Primarily inspired by the discussion in the “what were you THINKING?” pit thread, I wondered if I should read Heinlen as an adult. I read most of his stuff as a kid, but have never gone back to it. Which got me thinking about all of the other stuff I loved as a kid, but never went back to.
I know we’ve had a few did/didn’t hold up type threads, but maybe there’s room for another.
To put things in context, “as a kid” to me is from about 10 to 20, which is the 1980s, and as an adult is about the last 35 years.
Which if any of these should I reread? Did they hold up for you, what parts let you down?
Here is a sampling I can think of that I’ve never been back to. Some I liked more than others, but all were things I did enjoy.
I plan to read A Wrinkle In Time at some point. I have no interest in seeing the movie, but I remember enjoying the story, so I’m curious about reading it again.
At one point I had a lot of the Pern books. For some reason or another, The Masterharper of Pern is the only one I still have. If you have a particular favorite, read that one, but I would expect that reading the entire series will become a bit of a drudge. Same for Heinlein and Asimov.
Personally, I think the only necessary ones are the original trilogy, All the Weyrs of Pern, and Dragonsdawn. Anything else you can skip, especially the stuff from after she decided that dragon color is tied to the rider’s sexuality.
From those listed to start with, I’d gladly re-read (and have re-read most)
Arthur C. Clarke
Hitchhikers Guide and Dirk Gently
1984
Brave New World
Then I’d add from my own re-reading, pleasantly surprised:
Most of Jules Verne. I used him to learn French as an adult and was surprised by how much better the books are than the crappy translated and abridged versions usually sold in Spanish.
I read Bambi and Die Biene Maja/Maya the Bee this last year, for the first time, and was surprised by the earnestness of Bambi. Maya, not so much, but it is a readable fairy tale nonetheless.
I have also been re-reading many old comic books, and am of two minds there: some are good, but others were disappointing.
I recently reread the Narnia books. They are kids books. But i enjoyed them as an adult. You can skip “the silver chair”. But that was kinda true the first time through them, too. Oh, and the racism bothers me more as an adult. (The evil country is Turkey.) Still, they hold up as stories.
I read the Narnia books as a kid (around nine years old). I re-read them as an adult (mid-twenties) to get the whole Christian religious allegory side of it and I didn’t really see that (beyond a few obvious bits like Aslan). I’m not saying it isn’t there, just that I didn’t find it obvious.
Whereas when I reread Narnia as an adult, I discovered that there were lots more layers to the allegory than I’d ever realized. Though, I’m also a practicing Catholic and went to Catholic schools for high school and college, so I’m probably more in a position to get it.
On the others: Heinlein can certainly be dated, especially on anything relating to sex or gender roles. But then, most of his best works were his juveniles, where that was much less in the forefront. Asimov and Clarke less so, though both of them weren’t so great at writing human characters in general. And of course any old science fiction is going to have a fair amount of zeerust, things like using a slide rule to navigate a starship.
The Stainless Steel Rat was never very serious or deep, but works fine as light reading at any age. Likewise the Hitchhikers Guide books.
1984 and Brave New World were always adult literature. They’re not to everyone’s tastes, but if you liked them when young, you’ll still like them now.
Niven and Pournelle wrote some great books together, and also wrote some stinkers together. Any recommendations have to be on a case-by-case basis.
One set of books I loved as a kid, and which I was pleased to discover still hold up, are the Danny Dunn series. For those unfamiliar with them, Danny’s mother is a housekeeper to a brilliant professor, who acts as a sort of mentor figure to him and comes up with all sorts of fantastic inventions, while meanwhile Danny comes up with kid-level inventions of his own, as well as creative uses of the Professor’s inventions. Most of them are fairly well grounded in actual science (though, again, some zeerust).
