Like many people, I found literature intimidating, boring, and depressing. Some stories seemed just so dull and miserable and left me feeling down making me not want to read literature at all. I think many can relate, literature is that subject in school they have to do, so they just try to get through it, get it out of the way. Well, since I am doing a degree in Creative Writing, simply getting literature out of the way was not an option. After taking over a year and a half of literature courses my perspective has changed.

I originally thought most literature, especially modern literature was dull and depressing, well, I was wrong. I was judging all literature off the little bit I had read. Yes, some modernist literature can be depressing, but literature is as diverse as people and personalities are. Every story has its own personality, its own themes, and characters. Something I have come to love about literature is no two stories are alike, every single one I have read is completely new and unique.

I have read many stories now that are not depressing at all, some are comical, some are simply beautiful. One thing they all seem to have in common is that they will change you and challenge you. Literature challenges your perspective on humanity, yourself, and the world around you. Literature will ask the hard questions that few dare to ask, at times it will make you uncomfortable, but that is the power and beauty of it.

There are countless stories that helped me see the world in a new way. "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" by Milan Kundera was a book I read recently that still has me thinking about themes like memory, culture, identity, and belonging. Literature never seems to give clear-cut answers to the universe, it gives questions and more questions, it moves you to think for yourself, challenge your perceptions, and see things afresh.

Don’t get me wrong, I love genre fiction and all kinds of stories, but literary fiction has a way of provoking you and causing you to question things more than any other type of fiction does. That’s why now I see the importance for all of us to read some literature every now and then.

I also challenge you to read literature written by people from other cultures, Kundera’s book is a great one set in Czechoslovakia during the communist occupation, so is "Paradise of the Blind" by Duong Thu Huong. "Paradise of the Blind" is written by a Vietnamese woman, set in Vietnam is shows first hand their culture, their struggles, and their political struggles.

I originally approached literature as something I should read, like medicine you have to force down. Well, after reading these books and others, I’m surprising myself by saying: I love literature. Yes, I actually love it. I could read it for fun now and I will! It took time, it took getting over my preconceived ideas of literature, but I’m glad it tried it because I enjoy it now.

I enjoy all the unique ideas that these stories present, the different questions they ask, and how they get me thinking. I love reading world literature and seeing different cultures past and present through their eyes. Literature has this way of causing you to let go of your judgments and I think we all need a little more of that.

I am still new to Literature, and I have so many pieces I still need to read, but here are some novels and short stories I have read that I enjoyed that might help get you started:

• “Paradise of the Blind” by Duong Thu Huong
• “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting” by Milan Kundera
• “Paradise of the Blind” by Duong Thu Huong
• “Of Love and Other Demons” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• “Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes
• “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain
• “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard
• “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy
• “The Epic of Gilgamesh”
• “The Insufferable Gaucho” by Roberto Bolano
• “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• “Communist” by Richard Ford
• “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• “Cape Cod” by Henry David Thoreau
• “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” George Saunders

What are some of your favorite literary novels and short stories?

Read literature and explore all it has to offer, you won't regret it. I was intimidated at first too, but I am glad I studied literature and am able to see the world in new ways because of it.