Literature

I enjoy reading a lot. My favorites are the Bible and various classic literature by writers such as Mark Twain, Jules Verne, and Robert Louis Stevenson. I have given up on reading most modern literature. For example, I tried to read Stephen King's "Bag of Bones" years ago and found it so vulgar that I gave up. The only "recent" fiction I've read is the Harry Potter series. I still read a lot of non-fiction (Finance, Bible study aides) books plus books of facts like almanacs.

A favorite classic of mine is the "The Scarlet Pimpernel" by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. I was reminded of this recently when I saw the Facebook page of a young man (Derek Ratliff) I go to church with . The story is about a man who appears to be a brainless rich aristocrat who turns out to be a dashing brave famous hero (The Scarlet Pimpernel) who saves French aristocrats from the clutches of the French "Reign of Terror". Does the general premise of that sound familiar (rich man who is actually a hero that nobody could believe would be him)? I've always felt that this book was the forerunner of the disguised superhero genre that is popular to this day (Bruce Wayne/Batman, Tony Stark/Ironman, etc). It's not an immensely long book (about like Treasure Island). It has some history in it concerning the French Revolution. I'd recommend you give it a read.

What I've just found out is the Baroness wrote other prequels and sequels to this book. I am already scouting out a few to buy to find out the further adventures of "The Scarlet Pimpernel"