Classics and Contemporaries!

I love a good classic, but I'd be a big, fat liar if I said I wasn't intimidated by some of them. Les Misérables is so big that just the thought of reading it makes me break out into a cold sweat, and Thomas Hardy sends me to sleep, but there are some fantastic stories out there that don't get read because some readers are wary of classics.

If you're one such reader, I don't blame you! If you're introduced to classics in the wrong way you can hate them forever - I, for example, cannot bring myself to enjoy The Great Gatsby because I had to study it in school - but I want to share my love of classics with you and show you another way of getting into them without diving into the deep end!

How? Simple! I'm currently working on five posts in which I have compiled a collection of modern day fiction alongside a collection of classics. Despite being written perhaps hundreds of years apart in some cases, these novels include much of the same themes, characters and/or settings; my hope is that if the modern read interests you, perhaps the classic will, too!

In each post I'll be talking about two classics and their contemporary recommendations. I've divided them all into themes: Romance; Social Commentary; Children's Fiction; Gothic and Science Fiction. These themes mainly apply to the classics rather than the contemporary pieces, but like I said there are still a lot of similarities between them. I've tried to be as diverse as possible with my picks, but the majority of my classics are pieces of Victorian Literature, purely because it's my favourite there are so many different strands of it.

So if this sounds like fun - I hope it does! - look out for the first post, where I'll be talking about Romance, next month! From there, I'll post a different one each month until the end of the year.

See you then!

J.