Poll: Do you prefer modern or classic literature?

It depends.

I love Victorian-era science fiction because their foresight and speculative ideas about an age that was coming was amazing. I mean Jule Verne imagined all sorts of planes, submarines, electrical gadgets, medical equipment and possibilities, and more before any such things existed. To hear him use language to describe these wonders of the world is amazing.

However, his weakness is often in the thing you like. His characters talk to the reader and often start the book with a confession that what you are about to read is an honest recollection of their amazing journey. But, then you know they live through it and it weakens all the tension of story telling. Even when they are thinking "I didn't know how we would survive such a disastrous turn of events!" as a reader I'm thinking, "I don't know either, but I know that you will because you established you survived in the first paragraph and if you are the narrator and die now the book would be over." So, I never get as emotionally invested in Victorian characters.

In contrast, modern fiction and literature is much more realistic. The stakes are often much higher and the story-telling techniques much tighter. But the beautiful use of language and often much of the optimism is gone is sacrificed to do this.

Right now I'm reading Journey to the Center of the Earth, but next up on my list is Andromeda Strain.

Honestly, I like both, especially modern books with a classical flair about them. It would also have to depend on my mood too, I guess. I'm a huge fan of Jane Austen and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is one of my favorite books, but I also love the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer and some of Meg Cabot's work. Just finished Teen Idol by Meg Cabot and Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George.

I prefer classics like Austen and Bronte but some modern are very good. Half way through Breaking Dawn (Twilight saga) and have just finished Adam Bede.

It's very wet here in the east mids

I prefer modern books, but read the occasional classic. I especially love Jane Austen. At the moment i'm reading the Time Traveller's Wife.

I prefer classics in general - Im going through phase of reading some real oldies, just finished Procopius' Secret History, which was pretty good!

I prefer the classics. Right now, I am reading the old books of Herman Wouk, and I am about to finish "The Hope." Try reading, Wouk's "War and Remembrance," and "The Winds of War." Fantastic books! Good luck to you and God bless you. Interesting question deserving of a star, so I give you a star.

I like modern books for brainless holiday fun type chicklit, but it's the classics I love and will remember. They just don't make them like that anymore. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is my personal favourite, and I also adore all the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Modern, classic is very annoying and hard to undrstand. Plus emotions are much better achieved in modern books. In classic books things like love is so fake.

Definitely classic literature. I just finished Mercadet by Honore' de Balzac.

classic, and I just finished rereading Madame Bovary and I'm thinking about going for some gold old Jane Austen. Easy reading that isn't mind numbing.