BTT: Old Books or New?

http://btt2.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/now-or-then/

Do you prefer reading current books? Or older ones? Or outright old ones? (As in, yes, there’s a difference between a book from 10 years ago and, say, Charles Dickens or Plato.)

I like to read a mix of current and older books. Even a few 'outright old ones' now and then; although reading only those would get a bit too heavy, I think ;) But I do enjoy reading and re-reading some of the classic novels from the late 18th, 19th and early 20th century. British and Swedish authors especially, but also some of the Russians and the French (in translation). I never read Plato, but I did read (for example) Confessions by St Augustine of Hippo (354-430). I don't think I've read every novel by Dickens, but some of them I've read twice. But then I've been reading for a long time by now... ;)

Currently reading/listening to:


Unseen Academicals (2009) by Terry Pratchett  - No 37 (!) in the Discworld series.

Barn av sin stad ('Children of their City') (1962) by Per Anders Fogelström  - second in a series of historical novels about Stockholm; this one covering the period from 1880-1900.

Curious Myths of the Middle Ages by Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) (a chapter now and then).