I find a lot of modern books boring.
Actually, not just "modern", but maybe I should say "popular" books that someone is pushing as reading for their lady audiences.
Not a new problem: I read a lot as a child, but when the local library had a "win a prize" for reading books, I found I had no interest in the books on their list. Usually the ones for girls were existential angst about boyfriends and growing up. I preferred biographies (you go girl role models), or borrowing my brother's Sci Fi books, which introduced me to Asimov, Heinlein and CS Lewis.
Now, of course, teenage fiction has lovely characters to encourage girls to get a back bone, while not making them into amoral isolated individuals but including the importance of family (e.g the Hunger Games Triology) and it is the highfalutin adult books I see recommended to me on Scribd that make me roll up my eyes and wonder why I should care about a 30 year old attractive blond yuppie's existential problems. (yes, I hate Hallmark movies for the same reason), or pushing cliches about the gay lifestyle or racism themes that have little or nothing to do the humanity of the protagonists, and the racism stuff has little to help you understand the the problem of keeping your kids safe from drugs and gangs and promiscuity and the amorality of today's world.
It's not just me, of course:
One writer pointed out why K Dramas are so popular: They tackle complex modern problems, stress working to get ahead, and everyone has a family, even if it was 800 years ago in a past life (e.g. Goblin). And there is an underlying sense of right and wrong. Heh. Who wudda thot?
Well, anyway, what brought on this rant was an essay on this blog: about Elizabeth Goudge.
Cynical Modern types would dismiss her as a writer of fluff, but you know, they aren't: and the characters are quite detailed in some of her books.
another blog with related essays with photos of Devon are HERE and HERE.
I brought two of her books with me: The Dean's Watch, and the Scent of Water, but now I have discovered more of them to read at ScribD, and enjoyed them.
the Scent of Water is about a woman retiring to the country who finds renewal in her life (i.e. the water here refers to the living water of the Scriptures). And I believe it was one of Oprah's book club selections.
Some of them can be found on internet archive, for your reading pleasure: most need sign in to borrow, but a few of them are posted by the Library of India so you can actually download them to read at your leisure/ including the Eliot family saga the Bird in the Tree Pilgrim's Inn
Two of her books were made into popular movies, both of which are under copyright and not available for free: Green dolphin street and the Secret of Moonacre, Probably guarded by copyright cops.
The first is an oldfashioned melo rama, but alas I never watched the second one all the way through, because the cinematography was ugly, but fans seem to love it in youtube reviews...
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another old fashioned book I ran across on archives and on a webpage HERE is the old novel: the World the Flesh and Father Smith.
A Bread and butter story of a priest working in the slums of Scotland, and those he works with..., and like Goudge, the people are not twisted and evil as one sees in "modern" novels, not even the bitter veteran who is executed for murdering his wife. Despite being a pre WWII era novel it does bring up a lot of the way that the church gives lives meaning: meaning that the PC post Vatican II types get it wrong when they see the church as merely something to manipulate to push their pc agendas.
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and for those interested in the pre Vatican II cloister story: Mother Catherine Thomas' book My Beloved can be read at Hathi Trust.
more cheerful and like most of the nuns I have worked with, she is more down to earth than the usual books of this type, which tend to hagiography or emphasis on scandals.
and of course living in an Oklahoma cloister is less dramatic than a more famous story popular in the 1950's: The Nuns story LINK which was made into a movie with the luminous Audrey Hepburne.
that is a fictionalized biography of MarieLouise Habets: the Wikipedia page suggests the story is a bit more complicated: But it is interesting to note this part:
...(she) later moved to California, where she nursed Audrey Hepburn after a horse-riding accident which occurred during her filming of The Unforgiven.
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Finally, I am listening to the Summer of the Great Grandmother, by Madeline L'Engle. (at Scribd) I brought the book with me along with several other of her "Crosswick journal" books. This one is about her mother's slow dying of Alzheimer's disease, and the story of various ancestors and members of her extended family. soundcloud excerpt
Like the previous books, the anti Christian bigots will simply shrug and ignore her books, but actually it was recommended to me by a friend, an agnostic Jewish psychiatrist, who knew that I was facing the problem of an aging parent.
Some of her essays including some of the Crosswick Journal books can be read for free registration on internet archives LINK and her scifi/fantasy books are there too.
Youtube has several of her sci fi books as audiobooks LINK
Alas, the main book A Wrinkle in Time, was made into a film that not only had bad cinametography (Svorski crystals on Oprah's eyelids? Give me a break... and WTF is that part about the flying cabbage?) but my main problem is that, although it was recasted as a biracial family (ok with me) they made the important character of Charles William a white kid. What? No young black child actors available? The movie explained this as saying he was "adopted". Sigh.
so anyway skip the film and listen to the audiobooks on youtube.
and here is Ms L'Engle discussing her writing:
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