I'd have to say you ought to pick and choose good works by SHakespeare. I'll use a few examples of the few I've read. First of all, let me get out of the way that reading any shakespeare book in this day and age is a daunting task which is usually less so only for those who have studied English lit to an extent that allows them to fully understand what's going on. Otherwise, it's usually the epitome of "classic lit" that most of us dread so fervently.
Beyond that, the premise of many of his stories are very cool, if not the story itself. The last shakespeare play I was reading, macbeth, was very hard to understand, and I was practically looking through the side notes as much as the story itself, and some stories just smack of dumb, like King Lear (I really dispised that story). However, Othello was one of the books that i thoroughly enjoyed in my 10th grade lit class.
I typically garner no enjoyment in reading a shakespeare play, since the language is so different than our everyday English that we use now (I might as well try reading a large French novel with only 5 or so years of gradeschool worth of the language), I will loose too much of the meaning. I think the point I've been trying to get at is that many stories were pretty cool if you get a synopsis of it, but, we as non-classical lit students don't really get the fine nuances that others do.
also, my current book is "The Eye of the World" by Robert Jordan. His Wheel of Time series is a fairly expansive set that is already on the 10th book. I'm finding it to be a big page turner and I've enjoyed this book more than I've enjoyed a book in a long time. Probably the last book I enjoyed so thoroughly would have to have been Magic the Gathering's "The Brother's War" by Jeff Grubb. Being the nerdy card player I was back then, I obviously had to read the book that explained the coolest story of all of magic then, antiquities. However, this book is most likely going to replace that book as one of my favorites, just because of how Epic the book is and how well the author, Jordan explains everything in such lush detail and uses such great imagery.
Beyond that, the premise of many of his stories are very cool, if not the story itself. The last shakespeare play I was reading, macbeth, was very hard to understand, and I was practically looking through the side notes as much as the story itself, and some stories just smack of dumb, like King Lear (I really dispised that story). However, Othello was one of the books that i thoroughly enjoyed in my 10th grade lit class.
I typically garner no enjoyment in reading a shakespeare play, since the language is so different than our everyday English that we use now (I might as well try reading a large French novel with only 5 or so years of gradeschool worth of the language), I will loose too much of the meaning. I think the point I've been trying to get at is that many stories were pretty cool if you get a synopsis of it, but, we as non-classical lit students don't really get the fine nuances that others do.
also, my current book is "The Eye of the World" by Robert Jordan. His Wheel of Time series is a fairly expansive set that is already on the 10th book. I'm finding it to be a big page turner and I've enjoyed this book more than I've enjoyed a book in a long time. Probably the last book I enjoyed so thoroughly would have to have been Magic the Gathering's "The Brother's War" by Jeff Grubb. Being the nerdy card player I was back then, I obviously had to read the book that explained the coolest story of all of magic then, antiquities. However, this book is most likely going to replace that book as one of my favorites, just because of how Epic the book is and how well the author, Jordan explains everything in such lush detail and uses such great imagery.