Favorite books among society today

I figured the next best way to go with this research would be to go back to Facebook and ask my “friends” what their favorite books are. I asked them to reply with their favorite book, a parent’s favorite book, and a grandparent’s favorite book.

Much to my surprise, a vast majority of the people who replied chose “classics” as their favorites, like myself. Among the most popular were:

• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

And of course there were more recent books such as:

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• 50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James
• The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

 I was pleasantly surprised to find that most people favor classic books as opposed to the books that are “hot off the press”. I think that shows a lot about the character of today’s society- that while books with intense fight scenes, loaded sex scenes and witchcraft may be what’s popular in the media today, the classic tales written centuries of years ago are still highly coveted forms of literature.

Toodles!

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What makes a book a good book?

 

At first I struggled with figuring out where to start with this research. I figured this would be a good place to start with my research: what exactly makes a book a good book?  

Of course I took my question straight to the public and posted it on Facebook. I asked my “friends” to share their opinion’s on what they believe is the definition of a good/entertaining/popular book. I am unsure as to what exactly what kind of answers I was expecting to receive, but to my surprise I found that all but one of the answers were incredibly similar in the respect that generally, a good book is one that keeps your attention until the very end. There were three comments in particular that I found to be the best definitions:

• “When you can’t put it down until the last page!”
• “One that captures your interest so much that you can’t go to sleep until it is finished.”
• “A book that keeps you thinking is always best.”

All three of these responses are similar to what my definition of a “good book” is. But as expected, I did receive a response from a critique that said, “One that was never opened... Those are my favorite!”, although I suppose that is to be expected when conducting surveys –especially about reading- on social media!

Toodles!

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Hey there, Readers!

I grew up with an intense passion for reading. I always had a book with me- on the playground at the airport at daycare at the mall, I was always reading. Over the years I have found that my personal favorite books are The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I love the catcher in the Rye because Holden [the main character] has this irrevocable teen angst about him that is incredibly entertaining to read, and his use of sarcasm is HILARIOUS! And The Great Gatsby is just such a fun book to read! When I read it the very first time I was absolutely engulfed in the idea of “the American dream” and all of the drama and glamour associated with it throughout the novel.

Because my two favorite books are considered to be “classics”, and happen to be very popular in the world of literature I decided that I wanted to do more research into what popular literature is, and how it has changed over time- and thus- The Reading Nook was born!

I created The Reading Nook so I could have a place to share the information found throughout my research process. I hope you all enjoy my blog, and follow up for future posts!

Toodles!

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