Ray Bradbury, Arthur Clarke, James Clavell, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, C.S. Forester, Ernst Hemingway, Stephen King, James Michener, John Steinbeck, Leon Uris and Herman Wouk.
What do they have in common? They all are good books found in used book stores that make excellent investments, and sometimes can be resold the same day for lots of cash. There is no mistake. Good books, bring big dollars. But, more important then cash, these books are collectible because first, and foremost, they are great reads.
These are the names of American Literature. These are the sure fire sellers in all bookstores. Everyday readers discovers these authors and is overwhelmed by the quality of their work and their individual gifts to captivate the reader in their world on wonder.
Pick up any book by Charles Dickens and read it. Give it a try. You will be overwhelmed and the power of this writer who worked with ink and a pen quill. Very little reference material if any. No spell checker. Nothing. Just beautiful words written with such a flowing grace that you are carried into a special world.
Why do people return to the classics?
Because the quality of their writing is of such elegance that it can’t be compared to some of the modern fiction writers of today.
An excerpt from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens:
I discovered afterwards that Miss Lavinia was an authority in affairs of the heart, by reason of there having anciently existed a certain Mr. Pidger, who played short whist, and was supposed to have been enamoured of her. My private opinion is, that this was entirely a gratuitous assumption, and that Pidger was altogether innocent of any such sentiments - to which he had never given any sort of expression that I could ever hear of. Both Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa had a superstition, however, that he would have declared his passion, if he had not been cut short in his youth (at about sixty) by over-drinking his constitution, and over-doing an attempt to set it right again by swilling Bath water. They had a lurking suspicion even, that he died of secret love; though I must say there was a picture of him in the house with a damask nose, which concealment did not appear to have ever preyed upon.
Wonderful!
With a title like this, most readers will be expecting either a very serious “How-to” book from possibly some noted counselors from the 1960’s or a guide at realizing how humorous the relationship call marriage really is.
Marrying a Man, Raising a Husband turns out to be is anecdotes from the authors about situations that have come up during the course of their combined long lasting relationships. The stories are humorous, thought-provoking and very much ones that all women who are in a long term union can identify with, no matter how short or long those unions have been around. All the stories tell how they have learned to communicate with their spouses.
They show how men interpret what we say and how we need to learn how to state what it is we want to get across in “speak” that leaves them no choice but to understand us.
My personal favorite of the book was the way a shopping list gets interpretated by our spouses. Here are some of the prime examples of how husbands and wives differ:
Lashawn’s list:
milk
vegetable oil
bread
Husband’s list:
beer
motor oil
cookies
I think you get the picture. My own hubby of 27 years has his own “speak”, which is why I loved the grocery list entry the best. My entry that I would have loved to have added to the same chapter would go like this:
Carine’s list:
Fruit
Vegetables
Chicken
fish
tofu
Soy milk
Steve’s list:
red meat
red meat
red meat
red meat
Then he’d spend a fortune at the said “meat” counter and tell me we certainly didn’t need to go to the market again for a very long time, because “look at all I bought and the freezer’s full”.
The authors didn’t write the book to criticize husbands-more to bring to light what we need to do to understand them and “raise” them to a level where we love them for who they are and in turn raise ourselves to who we want “us” as a couple to be.
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Carine Nadel is on The Reader’s Advisory Panel of Woman’s Day magazine and has had numerous articles and recipes published both on various websites and print publications. To read more of her work, log onto: http://www.Carine-whatscooking.blogspot.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carine_Nadel |