Stick to Classic Books for Seasonal Reading

With the start of summer this week, I reread a classic book: The Great Gatsby. It’s really the perfect summer read. The setting is Long Island in the dead of summer, and the description is beautifully complete with linen suits, perspiring damsels and talk of swimming pools.

I find myself drawn to different classic books for every season.

In winter, give me something Russian and filled with fur muffs and bed warmers. I read Anna Karenina over winter vacation during college. It was the perfect thing to rest on my chest in front of the fire and devour.

In fall, I need something that screams crisp leaves, woolen scarves and ground damp enough to require Bean boots. There’s a whole shelf of “back to school” books that perfectly fill this void. This coming year, I may reread A Separate Peace or Where the Red Fern Grows. There’s something about both that get me in the mood for the coming season. Of course, this all depends on me reading enough of my current TBR pile to stop feeling threatened by them when I go to sleep.

In the spring, bring on the Austens and Brontes. There is something about these rather epic novels and their descriptions, that put me into the zone for warmer temperatures and the chance to sit outside and read in the sunlight. Also pretty much anything that epically takes place across many seasons and over many months and goes all over the place in terms of seasons and location. I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. I just like it. It feels right.

Now that I’m all finished with The Great Gatsby, I’m thinking a reread is in order. I’m considering One Hundred Years of Solitude or something equally fantastic – and I mean that in the “filling me with awe at its magic and mysticism” kind of way not the “OMG this so good” kind of way.

When you pick up a classic again, how do you choose? Do you love them like I do? There is something about the language that is amazing and the characters and the story that is timeless.

Or do you hate classic books? Can you not stand the antiquated language, the old-fashioned customs and the worlds so different from your own? What do you read instead? What would get you to pick one up again?

Give a classic novel a chance. I’m trying to bring them back!

(No really, go click the link. There’s a vlog attached to a contest and everything. Books rule.)

Featured Image via Southern Bluestocking