The Walking Dead : Most influential books ever written?

Erica Jong. The Fear Of Flying.

I loved that book! Crazy woman with a lovely style.

There's more to the world of writing than just books. There are literary criticisms in which I think participated CS Lewis and TS Eliot.

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https://www.tumblr.com/musicmommy
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I like both very much. But their criticism reaches us in the form of books, wouldn't you say? btw, I like Beethoven's 3rd a lot and Brandenburg 2.

Yea, they are the scholars who wrote famous children's books.

Cool! I don't know those works of music as of now. I've heard tell of Eroica. I watched the beginning of it this morning, came on the TV after I put on the 7th. Frankfurt, 4 years ago. I think it was the Radio Symphony Orchestra. The brunette floutist seemed hot in there.



Also, there are peer reviewed scholarly articles, I think from journal form. I reviewed a bunch for school, online college (The Baptist College of Florida.) I mostly studied music this semester in my writing and research, since it used to be my major then. I think I should coach myself now, though I considered getting my AA, in General Studies. I kinda did it to kick start myself.

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Yes, the Eroica ws apparently inspired by Beethoven's admiration for Napoleon (which he later changed his mind about). The 9th is probably my favourite. You should also listen to Bach's Orchestral Suites, which in my opinion are as good as the Brandenburgs.

You can get Lewis and Eliot (doing literary criticism) in book form. I just bought Selected Literary Essays by Lewis, and am enjoying it. I'm also re-reading his science fiction (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra). The Narnia books are probably my favourite children's books.

Sounds familiar, don't know why I don't remember listening to it and remembering more of it.

Cool, I hope I hear more cool stuff. -You know, I'm aiming to be a professional musician again, changed from piano/organ to violin. I've been singing on my own, too, in between.

I was amused by Corelli's Christmas Concerto.

That's cool, a coincidence you're actually on Lewis's essays!

JRR Tolkien wrote something I read in English V in high school, Roverandom. Not sure if you read that one? Also popular in even French for Americans, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which I read in English V, were supposed to have a little party and eat while reading it or something. My mom got me the DVD with Gene Wilder and Bob Fosse, though Gene Wilder wasn't a star in it nor Bob Fosse.

My dad actually read me the Narnia books, with my little brother, before going to bed, as a kid. He read my younger brother Harry Potter. It's funny my aunt didn't want her daughter to read Harry Potter, also not to watch things like "Rugrats." My aunt was born in 1961, in April. She's 2 years younger than my mom almost. My cousin, her daughter, is 6 grades younger and my younger brother 5 grades younger.

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For some reason I never got into Tolkien. Haven't read a thing he's written. I think the cult feel of the books and movies put me off. I loved The Little Prince! I read it many, many times as a child and a teenager. I used to read the Narnia books to my nieces, but not the Potter books. Rowling's style is fairly pedestrian, while Lewis's is brilliant. Of course, Lewis's politics are pretty conservative, but I'm willing to overlook that because of the style.

I most like the beginning chapter of Harry Potter 1. Some people complained their teenage years were about Harry Potter and Johnny Depp. I didn't watch Pirates of the Caribbean until I was 21, I think, watched 3 1st and it was so awesome that 1st time. I didn't really know about it. I went to some movies, but I didn't see the ads. I did see a poster for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) I think summer 2004, and faintly in my subconscious I wondered if I should stay home and post about it rather than go to college, for music though it turned out.

I read A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, and Alice in Wonderland maybe all more than once. Also, Through the Looking Glass.

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Brave New World, 1984 just to add to all the works that have already been listed in the thread.

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Chad Nimdetta @ your service 😎👍

I was actually going to start a thread on apocalyptic fiction, and of course Orwell and Huxley would be at the top of the list.

In terms of fiction, Gargantua et Pantagruel, Don Quijote, War and Peace and Lord of the Rings

Anne Frank's Diary

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suck it.

Gargantua and Pantagruel was hugely important to me personally. I spent about two years completely obsessed with it.

It's hilarious!

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suck it.

It is. But I also took it very seriously as a text about Renaissance range and accomplishments. That and Il Cortegiano by Castiglione and Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance.

Right. I havent read these other two yet, but i'll take ur word for it.

The reason why i put it up here tho is, it's considered to be the first novel published as a cycle in history while Don Quijote is considered to be one of the first published novels ever. (I think also The Tale of Genji is a first novel ever but more influential in east asia than in the western world)

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suck it.

Interesting. I usually don't even think of it as a novel. The narrative part just seems to be an excuse to laugh at the Church!

it's actually 5 novels, no? that's why it's considered to be a cycle…

here's my copy of it





it has like 800 pages, all parts together.

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Nice! I must confess to lust! My most treasured possession is my 19th century edition of Montaigne, with gold leaf on the edge of the leaves! I had to cut the leaves with a knife. It had never been read before.

congratulations..

But what u see on the cover here isnt real gold lol actually its a very cheap discounter edition that came in a box of 50 books (all masterpieces of world literature tho) for 100 bucks, a special offer by Weltbild (a big publishing company here)

I dont really have special valuable editions of books yet, but my grandma has a lot and she already said that she is gonna bequeath her entire library to me

I love my grandma

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suck it.

Most of my books are really cheap, too. I'm always on the lookout for those sales where you pick up a book for 50 cents! But every once in a while I buy a fairly expensive edition. I recently got Mandeville's Fable of the Bees for 250 dollars. And last year I spent more than 2000 dollars on books.

Lol i can relate. I spent more than 250 euros on books during the lockdown (~30 books) bc there was nothing else to buy here (our book stores remained open)… And i have read exactly 1 book and not even finished it yet in all that time. I blame the message boards, urself included!

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suck it.

Reading my posts is exactly like reading a (very cheap) book!

It's more like reading the first paragraph of wikipedia articles

I kid i like reading ur posts (those that are not disparaging me of course)

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Dante's Inferno, Paradise Lost, Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, anything at all by the classical Greeks…

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Hark! Harold the angel sings.

Dracula? Can't say I see it as having a huge impact, except on bad horror movies…

Huh.. The whole vampire cult is built upon that novel (i think?)

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Dracula is almost singularly responsible for the way the Western world views vampires. Stoker dragged in elements from a lot of different cultures to create the garlic-hating, stake-vulnerable, shapeshifting, neck slurping creature we know the vampire to be.

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Hark! Harold the angel sings.

Okay. Are you saying he was being unfair to real vampires, who simply drink a little blood with their midday meal but don't really mean the rest of us any harm?


Sorry, clearly being facetious there; but what would you say are the consequences of Stoker's text?

Well, that depends. Do there have to be consequences beyond cultural impact for a book to be influential? Dracula is a pop culture icon that's won the very rare ascription of 'timeless.'

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Hark! Harold the angel sings.

I can't help wondering if the impact of Dracula was very different from what Stoker expected. I taught it a couple of times, and I always emphasized it as a quasi-Marxist text. If you remember it, Dracula is an aristocrat who oppresses the villagers. He literally "drinks their blood," a metaphor for exploitation if ever there was one. He also carries his earth around with him (in a coffin), like a good aristo attached to the land. As an Irishman, Stoker would have been very affected by narratives of (British) exploitation. So he writes a lurid novel about aristocratic exploitation of serfs and peasants, and it becomes a pop culture phenomenon, either about contagion or about sexy predators with dark, handsome, broody, East European looks!

I can't help but confess a small satisfaction in knowing that Stoker would likely have been displeased with modern interpretations of the work and its titular character, considering said work's rampant sexism. I'm aware it's a product of its time, but there's some secret pleasure in knowing Stoker would be rolling in his grave all the same.

Speaking of influential books, I neglected to mention Notre-Dame de Paris. Had Hugo left the story unwritten, the cathedral likely wouldn't be here any longer.

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Hark! Harold the angel sings.

Really? I didn't know the book had such an effect on the Cathedral! I have to confess to a personal interest in the cathedral, though. The wing that caught fire (I think in 2018) did so a year after I visited it. I was both horrified (at the fire) and relieved (that I saw the stained glass in that wing before it was destroyed).

The fire happened last year, around Easter.

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suck it.

Okay. I think I visited in 2018, about July. I seem to remember the fire broke out fairly soon after I came back.

That's very similar to what I experienced, as well. I visited it in January of 2019, just a few months before it caught fire. I'm so glad it was mostly okay, and fully suited for restoration. Did you see the videos of the Parisians huddled outside singing Ave Maria as it burned in the distance? It was heartbreaking and beautiful all at once.

Here's an article about the restoration the book inspired:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/04/15/notre-dame-was-ruins-victor-hugos-novel-about-hunchback-saved-it/

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Hark! Harold the angel sings.

Yes, I did see those videos. very moving! Hey, I must have been there just a few months before you! My most memorable experience was at Chartres, though, when an organist played a Bach toccata and fugue while we were just sitting there, soaking up the stained glass!

The one thing that worried me about accounts of the rescue attempts (the fire at Notre Dame) was that they made heroic efforts to save some old bones (relics) and let some of the windows burn. So like the catholic Church!

I read Dracula a while back. Ok, I listened to it on a road trip. I was thoroughly bored by its format. I blame myself though because of my ignorance going into it. I had no idea it would be like that but I plan on giving it a proper read someday.

I was intrigued by the story itself, but bored by the Victorian obsession with providing tedious amounts of description for even the most trivial aspects of the plot. I felt like I was going to implode if I had to read one more line about the damn boxes of earth.

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Hark! Harold the angel sings.