Captains Courageous

Eh, why not? Make it three straight books from 1897. Rudyard Kipling has written books more famous than this one (does The Jungle Book ring a bell?) and although Captains Courageous has been made into a movie at least a few times in the past hundred years I'd hardly call it an integral part of the Western canon. It's a simple coming of age tale about a rich and spoiled boy who falls overboard from his parents' steamship only to be rescued and immediately put to work by a fishing vessel. Throughout the tale's 200 pages, the boy learns about the personal achievement one feels by doing ones own hard work, and by the end of the novel he's a very changed person as he reunites with his parents. Like I said, the whole thing isn't very memorable, but at least I credit Kipling with penning a novel in a style of prose that feels modern and not completely dated. (Looking at you, Bram Stoker.) I doubt I'll get to The Jungle Book any time soon, as it isn't on my backlog and doesn't seem like anything I should go out of my way to read, but this small sampling of Kipling at least didn't turn me off from his writing in general. So, kudos.