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nand Mystery Series Week
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nIt’sngreat to read wonderful books, and it’s fun to read mysteries,nbecause they are like puzzles for us readers. Librarians,nbooksellers, book clubs, teachers, and authors sometimes startnholidays and honorary weeks celebrating books, and this week justnhappens to be overlapping: Great Books and Mystery Book Series.
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nInna mystery series, readers get to know and love a cop, a privatendetective, or an amateur sleuth who solves the mystery at the end. Mynfavorite fictional detective is Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot.nHe’s short and fastidiously fashionable (if a large upward-curlingnmustache and patent leather shoes are fashionable!); he has retirednfrom the Belgian police force and moved to England to become ancelebrated private detective.
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nAgathanChristie books are written for adults (although I read and loved themnas a young teen). Some fictional detectives especially for kids andnteens include Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, thenBoxcar Children, Nate the Great, and the gang in Scooby-Doo. Butnthere are a lot more! Check out this list from Amazon!
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nWhatnmakes a book a “Great Book”?
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nSomenschools and universities are organized around reading what is calledn“Great Books.” Just as there are different ideas about what makesna book a “classic,” there arendifferent ideas about what books should be on a list of “GreatnBooks.” However, most people list books that they believe stillnhave impact in modern times because they speak to great issues andnoffer great ideas. Some people mention that truly great books areninexhaustible; they can be read again and again, and the reader willnstill gain more insight into the human condition.
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nSonwhat makes the list?
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n(Or,nrather, what books make manyn“Great Books” lists?)
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Homer’sn The Iliad and Then Odysseyn
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nn The Bible
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nn tragedies by Ancient Greeksn Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
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nn writings by Ancient Greeks Plato,n Aristotle, Euclid, and Archimedes
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nn writings by Ancient Romans Cicero,n Virgil, Horace, Ptolemy
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nn writings by early Christiansn Augustine and Thomas Aquinas
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nn writings by Leonardo da Vinci
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nn works of Chaucer
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nn works of Shakespeare
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Defoe’s Robinson Crusoen
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nn Cervantes’s Don Quixote
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nn works of John Milton
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nn Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
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nn works of Charles Dickens
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works by philosophers such asn Descartes, Machiavelli, Thomas More, Hobbes, Pascal, Locke,n Voltaire, Hume, Adam Smith, Kant, Bertrand Russell, Sartren
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nn works by scientists such as Galileo,n Newton, Darwin, Boole, Freud, Einstein, Planck
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nn Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
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nn Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
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nn Byron’s Don Juan
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nn essays by Emerson and Thoreau
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nn works by Tolstoy
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nn works by Mark Twain
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nn works by James Joyce
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nn plays by George Bernard Shaw
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nnEach list of “Great Books” isngoing to have a different selection of books, but many will includensome or all of these classics from the last 25 centuries. Notice thatnthey are “Western” books – there is presumably a list of GreatnBooks from the Eastern tradition, somewhere—and that they arenwritten for adults.
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nWhatnabout kids’ books?
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nSomenpeople have tried to make lists of great kids’ books, including me.n Here is one Amazon list of someone’s top 50 kids’ books.
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nHisntop 10 are:
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nCharlotte’sn Web
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nThen Velveteen Rabbit
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nWheren the Wild Things Are
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nHisn Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass, etc.)n
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nHarounn and the Sea of Stories
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nThen Giver
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nThen Thief Lord
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nInkheart
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nJamesn and the Giant Peach
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nCharlien and the Chocolate Factory
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nCelebratenbooks!
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nPicknup a classic book you’ve never read before. Check out books from an“Best Of” list. Investigate a new mystery author. Read an oldnfavorite.
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