What classics should I be reading?

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

#1, #2, and about half of Mother May I? (#8 I think)

[Lightning Eater]

I didn't wan't to toss around spoilers here, so I tried to send you an instant message, I'm not sure how they work, though, so tell me if you didn't get the message or if I messed something up when I made it.

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

I didn't get it. Whats your IM adress? I'll try sending you one.

[Lightning Eater]

I think we have different IM things, like I use msn messenger, while I think you have something else.
Just to make sure, you know where to see if you have any messages, you've probably noticed it, but here, it says in an area at the bottom of the main forum page

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Okay, yah. I have both yahoo and msn. I'll change my email to be viewable for a couple of minutes and you can just do it from there.

[fuzzyoctopus]

So it occurred to me that i should probably look up a list of Hugo winners and read all of them that I have not read.  That would be a good place to start. I tried to do the same thing with Nobel Prize winners once, but once I saw that Coetze's "Foe" had won a Nobel Prize I was too busy throwing up to want to read.

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Yeah that would probalby be a good idea, since the Hugo isn't a YA award it *should* be worth your time. (all I really know is that Ender's Game won it.)

[Chimera]

Yeah that would probalby be a good idea, since the Hugo isn't a YA award it *should* be worth your time.

Hey, what's that supposed to mean?  

YA literature--the good stuff--is always worth your time, in my opinion. But I am biased.

[fuzzyoctopus]

Hey he said it not me.  Find me the correct award for YA fiction and I'll add that to my list of things to do.

[Brenna]

The YA fiction award is the Newbery.

http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/awardsscholarships/literaryawds/newberymedal/newberywinners/medalwinners.htm

Here's a list of winners.

Oh, and interestingly enough, starting next year there will apparently be an award called the Andre Norton award that will recognize excellent science fiction and fantasy for the YA market.
http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/2005/02/science-fiction-writers-association.html

[Chimera]

Oh, and interestingly enough, starting next year there will apparently be an award called the Andre Norton award that will recognize excellent science fiction and fantasy for the YA market.
http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/2005/02/science-fiction-writers-association.html

That's awesome! It will be cool to have one for just fan/scifi, even though they sometimes fall under the other awards (Printz and Newbery).

Not to be a stickler, but ALA actually created an award for excellent YA fiction--the Printz award. The Newbery tends to be for Middle Grade fiction. It started in 2000 and they created it so there could be more of a distintion between MG and YA fiction, because there was such a wide range of reading levels the Newbery covered. (at least that is what Chris Crowe, my YA Lit professor, said). From my reading of them, I've determined that books that receive the Printz award can be "edgy"--and the Newbery seems to try to stay away from that.

Which reminds me of my favorite Printz book--either a winner or a nominee (I tried to read all of the ones that appealed to me at one time). It is Kit's Wilderness by David Almond. His Skellig is very good as well. They are both light fantasy, kind of dark. David Almond writes beautiful, simple prose--like a poet. I'd read his books for the writing alone--but the story and characters are awesome too.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

That's the one I just finished, for the please-don't-make-fun-of-me reason that I was dying to know what all the filk songs were about.   I picked up a couple of her Union-Alliance books, (I have a copy of 40,000 in Gehenna, SOMEWHERE that I never read) and some of the mystical russian one, whatever that is.

Remember who you're talking to...!!

"She's captain of the Norway, and a thorn in Union's side..."

I only read one and a half of the Russian ones. Those are pretty dense. I can't actually remember if I've read all of 40,000 in Gehenna. I think I did once...

Have you heard the Chanur filks? like "We are the Pride of Chanurrrrrrrrrrr..." and Kanefsky's "We are the thieves of the Kif / We'll turn you into a stiff..."

Anything I know?  (The song, I mean.)

"Meltdown" by Kanefsky, on the Roundworm CD.

I quite liked Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, though it took me a very, very long time to get through it.  Loved the footnotes.  (I'd be curious to know how the audio version handled those.)

Whenever a footnote came up, a new track would start that was just the length of the footnote, so you could skip them if you wished. I never did.

It's on 26 CDs. Very long.

[fuzzyoctopus]

Remember who you're talking to...!!

I know, I was talking to everyone else.  

Have you heard the Chanur filks? like "We are the Pride of Chanurrrrrrrrrrr..." and Kanefsky's "We are the thieves of the Kif / We'll turn you into a stiff..."

No, but I'm tempted to read a few of Dickson's Dorsai novels after listening to about a million songs about them, and having 'The Green Hills of Harmony' stuck in my head for approximately two weeks straight.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Only one I read was the Final Encyclopedia or something like that. It was pretty good. But now he's dead...

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Hey, what's that supposed to mean?  

YA literature--the good stuff--is always worth your time, in my opinion. But I am biased.

That's not what I meant. I agree, the good stuff is worth your time. I was remarking that she showed displeasure with one of the books to receive the award. This might signal that other books that have won it may not have been up to par. I meant no offense.