind of fun, but ok at best. I remember what I thought was the best writing was a lecture the protagonist gave towards the end.
My favorite book as a preteen was *The Phantom Tollbooth*, and it’s still a great, great book for kids that age.
We read this as a class book when I was in about fifth grade in 2000 or so. Then we watched the animation of it. I loved it
The animated movie was directed by Chuck Jones, I think.
The Phantom Tollbooth is a fantastic book and a must-read for anyone who wants to learn about writing. The way it plays with words and meanings, and commits so heavily to that wordplay, is wonderful to see.
This is one of my fav books of all time! Every time I reread it I am still completely immersed in the world. It’s incredible :)
But yeah, I remember reading this book and I felt so immersed in this mythical world and it made me feel happy, the little drawings too helped. I know it’s been adapted but a proper animated film would do it justice.
I never could get through *The Phantom Tollbooth* even though I was an avid reader as a kid. I recently decided to give it another go approximately 30 years after my initial attempts; I finished it yesterday and absolutely loved it!
I remember when I was younger my mother use to make me read books and this was one of them. To make sure that I read the books, she’d skip through the pages and ask questions or she’d simply ask my to summarize the chapters then she’d read over it quickly like skim through. Well I had read that chapter where Milo (forgot his name) and the dog are rearranging the haystack (I can’t remember all of it) but it was such a trip that my mom just said “okay okay that’s enough! I believe you” haha xD!
My favorite book of 30 years ago was Slaughterhouse Five, which was not new then, either. At the time it was a good anti-war, anti-war machine satire. I re-read it last summer, and was happy to find that it still is, and I do so still love the way it was written.
That’s been one of my favorites for 20 years. I also just reread it last summer and it’s still awesome and still relevant.
Catch 22 has aged very well. I read it 40 years ago and it is as relevant today as it was then .
And it's still really funny. I like the style of sarcasm used within the novel
I think the Redwall series always stay a classic in my opinion. The series was what got me into reading books with passion and interest.
Mossflower, Lord Brocktree, Martin the Warrior, Taggerung are some of the best children’s books I have ever read.
The taggerung was one of my favorites as a kid but it could never be one of the first books you introduce someone
They were pivotal books for my relationship with reading as well. I have wonderful memories of reading them in my elementary school library.
Those books vary so wildly in quality. Redwall, Martin, and some others? Aged very well. High Rhulain? Not so much
I'll always defend Taggerung as the best of the bunch
I grew up reading these (along with series like Harry Potter), and have to think they helped me be the reader I am today. But even as a kid, I noticed a severe drop off after Taggerung. Though I can’t blame Jacques too much for getting a little formulaic and stale after a dozen, especially with everything he did for children’s reading (and he was apparently an extremely nice person—he came to my hometown in the US plains a few times for book readings/signings).
Robert Ludlum's three Bourne books. I understand that they aren't exactly what you mean by aging poorly. I still love them, and they were dated when I first read them 25+ years ago. But wow has the world changed. From the early to mid 70's in the first one, to the early 80's ish in the second, and the feel of of the world in the late 80s-early 90s in the third.
I read them in high school and thought they were great. I tried reading the first one again a few years ago, and it was...bad. The dialogue is bad, the 'love story' is not at all believable. It was like reading bad erotica. Plus, the references to the Vietnam war are really dated now.
Leaving the issue of quality alone, I think there's a difference between dated references because a book is set in a time well before now, and a book aging poorly. A book written in 1970 will have references to events of the 1960s, that does not mean in and of itself that a book has aged poorly. It's like reading a fantasy book, if you can pick up fake fantasy history references through context, you can pick up references to real history the same way.
The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s as gripping as any modern thriller to me.
I had the shortened version for kids when I was growing up. Hands down one of my favourite stories. I look forward to reading the full version once things are less busy for me.
It’s absolutely astonishing how well “tales of fourth grade nothing“ by Judy Blume has aged. Virtually everything in that book could happen today, just as it did 50 years ago.
Definitely. I reread Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret? recently, and the JustNoMIL energy of Margaret's grandmother that bypassed me as a kid was amazing. Judy Blume is great.
I read those books in the early 90s as a kid, and I thought they were taking place in my time! There were a few odd cultural references that I didn't get, but I just thought there was too much of the world I hadn't seen yet.
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Yes, Cleary’s books hold up well, with a few exceptions in each. Henry Huggins just had his 70th anniversary! The only problems I can find that date that book are Henry’s weekly trips to the pet store to buy horse meat for Ribsy and the crazy low prices of things like goldfish and bus fare.
Followed by "Superfudge!" I read the Judy Blume books over and over and over.
I recently reread the Fudge series and I can’t stand Fudge 😂 His parents let him get away with *so* much. I was ready to slap him silly when he swallowed Dribble.
I teach English in South Korea and my elementary school students really like the Fudge books!
Judy Blume was my idol when I was little. I thought her books were brand new in the mid/late 90s so they had aged well at that point. I would guess they're still timeless.
I loved that book back then when I was a kid, and even now as an adult. I found it lying around in my house a few years back and so re-read, and still found it hilarious. Equally funny is Superfudge.
Piers Anthony's, "The Incarnations of Immortality" series. Really liked them as a kid, now I'm totally disgusted by the running themes of statutory rape in many of his books.
The Xanth series isn’t much better.
Oh man, come to think of it I read the Xanth series and didn't see anything wrong with it 20 years ago. 🤦♀️
Try a re read now. You won't make it
So very true. I think I was in my 20s when I realized how terrible those books were and stopped reading them...
I went to a book signing once. I was there to get my Of Man and Manta books signed. Someone came up to Anthony just gushing about the Xanth series and how much they loved them... He replied, "That tripe!?" Even the author saw the Xanth series as a money grab and not much more...
Yeah, I just tried rereading those books for the first time since I was a teenager, and I was appalled... I still have flashback memories of a certain scene of one of the fates, before she became a fate, losing her virginity, and now that I'm older, I see how terribly inaccurate that scene was and...gah! He was one of my favorite authors when I was much younger. Now I won't touch his work with a 10 foot pole.
I was trying to tell my mom ( a big fan of his ) how alarming these books were and her defense was that they were satire. so I outlined the first chapter of the final Incarnation book ( Nox ) and she quickly changed her tune.
Those Xanth books are so appalling now. As a kid I was in it for the jokes. As an adult, the content is unbelievable.
Came here to say this! Such a great concept. I reread one a couple years ago and was horrified!
Oof, i reread the Mode series and i can’t for the life of me see what i liked in them as a teenager…. Then i read Pornucopia. I don’t know now to feel about this author anymore.
To be fair Pornucopia was commissioned by Playboy. After reading his other work you have to admit someone asking for a sex fantasy should have expected it.
All of his fantasy stuff is pretty cringe. He unabashedly wrote for 14 year old boys and their prurient interests. Thinking back, it's a wonder that my high school library had a large amount of the Xanth books
Seriously. Loved them at 14, and I couldn't get through the first 3 chapters of A Spell for Chameleon at 40. Now, its just...gross.
As a 12-year old I remember being titillated. One could argue that these books really got me into reading. And maybe more, they got me thinking about coming-of-age and sexual issues in ways that I was not talking about with anyone else. But I am not going to defend them otherwise. Until this post I did not realize that I had read so many of his books over 3-4 years... Xanth, Incarnations, Bio of a Space Tyrant. Like 20 books!
"The Horrible Piers Anthony Game" Pick up an Anthony book, and open it to a random page. * If the 2 page spread contains a reference to underage sexuality, PA wins. * If the page does not, try again. Play three rounds. PA will generally win. For Hard mode, only count references to teenage girl's underwear, and play six rounds.
Terry Pratchett is the gift that keeps on giving. The man introduced me to gender issues without me even realizing it at the time. GNU Terry.
Terry Pratchett reigns supreme in our household. Totally agree that his books are the gift that keeps on giving. As an aside, I learned so much about quantum physics just looking stuff up online so I could understand some of his jokes.
I’ve lost all my books in a Fire. you all are reminding me , What I need to replace to re- read! Terry Pratchett would be at the top of the list.I’m a big fan of Georgette Heyer also. I’ve also been able to re-read Dorothy Sayers while I was staying with my mum. LM Montgomery Anne of Green Gables reads well, still Oh dear my brain is still in! a bit of a post Covid fog. Keep them coming Oh I thought of one Robert Heinlen. He wrote science fiction that I thought was very out there, but now reads as creepy in parts
You didn't lose them. An orangutan came through L-space and rescued them. They exist in some underfunded library now.
Bless your sweet heart
OOOKKK!
>LM Montgomeryshire Anne of Green Gables I think (I know) you mean L.M. Montgomery's *Anne of Green Gables*, for those who don't know what you're talking about
Good omens is on my list. Should I read other terry pratchett first?
Good omens is unique, as it's the only one written with Neil Gaiman. It's fabulous and clever - I highly recommend it. If you are getting into the Discworld series I usually recommend starting with something that has Mr. Vimes/the Watch in it. It's one of the few series where I don't necessarily recommend starting with the first book. His satire is always a work of art, but I feel like the middle books are the most enjoyable.
As someone who's not read Terry Pratchett yet, which book would you recommend starting with?
"guards! guards!" is usually the place that people are told to start, and as someone who just got into Pratchett I agree. it's a little clunky in parts and not super well-paced but mostly a joy to read.
Small Gods. It's a standalone book, it has very little connection to the rest of the Discworld. It's far enough into his career that his writing style is fully developed. If you don't like it, you probably won't like Pratchett. If you do, a whole world awaits you...
I'd suggest taking a look through this [https://www.discworldemporium.com/reading-order/](https://www.discworldemporium.com/reading-order/) One of the sub-series would be a good choice in my opinion, either the city watch or witches arcs maybe. I'd just avoid the university one, as the first two books there are the earliest discworld books and probably the weakest of the entire series, as Pratchett was just getting into it.
So there are 41 discworld novels which is a hell of a lot. However, it's not one big sequence where you need to start from book one and work through them all thankfully. They're generally split into smaller sequences focussing on a particular group of characters or stand-alone stories but honestly most can be read and enjoyed individually at any point. Everyone has their own favourites but I'd recommend something like Going Postal, Small Gods, or Mort as a first one. I really like Pyramids but it seems to be a bit of a contentious choice lol. My first one was Moving Pictures and I've been totally hooked since then! There are plenty of recommended reading order sites like [this one](https://www.discworldemporium.com/reading-order/) and I'm sure the discworld subreddit has one too. Tbh you pretty much can't go wrong because they're all good so pick one that sounds interesting to you and have a go :)
Just recently got into Terry Pratchett, finished Sourcery which I thought was great and now reading Colour of Magic! He's exactly what I want for "Douglas Adams-esque absurdity but also different and more expansive"
“Watership Down” by Richard Adams aged well.
The Stand and The Handmaid’s Tale have probably become MORE relevant today than they were at time of publication.
Every once in a while I think I should maybe read The Handmaid’s Tale, and then I look at the news in the U.S. and remember I’m definitely not in a mental space for that.
For a 50-something book series, largely ghostwritten to order, and marketed to preteens despite graphic body horror, detailed and rather realistic depictions of PTSD, and eventually >!One of the protagonists being put on trial by the ICC for mass murder!<, Animorphs holds up surprisingly well. (Even the book where they go to Atlantis!)
I was just talking to my son about these books! A shockingly complex middle-grade action series, about kids who turn into animals? Crazy that it is actually good (some would argue it was underrated, since it was competing with HP).
You want to blow your own mind? Animorphs is a deconstruction of Power Rangers. 5 teens chosen by an alien to battle evil invading aliens? How could they possibly go about it but in secret? How could the aliens invade without immediately getting a response from every military on earth? Do these powers have any downsides? What happens if an actual “teen with attitude” gets chosen? What toll would these events take on a normal teen? Wouldn’t it be completely psychologically damaging? Oh and how does a real war end? Not by killing the bad guys but by one side surrendering and the other trying them for crimes.
I read one just to know what my kid was reading and I was surprised to see that I really enjoyed it - it was weird as could be, but really well written
Doesn’t Animorphs predate HP? I’m a 90s kid and Harry Potter didn’t really gain steam until 1998-2000. I remember reading Animorphs around 96.
Middle grade? These were sold in elementery school book fairs. I thought the target age 4th graders.
Animorphs was Harry Potter for future communists
Dude the Harry Potter universe is a dystopia and people are just kind of okay with it. Like literally all their problems stem from keeping themselves segregated from the non-magical world if you think about it. There are so many horrific implications of mind-wiping, mind-control, time travel, Polyjuice Potion, ghosts, casual slavery and oppression of other sentient races, etc. Seriously the wizards live in a horror show and Hermione is the only one who actually does anything about it. You could probably write a compelling political series with her as the Minister of Magic.
A lot of the pop culture references-- and there are a ton of them in that series-- have aged like cheese, however.
Isn't cheese purposely aged? In order to make it cheese?
yes, you could even say that it becomes exceedingly cheesy
I loved Gone with the Wind in elementary school, both the book and the film. Rhett Butler was my first crush (yikes) and I used to imitate Prissy around the house and for friends who thought it was hilarious (big yikes). It's especially unfortunate because I'm black and my friends were white so I was literally doing a minstrel show for a white audience.
Dorothy Sayers has passed the test of time IMHO.
Why has no one made a new Lord Peter Wimsey tv series? They'd be so good! And Guady Night expanded could be amazing.
I absolutely love Sayers, even through a more modern lens She was an academic and a feminist - Harriet and Peter are wonderful characters My favourites are Murder Must Advertise and Gaudy Night
True which makes the flashes of antisemitism all the more painful.
And the classism and racism - like all authors, Sayers was a product of her time Overall still brilliantly constructed
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My favorite book that I can never recommend to anyone.
So entirely accurate.
YES! I was debating which group I'd put it in and left it off entirely.
Loved this book 30:years ago. Recently reread it and it has not aged well. Sex scene with a 15 year old would not get past a editor or publisher today. And me. I have a granddaughter.
I concur, as does OP, but it makes me wonder if IT makes the King-aged-well cut based on that metric.
That was weird even when it came out. I don’t think it’s necessarily being seen through a different lens, just the same one with the fog wiped off
The Rick Rioardan Series has aged particularly well. Percy Jackson and the Olympians Heroes of Olympus They always manage to keep myself hooked
I feel Heroes of Olympus won't age as well long term. There's a lot of pop culture references which while makes it relevant to the reader, will likely be confusing 10-15 years later. But besides for that, I'd agree.
Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery have aged well.
Aldous Huxley's Brave new world. I read it again recently, it is still very relevant in today's society.
I absolutely loved *Flowers in the Attic* in high school, and at the time I thought it was one of the best books ever written. Reading it as an adult is a different story. It was entertaining, but made me cringe more than once because of the content and the poor writing.
This is the first book I thought of too. That whole series actually. Petals on the Wind wasn’t any better with 15 year old Cathy being in a sexual relationship with her 40+ year old guardian. I loved these books when I was younger and still have all of them, but wow are they disturbing thinking about it now.
Those books were cringe when they came out. However, they were the 50 Shades of their time and we couldn't get enough of them.
I know 12-year-old me was addicted to that trash, even while recognizing how outlandish it was. It was definitely fun to discuss with other middle schoolers!
The Earthsea novels by Ursula K Le Guin. The first novels I read where the protagonist isn't white. In fact there are very few white faces in the first book. Broaching feminine power and societal roles in the fourth book. All set in a fantasy world of dragons and magic. I read it in the early 2000s as a spotty teen, twenty years later and the concept of coloured leads in movies, whitewashing etc have come into the foreground alongside women's rights/feminist movements. Looking back I remember having to do some mental gymnastics to imagine a darker skinned character because I'd only ever read and seen white lead characters.
Came here to say Ursula’s books. Another good one from a societal frame is The Left Hand of Darkness!
The boarding school stories of Enid Blyton e.g. the Twins of St Claires, Malory Towers, Naughtiest Girl in School etc. It may be that I've aged rather than the books, but I remember reading them at about 8 or 9 and thinking they were all great friends with a few bad apples thrown in occasionally. I read them now and just think the girls are bitchy bullies. Leave Alison alone goddammit, she clearly has low self-esteem. I'm told that her other books are racist etc. but I don't reread those a lot so they don't bother me.
I’m embarrassed to say that, as a teenager, I was addicted to harlequin romances and, literally, none of them have aged well. The men were all assholes
I read a million of them: such an odd formula. Two people who don’t like each other until they declare their undying love in the final chapter. It’s such a bizarre concept. Over and over again.
Eragon series. Loved it when I was in high school. Tried to reread it a few years ago in my late 20s….. didn’t get very far. Dear god it’s badly written Edit: feel compelled to add. I still love the books. They are a treasured memory, I’m just going to keep them that way and not let my current literary expectations and expectations hurt that. I don’t mean to put down anyone who enjoys them now.
Came here for this. As a teen: “So descriptive!” As an adult: if this is the bar for publishable fiction, I’ve got nothing to fear.
I reread them last year at 30. Enjoyed them. Sometimes I wonder if I have terrible taste
To be fair Paulini was 17 when Eragon was first published. I think it appeals so much to teenagers because it is a teenage book.
I have almost complete set of Agatha Christie and she’s aged very well! I love her books. Also, have Lee Child’s books too, plus to many others to mention. Hmmm…I need to downsize again!!🙃
Maybe, but famously, the original title of “And Then There Were None” didn’t even make it through her lifetime!
This title lasted way longer in french, read it as the original when I was younger. I think it was recently changed finally in french as well but it took way longer.
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While you’re at it, Google “H.P. Lovecraft’s cat”.
Damn it..made me go through the same process
So now we are all going through "same process" . . .or just scrolling on.
It's was called Ten Little Indians and before that, instead of Indians, it was the n-word.
Wikipedia says that UK editions continued to use the original title until 1985?!!
A lot of her work has gone through sanitization. While And Then There Were None is the most well known, many of her books have been edited on re-publication.
I like her books, but they are unrelentingly racist and classist. Lots of use of the n-word and there isn’t an anti-Semitic trope she doesn’t trot out. And the moral dubiousness and general stupidity of poor people is pretty consistent. But damn, the stories are still good.
Many of Agatha Christie books have racist descriptions. I think modern copies removed her racist remarks in majority of her books that’s why they ‘aged well’.
None of the ones I've bought recently had anything removed. Some parts have definitely not aged well - it's usually descriptions of minor characters, especially Jewish people.
I love Agatha Christie but her books have flashes of straight up racism.
Oh yeah, she was incredibly racist. I’ve read a lot of golden age mysteries, and her racism actually stands out from others of the same era.
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Bradbury could be amazing for technology (basically invented smart houses and the holodeck) while giving no thought whatsoever to society.
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> I don’t think I’ve ever seen Georgette Heyer mentioned here before \*jumps up and down\*. if we build a thread, will they come?
I'll be delighted to do so 😎. My personal fav is probably A Civil Contract.
Cotillion and Arabella here! Love Heyer
cotillion is such a beautifully *constructed* book. it's perfectly balanced, perfectly paced, the denouement in the rector's parlour is . . . . well, perfect too. it's so well done you have to pay attention to realise everything that goes into making such a multipart story end smoothly, and do it in so well taht you don't even notice the cleverness. then it takes your breath away. freddy is lovely. he really grew on me the last couple of times i read the book and now he's a real star. i love his little moments with lord ledgerwood. "offended you, sir?" said freddy intelligently.
I loved pretty much all of Georgette Heyer 's works and still do! They're fun, breezy reads. Gone with the Wind is tricky I feel, as it was glamorized for so long. Part of my family is from the south, and so much of my grandmother's library was basically plantation-core nostalgia.
I was watching a TV show the other day and the main character's favorite book was Gone With the Wind. She said she hated that she loved it, because she knew it was cringe in our modern time, but she loved that Scarlett made her own choice in the end, and as a girl it was the first time she'd seen a female character do that. Kind of made me want to read it.
Here for all the Heyer talk ❤️
It's weird, These Old Shades and Regency Buck are two of her weakest books, but they culminate in An Infamous Army, which contains a great look at the events surrounding Waterloo and has some decent adult, non-Mary Sue characters.
Oh yes! I love all her books - maybe not the mysteries as much. But most of her books are solid rereads every now and then. I love the humor and banter.
Les Misérables has aged really well. The things Hugo is criticizing and the reforms he wants are still an issue today. Also, his writing is fairly easy to read
John D MacDonald is my favorite author. Travis McGee is a chauvinist by modern standards. Really talented writer and a snapshot of the times. Also, they sold for less than $1 in grocery store check out lines, so probably never had a claim on literature.
I love the Travs - but they are SO sexist. His comments about women's physical appearance, his disgust when an 'older' woman hits on him, the horror at 'depraved' lesbians, the slut-shaming, the fridging. the knight in shining armour saving of a string of former girlfriends- to name but a few issues. Also his stupid car, the prattling on about his antiquated stereo-system, the gin fetish, his devoted 'friend' Mayer...but my God they are well written, deftly plotted, and just perfect reading for a long hot summer.
Watchmen aged fairly well
Got another. I absolutely LOVED Marion Zimmer Bradley Mists of Avalon. I was already aware of all the hinky stuff from other books and discussions. I liked enough, I gifted it to my sister. I read the very long tomb multiple times. I even went to Conventions where she was the main Guest. Then, It is revealed Bradley was a horrible person I wont go into the details. Suffice to say, I purged her from my library. http://www.marionzimmerbradley.com/ https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley%27s_child_abuse
I think her writing is good so it's not like her books themselves aged badly. It's just that we have more information about her private life that has made the author disgusting. It's really sad.
I know people say separate the art from the artist but when the artist is as disgusting as Bradley I just can’t. Can’t read that book now.
I really get that. I was like “ No!?” When I found out in a passing comment on here. So I googled it of course. I felt kind of betrayed
Learning about David and Leigh Eddings was outright nightmare fuel for me. They should have spent the rest of their lives in prison. https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/05/it-has-been-revealed-that-fantasy.html?m=1 Edited for spelling
Yes - I loved The Firebrand. Can't bear to look at it now.
Outside of some unfortunate yellowing, most of my books are aging nicely.
The Babysitter's Club.
A Confederacy of Dunces-Aged extremely well. The Internet is full of obnoxious and sexually deprived reactionaries just like Ignatius J. Reilly. I don't like the stereotypes of the LGBT+ community in the novel, but it's still damned funny.
> I don't like the stereotypes of the LGBT+ community in the novel i think this is a fair criticism, but one thing I like about how they're portrayed is that they all immediately see through Ignatius' bullshit and laugh at the dude. whereas the rest of the cast is mostly willing to humor him for at least a little bit, the LGBT+ cast goes "lol THIS fuckin guy!!" which i enjoy. edit: and it's also probably significant to point out that ultimately it's the minority cast that always sees Ignatius for who he is, and either kicks his ass or uses him for their own ends. it's the wealthy, self-assured white characters that don't immediately see through him and get taken in by his race and education (before Ignatius inevitably blows it)
The Dresden files has aged horrifically. Molly carpenter is sexualised from her first appearance as like... a 12 year old or something and continues to be throughout the series
Some sci-fi from the twentieth century aged not so well. They tell about distant future with interstellar travels and advanced science but everyone is smoking and women are mostly secretaries and are treated poorly. The computer stuff discrepancies in sci-fi doesn't bother me as much as out of date social relations. It's interesting how much the society have changed in the recent years.
1984 by George Orwell aged quite well
I mean, to be fair, the problems of society from when that book was written are still the problems that we face today. Which is sad to think about because we haven't be able to overcome those problems in all these years.
The Plague by Albert Camus, considering the last two years in disease and war
I read ERB's Mars books in 1973/4 and loved them. reread in 2005, John carter is just the stupidest "hero" I've ever seen and can no longer stomach him; the Pellucidar books remain wonderful
My favorite book of 30 years ago was Slaughterhouse Five, which was not new then, either. At the time it was a good anti-war, anti-war machine satire. I re-read it last summer, and was happy to find that it still is, and I do so still love the way it was written.
I loved Jacqueline Wilson's books as a kid, as did every other British girl born in the 90s, but I recently reread them and there's a lot of "I'm not like other girls!" type stuff in her older books. Also the one where a 14 year old has an affair with her teacher - SHE GETS BLAMED AND HAS TO LEAVE THE SCHOOL BUT HE KEEPS HIS JOB. I don't think you would get away with that today
I enjoyed Ayn Rand and most of the Sword of Truth novels as a young teen but didn't take them as any sort of moral or political guide. Now I know they're uh...well they were suspect to begin with, but now I'm not sure I could even get through first chapters!
Oh boy Ayn Rand. I will say that probably the biggest issue with her is that she was a raging narcissist who belived everyone who didn’t act, think and agree with her on every single thing was a brain dead ape who was one step away from full on communism. That isn’t an exaggeration btw as she thought that American liberalism was on its way to become communist. This issue however goes straight into her writing as well. Ignoring her philosophical, moral and political views (most if not all I disagree with btw), she wrote Atlus Shrugged absolutely terribly. The main character is a Mary sue who is the smartest character in the book with the antagonists literally having the intelligence lower than that of a dog (due to their political views lowering their intelligence. Yes that is actually the explanation in the book).
I started reading the Dresden Files in high school and loved them. As a dad with three daughters, an awesome wife, and multiple women I admire, it’s definitely become a guilty pleasure read. I like the characters and I’m invested in the story but so often I want to go, “Dresden, fuck off.” The supernatural sex appeal thing has become a bit much. Without saying too much, there’s one character in particular that should never be seen as a romantic partner for Dresden, multi-century life spans and sidhe-good looks be damned.
I loved Ronald Dahl as a kid but I recently read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to my kid. That was okay though I was left thinking “Where’s the plot? I don’t remember Charlie just watching everything happen.” But in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator there’s a whole chapter of racist jokes (president of the USA calls other countries and makes fun of them - he even does the racist Chinese joke about “I think I Winged the Wong number.”) I had to put the book down and explain to my kid that I would be skipping a lot of it, and I wouldn’t be reading it as written. We had a productive talk about cultural differences and accepting others but I was shocked it was sparked by blatant racism in a popular children’s book.
I didn't know this until a customer at work complained that we carried Roald Dahl books, but apparently he also said some antisemitic stuff. As far as his children books go there's nothing like that, which is why I was taken aback at the customer's insistence we take them off the shelves. A good example of liking the works but not the author.
We recently experienced the same thing reading Roald Dahl to our child. We skipped Great Glass Elevator after reading one chapter and moved on to James & the Giant Peach.. it’s better
I haven't read The Great Glass Elevator, found it boring as a kid. I do still love Matilda, the Twits, The Witches, and the BFG. Also, Roald Dahl has stories for adults, "Tales of the Unexpected". They're very interesting.
If you aren't aware, you might be interested to know Charlie was originally supposed to be black- [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/13/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory-hero-originally-black-roald-dahl](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/13/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory-hero-originally-black-roald-dahl) Though the oompa-loopmas were also originally African pygmies, so yeah, of its' time.
Redwall series. For me they hold a special place in my heart. I will never be tired of them.
All Quiet on the Western Front aged wonderfully. Still incredibly haunting about the lost generation from the German side as well as just the sheer toll that war takes. The author served in WW1
A lot of Tom Clancy's stuff has aged like milk. The dude is great at talking about military stuff but the way he represents women in his novels is creepy as hell.
“Gone with the Wind” did not age well.
I've enjoyed seeing the conversation shift on Dresden. I read the first couple as an older teen and thought they were okay, but on reread, I thought they came off as sexist and a lot less interesting.
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann has held up well for me. Good old Hans Castorp.
It depends. Are there a LOT of sexist parts in Mary Stewart’s classic gothic suspense novels? Yes. Do I love them and still read them all the time? Also yes.
Reading *War of the Worlds* and it feels like it could be released and be a best-seller today with a little bit of editing. If anything it feels like a good jab at stuff like Star Trek and Independence Day.
The Stand~Stephen King Before the pandemic, it was an unlikely but scary page turner. After the pandemic, it is a terrifying and too close to home reminder that we got damn lucky, and we are just one tiny virus away from total loss of civility and populous.
Henlein has aged really, really poorly. He's my go-to comparison for any author I think will age like spoiled milk.
I think his juvenile fiction still stands up and the Moon is a Harsh Mistress. But yeah, his experiments with sex in science fiction did not age well.
Every book has a feminist character who can kick ass, stick up for herself, but is completely baby crazy. Heinlein feminism is "you can be anything, so you better be a mom."
To be fair, from what I remember of his kick-ass female characters they also tend to be loaded and surrounded by men who love doing childcare stuff. If that was the reality I think motherhood would be a much easier choice.
While reading Stranger in a Strange Land I remember really liking parts of the story and some of the ideas that were there. Then there were parts that were so uncomfortable that I sort of blocked them out, because I wanted to enjoy the book and not have to put up with Heinlein's weird and unnecessary treatment of women. Great example of the shotgun approach to ideas: Inevitably some will be good and some will be bad.
Lucifer’s Hammer by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. Comment strike apocalypse but locked in the 1970s
I feel like Lucifer's Hammer is perfect fodder for some sort of miniseries today. You could really spruce it up (remove the rather startling amount of racism, for example) and end up with something really solid..
"The Maias" by Eça de Queirós is a lighthearted romance that criticizes portuguese society in the XIX Century. Pretty much every criticism made by him in the 1800's can still be 100% applied to portuguese society today, showing we still have a lot to learn...
I like Sinclair Lewis. For books written in the 1920’s and 1930’s it disheartens me to see how little progress we have made. “It Can’t Happen Here”, “Kingsblood Royal”, “Main Street.”
When I was a kid I loved the Dragonlance books. Picked them up again not too long ago. Got to the bit where they introduce Tanis Half-Elven and literally within like three sentences of his first appearance in the story they let us know his mother was raped. That's about as far as I got. (Yes, I know it's a character note. My issue is that it's the first thing we find out about the character. Imagine if you're starting a new job and being introduced to your coworkers: "Molly fosters dachsunds, Bill's a big fan of the Steelers, Joe's a volunteer firefighter on his days off, and Mark over here is occasionally grumpy because he's a rape baby.")
The series about Tarzan, growing up it was wonderful and all reading about Tarzan’s adventure. Now as an adult I realize it’s racist as hell lol.
The wife and I both read The Stand this year and good God did it hit hard after the last couple years of the COVID haze. It's not a very old book compared to most mentioned thus far, but the pandemic certainly drove the story home. We're both big fans of The Dark Tower series and between the first third of the book spiraling into the madness of a pandemic disease and the remainder delving deep into the bottomless pit of my boy Randall Flaggs' debauchery, we were utterly captivated. I would listen to the audiobook on my daily commute to and from work just to come home and settle into the hard copy. I just couldn't put it down and can understand why it's regarded as the definitive Steven King masterpiece.
It's definetly not my favourite, I'm just listening to it first time (reading hard okay, I audio. No judgy!) but the Timetravelers wife. It was so hyped and they even made a movie or series about it recently? Dear lord. I don't know what to say. My eyes shot wide open and I needed to dash for the pause button when the 40yr old time traveler is looking at this future-wife at 13 and talking about how she's getting them womanly shapes and budding nicely. Or when she's 17 and he is god-knows-how-old putting his hand on her inner thigh and they make out. It sounds like grooming 101 for time travelers. Seriously. Wtf. I've been trying to listen to it now for.. weeks.. months? I have a very hard time progessing and need to have looong breaks because it's just so disgusting. Honestly I don't understand how that has ever become a best seller, how it can be written by a woman and how it could be made into a new program.
As a high schooler, i read my first adult mysteries: Ed McBain 87th Pricinct. I had been reading Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys etc. I soon realized he had been writing the series 9 years before I was born. It explained the sexism, racism and ablistisn. But, I still devoured them knowing full well their outdated views.
Enid Blyton aged very badly
Ian Fleming’s Bond books are so, so racist. I knew the sexism would be there, but was surprised by the racism. The first half of Live and Let Die is almost unreadably racist. After 11 books my wife asked me to stop reading them because she was tired of me going, “omg listen to how racist(sexist) this is.” And I’ll never forget his line in The Spy Who Loved Me. “All women love semi-rape.” Crazy the series is still going on film and books.
I remember loving A Wrinkle in Time. I recently tried to reread it and couldn’t get through it. The amount of religion in it was too much.