{"id":487,"date":"2014-12-07T07:06:21","date_gmt":"2014-12-07T15:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.majorscorner.com\/?p=487"},"modified":"2026-03-07T18:12:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T03:12:50","slug":"themajorscorner-goodbooks-humour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/?p=487","title":{"rendered":"#TheMajorsCorner #GoodBooks #Humour"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - http:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top:5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"#TheMajorsCorner #GoodBooks #Humour\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>I arrived at the club the other day to the usual murmuring from behind newspapers hiding the faces of intense mems reading the day\u2019s news. The low sound cheers me up no end, because I know it indicates a hefty intake of info, leading to wonderful chats after lunch. In other words, the world unfolds as it should, at least here.<!--more--><br \/>\nIt did not take long for a member to give voice, and it was Mr. Cursive, the retired English teacher.<br \/>\n\u201cMajor, did you know that children are not reading books as they once did?\u201d<br \/>\nThis will come as no surprise to anyone with more than a peanut for a brain. They haven\u2019t for years.<br \/>\nMr. Cursive went on to say social media and Google have replaced the experience of books. The student of today simply downloads an encapsulated version of a classic novel and presumes thus to have read it.<br \/>\nMy collar became a little tighter at the thought, for I was guilty of that myself. In the distant mist of my misspent youth I well recall a test at my school about an unread tome, the Iliad by Homer. In an act of desperation I flung myself into Mr. Taylor\u2019s pharmacy where I could buy a pr\u00e9cis of Mr. Homer\u2019s book in the shape of what was then called \u201cClassic Comics.\u201d<br \/>\nThese 12-page wonders had shrunk the heavy thoughts of the \u201cBlind Bard\u201d into pictures and a few words, giving some hope of scraping through my exam. But it always came as a shock to me that my masters had taken these life-saving comics into consideration before setting the test, and I would constantly flame out. Nevertheless I took Mr. Cursive\u2019s point: Children do not read as they once did.<br \/>\nHe had, he said, cheered up enormously with the Harry Potter phenomenon, but sadly that was only a small minority of children. My favourite books when but a jammy-faced gumboil were Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe, which terrified me beyond belief. My father would read to me in bed and then kiss me goodnight, returning after a martini or two with a flashlight under his chin yelling like Ben Gunn. I would scurry under the covers and retreat to the foot of the bed, quaking at the thought of the marooned sailor from Treasure Island in my bedroom<br \/>\nMy father also thought it amusing to describe the cannibalism scene from Crusoe while snapping chicken bones behind the book. Those frightening moments meant that I would never forget the stories, not in this life.<br \/>\nHarry Potter at least proved there is a publishing market for children with even a modicum of intelligence, but there were always great reads for children. We know because we lived through it. I wonder in how many curriculums today would my favourites appear? Have they been forgotten? We should read them again and to our offspring.<br \/>\nGranted there will be a few minutes of gnashing teeth when they discover you have swiped their social media devices, but I am sure by the time that \u201cJim\u201d has seen the reaction to \u201cThe Black Spot\u201d in his father\u2019s tavern, you will have the miscreant\u2019s full attention.<br \/>\nThere seemed to be far more meat for the imagination in those far-off days, heroes writ large in our minds, fighting against terrific odds under awful conditions. Rob Roy running from the British soldiers up into the highlands of Scotland with only a broad sword and a strong right arm for protection. Or a marooned Crusoe doomed to live alone until Friday arrives amongst the cannibals.<br \/>\nThese are wonderful stories, along with King Solomon\u2019s Mine, She, Tom Sawyer, Beau Geste, The Jungle Story plus anything by Dickens, Wyndham and Conan Doyle, but I am afraid because of some old fashioned words, and an epidemic of political correctness, they are brushed aside as outdated and obsolete.<br \/>\nThey deserve better. Try them again for yourself and the children around you. I am sure that you will find it rewarding.<br \/>\nCopyright Major\u201ds Corner 2014<br \/>\ndalton.chris4@gmail.com<br \/>\ntwitter TheYYJMajor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - http:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top:5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"#TheMajorsCorner #GoodBooks #Humour\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>I arrived at the club the other day to the usual murmuring from behind newspapers hiding the faces of intense mems reading the day\u2019s news. The low sound cheers me up no end, because I know it indicates a hefty intake of info, leading to wonderful chats after lunch. In other words, the world unfolds [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-majors-corner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":488,"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions\/488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majorscorner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}