Thursday, April 3, 2008

Lit-Ra-Chur

  • When somebody mentions “literature,” what’s the first thing you think of? (Dickens? Tolstoy? Shakespeare?)
  • Do you read “literature” (however you define it) for pleasure? Or is it something that you read only when you must?

Anything that requires reading whether it be the newspaper, a magazine, research, non-fiction or fiction. I believe this comes from my many years as a student where professors would ask us to look up "literature" on various subjects. They tended to use it as a synonym for research. When I hear classic literature I think of authors such as Dickens, Tolstoy, Austen, etc.

Of course I read literature for pleasure! I love reading and our house is full of books. My bedside stand has, on average, seven books waiting to be read. I read more than one book at once so as soon as I finish one I can quickly grab another if I feel like it. There is part of me that thinks the question "or is it something that you read only when you must?" a silly question since everyone that participates in Booking Through Thursday enjoys reading and/or discussing books.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You raise an interesting point here, because the term literature is certainly used in many different ways and academically it does often mean the current thinking on a subject and what has been written about it. Certainly, reading round people's answers today we all seem to mean very different things when we use the word.