Ways to understand "period" books.

Throughout high school and college, one finds themselves bombarded with books that can be complex...having to read plays from Shakespeare, and then reading other plays such as Arthur Miller's The Crucible. You must read books such as The Great Gatsby, Fahrenheit 451, and maybe other books such as those written by Jane Austen.

The problem with these books, is not their plots, as they can be very intriguing and great page turners. The problem lies in their complex language, and well, the fact that these books are "period" books.

How does one understand a book with language written so complex and so out of date? Teachers have always encouraged keeping a dictionary next to you for quick references. Sometimes one must read enough of it in order to understand it.

Going to places like SparkNotes helps one understand a book more. Then there is always the possibility of buying special guides to help you understand, and sometimes, in such cases like Shakespeare, there is always buying the Standard English version.

When you go into reading these types of books its important to go into it knowing you may have to look up stuff, it won't be as easily readable as modern books.

These are "period" books. What does that mean? It means a book is set in a different period from the reader's own time. A period book essentially gives off the vibe that one may have to know about customs of that time period to understand such a time period.

Sometimes its applying our own time's standards to a book written 50 or more years ago, that makes the book so hard to understand. Sometimes you will have to do background information about a time period from back then. Sometimes you just have to understand your history of other countries and other time periods.

Sometimes this can be so much work that it discourages people from wanting to read such books. Its like watching the movies...and classic movies on top of that...some people just prefer modern because they live in the modern era where they know how things go down.