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Reading is in.
Just think of the thousands of children who stayed indoors and didn't clamor to watch TV this summer because they couldn't put down their copy of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."
Or the 96 people who are on the waiting list for the local library's copy of another buzzed-about book (this time for adults): Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code."
For Susan Wise Bauer, these books may be good, but they represent the end of a long line of great literature that people should be familiar with. Bauer, an English professor at the College of William & Mary, said she doesn't think her freshman students are getting a good dose of the classics in high school.
"In high school, there's a real focus on contemporary literature," the home-schooled Bauer said. "They're getting Morrison and Hemingway. Which is not to say they're not great. But Morrison and Hemingway were working from a knowledge of the classics. High-school students are getting the last part first."
Bauer has written a book called "The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had."
The book gives the definition of a classical education, which includes a grammar phase in which children learn the basics, a logic phase in which they learn how to question the basics, and a rhetoric phase in which they learn how to formulate their own opinions about what they've read.
It also lists tips on how and when to read, gives the definitions and history of various types of literature from the poem to the autobiography, and then lists the archetypes of each genre.
Bauer's book came out this month, and hasn't even hit the shelves of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library on Caroline Street, but there are already 25 people on the list waiting to get their hands on it.
"People want to fill in the holes in their own education," Bauer said, explaining why she believes her book is so anticipated. "They're reverting to the books that people have always been talking about."
Virginia Johnson, a network services employee at the library, is an example of someone who is returning to the classics.
"I've been reading classics lately," she said. "Never did when I was younger."
She read the requisite texts in high school but felt that intensive study rendered them unenjoyable.
"Great literature has been dissected so much that you can't enjoy it," she said.
Recently, however, she read both "Hard Times" by Charles Dickens and "Villette" by Charlotte Brontë. As an adult, she was able to appreciate them as entertaining stories about real people, rather than as unapproachable tomes.
"When you reread these books, you realize that the stuff you thought was gloomy is actually much lighter," she said. "The heroes and heroines are not perfect."
Another example is Oprah Winfrey picking John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" as the newest addition to her wildly influential book club.
"That's gotten a huge re- sponse," said Janice Black, a reference librarian at Central Rappahannock Regional Library.
Bauer feels that this desire to return to the classics is a relatively new happening.
"What's new in the last five or six years is that people have started to mistrust the educational system more," she said. "People have more confidence in their own minds, and there's this sense of 'I wasn't taught properly as a child, and no one's going to do this for me, so I'd better do it myself.'"
So they want to educate themselves by reading "the classics." But what defines a classic?
In recent years, there has been a flurry of debate among literary scholars about the canon, or the body of works, typically read or taught in schools. Many feel the canon is filled with too many books by dead white men and needs to become more representative of minorities. This makes picking a list of "must-reads" highly subjective and risque.
However, reading buffs and teachers agree that there is such a thing as a classic.
"There are some things you love to go back and read," said Florence Ridderhoff of the Fredericksburg Literary Club, which has been meeting for decades. "I always love to go back and read Jane Austen. You can always go back to Flaubert and Dickens, too."
"These are books you read and reread for insight into the human condition and the way they speak the message in a unique way," said David Winn, an English and classics teacher in Spotsylvania County. "They all broke ground or represented the pinnacle of whatever genre they're in. Students need to know about the pinnacles so they know how to judge the newer stuff."
"A lot of great literature has this wake-up effect," said Molly Jones, English department head at Massaponax High School. "Or it will have something significant to say about human nature."
"These books raise questions about our way of life that we wouldn't otherwise ask," said Rick Perry, an English teacher at Massaponax High School.
For Roger Scott, a retired lawyer and avid reader, great literature should enhance one's ability to conduct life among others. He feels that the classics are valuable because they help people understand themselves by understanding history and recognizing its cycles and patterns.
"Knowledge of history helps us understand the ways we conduct wars and the reasons," he said. "It would help people understand regional differences."
He also feels the classics help us to understand how other people live.
"The plays of Shakespeare will keep you from living in the first person," he said. "People should also read them for empathy."
And for joy and companionship and escapism. Only child Rachel Perry said that when she reads she feels like she's actually talking to new people and encountering new worlds.
"I get really into it," she said.
She spoke of one book she read recently in which she didn't want to breathe at one point because she was afraid she would wake up some sleeping giants featured in the story.
Her mother Tamara, who teaches ninth-, 10th- and 11th-grade English at Courtland High School, thinks the most important function of these books is to raise questions in us about things we thought we fully understood.
"Your life isn't the same as it was before after you read some of these books," she said.
Here are some "must-reads"--the books that teachers love to teach, that librarians love to recommend, that most frequently show up on lists telling college-bound students what to read, and on lists of the most influential books ever.
"The Odyssey" and "The Iliad" by Homer: "He is the grand ancestor and source of Western literature" said Molly Jones.
"The hero undergoes privations he actually washes up in tattered clothes on a beach unconscious," said Roger Scott. "It's about overcoming adversity, and it's inspiring for young people."
The Bible as a work of literature: "It's such great poetry of the human experience. It's an influential source on human life," Scott said.
The Greek myths: "They are recast frequently," Jones said.
The works of Shakespeare: "He's obvious, he doesn't even need to be said," Jones said. "Everyone should have the language of Shakespeare in their heads." And it provides many insights into human nature. Kay Lanceley, a 12th-grade English teacher at Courtland High School, said she teaches "Macbeth" to her students because it teaches them about choice and consequence.
"David Copperfield," "Oliver Twist," and "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens. "Dickens shows the emotions of the wretched," writes Susan Wise Bauer. He writes about the oppressed underclass, creates unforgettable characters, and many of his books are coming-of-age stories, which are ageless.
"I liked the story and the way he writes," said young Rachel Perry of "Great Expectations." She said she was fascinated by the character of Miss Havisham.
"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen. "It deals with the indoor world of women, thus anticipating by a couple of hundred years the Oprah boom in women's fiction," Bauer writes in her book.
"Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë. "The epic struggle of a young girl alone who manages to become a most gracious and full-spirited woman in a Victorian world, through persistence and sheer force of individual will," said Roger Scott.
Bauer writes that Jane is a fully developed woman who "refuses to marry Rochester until she can be the dominant partner." A great read for young women.
"Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. Three-fourths of college English department chairs who participated in a recent study from "Unabashed Librarian" magazine suggest that college-bound students should read this book. It is also one of the most frequently banned books.
"If you really read the book, you discover that Huck, who starts out with a low opinion of blacks, comes to realize that the slave Jim is his only friend in a savage world," said Roger Scott. Twain is also a screamingly funny writer.
Two classic "Utopia" novels: "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and "1984" by George Orwell. "I teach ['Brave New World'] for its warning about technology," said Kay Lanceley.
Jones said she teaches "1984" so that students understand the effects of language corruption. "We're in the midst of that right now," she said.
Tamara Perry said "1984" forces her students to see how controlling society can be. "It really hits them, and it starts bothering them," she said.
Two classic descents into madness: "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding and "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad.
Jones said she teaches "Heart of Darkness" because it "clearly points up that all humans have the potential to revert to savagery," and Lanceley teaches "Lord of the Flies" for the same reason.
Rick Perry says both force his students to ask interesting questions they wouldn't otherwise ask.