What, for you, makes a book a classic?
Join us across 1/3-1/7 to share the books that you think are classic reads, and to tell us what makes a read a ‘classic’ for you. Old, new, controversial, heartwarming – what are the things that catapult a book from a great read to a must read?
Post about the books you think are great and why. They don’t have to be ‘classics’ as we traditionally know them but anything you think is a fantastic read, in any genre.
$300 in prizes: $200/£130 Amazon gift card (open to hoppers), 2x$50/£35 Amazon gift card (open to everyone)
Sponsored by Terri Giuliano Long, Molly Greene, Rachel Thompson and Christine Nolfi
Visit http://bit.ly/CR2013 to get more information.
The Transformative Power of Story
by Christine Nolfi
During the year marking the end of a lonely childhood and the commencement of an awkward adolescence I fell in love with Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Chancing upon the novel provided the first confrontation with a character so similar in station and temperament that the story seemed to reveal my deepest hopes and desires. It mattered little if the fictional Jo March lived during the tumultuous years of the mid-1800s when war threatened to tear the U.S. apart, a world unfamiliar to a girl coming of age in the drug-infused, blue jean clad 1970s. Jo March was a second-oldest daughter, a rebel and a writer. Just like me.
Several years later, the love affair with Little Women forgotten, I found myself dozing in a 10th grade English class alongside a brood of other disinterested teenagers. Mrs. Steiglitz droned on about the new assignment; outside the bank of windows, spring sunlight mocked the fidgety students trapped in the classroom’s shadows. From the corner of my eye, I caught Mrs. Steiglitz opening a weighty tome. The book bore a cover so deep a gold it seemed the providence of kings. Flipping to a random page she read:
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.
The phrase’s odd syntax and deep meaning dragged me into a proper sitting position. I will always remember the moment my attention centered on the gold cradled in the teacher’s palms and the disconcerting awareness that followed as I turned to take in the somnolent class. Not one other student seemed similarly mesmerized.
During the following week’s reading of Hamlet the class sat bored and unmoved like fools ushered into a foreign bazaar whose every peacock color went unseen by eyes disinclined to sight. Shakespeare’s achingly beautiful poetry issued from their mouths in a stilted mess until Mrs. Steiglitz, in a fit of frustration, dispensed with democracy and gave me the honor of reading the second half of the play solo. Grappling with words heaven-sent, I crossed the border from a dull childhood into the divine.
To the willing initiate, story possesses transformative power. For reasons as murky as they are depressing, many human souls never catch the knack. Ask a bibliophile for a list of her favorite pursuits and reading often perches above travel or parenting or even the joys of romance. She knows she’s a member a secret society. Turning the page unlocks a door that leads into a lion’s den where her very life is in danger. Turn the page and she finds herself on a frigate tossed by raging seas or in ancient Egypt bowing low before a merciless Pharaoh. She dons the gowns of Elizabethan England or Jimmy Choo red heels and takes New York by storm. On the journey inside a book she becomes a maid or a princess or a modern day woman grappling against impossible odds. Some days she sheds her human self completely and stalks with a panther’s grace or soars on an eagle’s wings. She draws back the curtain of the ordinary world and slips into a place of extraordinary possibility.
In short, she becomes someone else. And in doing so, she enriches the person she already is.
What makes a book a classic for you?
Join us on January 3 – 7, 2013 to share the books on your Classic Reads list. We want to hear about your favorite stories, authors and books – whether they’re old favorites, new fiction, controversial or simply heartwarming. What elements catapult a book from a good read to a must read for you?
Don’t miss this fabulous opportunity to share your favorite reads and hear about more. If you write a post featuring the ClassicReads banner you’re automatically entered in a $200 Amazon/B&N gift card drawing. Additional prizes are available for helping spread the word via Twitter, Pinterest, etc. Here’s how to take part:
1. Visit Terri Long’s website and complete the Classic Reads Blog Hop sign up form.http://terriglong.com/blog/classic-reads-blog-hop-2013
2. If you’d like, write your post or choose another way to spread the word.
3. Several days prior to the event, we’ll send an email with graphics and a linky code to directly link all participating posts.
4. If you’ve written a post, schedule it to go live at 12:01 EST any day from January 3rd to 7th and respond to our email with your direct post URL. Your post URL will be added to our linky and used to validate your Rafflecopter entry.
5. For EXTRA entries and chances to win, please promote one or more of the sponsoring hosts’ books at the bottom of your post by adding our book cover & synopsis. All this information will be sent to you by December 24, 2012.
6. Don’t forget to enter the prize draw via Rafflecopter!
7. Spread the love January 3-7 – and learn about everyone’s own classic reads – by visiting and commenting on as many hop participant’s posts as you’d like.
8. Follow #NewClassicReads on Twitter for updates, news and discussion throughout November and December.
Christine Nolfi owned a small public relations firm in Cleveland, Ohio. Her articles and press releases have appeared regionally in The Plain Dealer, The Akron Beacon Journal, Cleveland Magazine and other media outlets. Her short story, Night Hour, appeared in Working Mother magazine.
Christine closed the firm after she traveled to the Philippines and adopted a sibling group of four children. She has been writing novels full-time since 2004.
@christinenolfi on Twitter
GoodReads Author Page: http://tinyurl.com/7e2xgjq
FaceBook Author Page: http://tinyurl.com/c3sf4yv
Second Chance Grill:
Amazon link: http://tinyurl.com/8z2lbb6
Treasure Me – 2012 Next Generation Indie Awards Finalist
Amazon link: http://tinyurl.com/72mvu8m
The Tree of Everlasting Knowledge
Amazon link: http://tinyurl.com/757vrfm
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