Well, today’s YA authors surely are not all real writers. Although I would expect their books to at least have proper grammar and syntax, as an editor would be looking at it before publishing.
In my time what I read was Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne, Walter Scott, Louisa May Alcott, Bertrand Russell (lots of Bertrand Russell at around 15) P.G. Wodehouse (dozens of works by him) M.Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind”, and later on Agatha Christie, Jane Austen etc…
My daughter, two decades later, learned most of her English reading all the novels by Diana Wynne-Jones, Neal Gaiman. (not Harry Potter, she read that in Italian)
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Honestly as a European, with second language English, I sometimes have trouble with so called American slang, because the English I learned and still learn is mostly British English.
But there isn’t too much slang in translations as far as I can say, or see when I watch drama.
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Spooks (the series) helped me improve my understanding on British English a lot.
But it’s one of the two series (the other is Justified) that I seriously needed subs at times, because of the accents.
Well, I guess in a perfect world the editor has to be a notch above the subbers. Some are, some think they are, some could be with a little guidance.
We are stretched thin as it is in some languages, so it’s up to the CM, I guess.
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I don’t read contemporary literature in Greek anymore, because we are drowning in really, really bad writers.
I would advise reading books, even the Classics, in their original language if you can. My French and Russian was non-existent, so I had to read their Classics translated in Greek, but I’ve seen terrible, “mechanical” translations with no flow from books I can read in English and Greek and I was mortified. I happened to read a few pages of Harry Potter in French and it was legitimately awful work.
I learned English through Stephen King, John Lescroart, John le Carré, Ernest Hemingway and the likes, but not many people at that age like them. Rosamunde Pilcher is also a good choice. Also, I used to read articles, when journalists were professionals and not professional social media content copiers.
Yes, I’m aware my “contemporary” is last century. 
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It so happens that modern Greek has taken a lot of syntax from French, because of the influence of French culture at the time that modern Greek was crystallized. Same goes with Russian. French translations of Russian authors are very good because Russian was influenced by French a lot during the 18th and 19th century, being, just like in Greece “the” language to learn, and the aristocracy dropped French sentences every now and then (just as snobbish Indians do with English).
Therefore, if you read Greek translations of French and Russian authors, you’re more or less OK. Unlike the English, which has a completely alien structure, and comes out completely ridiculous if you keep the syntax and word order as it is. (Remember Asterix in Britanny?)
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LOL! I always thought that most people here at Viki would be around my age but was surprised to realize that some of my team members were closer to my mom’s age 
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As someone who loves languages, I can’t stress how important this is. If you really want to read something translated, then at least make sure you found a decent translation. My Spanish teacher recommended I read The Alchemist (originally in Portuguese). I was talking to a nativle Spanish speaker on iTalki and she led me to a decent Spanish version. Native speakers are your best friend.
I have quite a few classmates who enjoy reading Stephen King, but I personally, have yet to read any of his books. My mom read Ernest Hemingway when she was learning English, so I kind of hopped on the bandwagon and read The Old Man and The Sea. I can’t say it was my favorite book but at least the grammar was flawless.
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Or even your grandma’s… depending on how old you are.
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I message someone I’ve worked on a lot of projects with to see if she would be interested in working on a show that I’m moderating, but she said she couldn’t because she had to help her kids prepare for exams. All this time I thought she was 19 or 20, at most.
I can’t help but wonder if she had been thinking I was around her age too. 
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My grandmother’s in her mid/late sixties.
Yes my own grandmother if alive would be in her 80s closer to 90. I have found two users who have grandkids my age and people who are my mother’s age or have children who are my age.
I am their darling in every sense of the word.
I think reading classics is an excellent way to get into the language. I learned Korean from comic books. I’m probably the only one to have done so.
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You’re not alone. I’ve started reading webtoons and writing down new vocabulary so I can study it later. I did that with a few K-pop songs too.
I may not be able to ask for directions to the bathroom, but at least I can confess my love for someone in multiple ways
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Oh, that reminds me how I learned what German I know from Schubert Lieder. Once I met a group of German youngsters at a singing workshop in my country (they had followed their teacher) and all the way back to the city, in the bus, I spoke to them using language from Lieder and operettas. It must have been immensely funny for them, we had lots of laughs and became quite chummy very quickly. One of the lines I remember, (from Lehar’s operetta Paganini) went “The glimmer of fire sizzles hot in my blood”
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Game of Thrones is one of the few well-written contemporary works that I’ve found lately. (But maybe I’m looking in the wrong places?)
Other common mistakes include confusion between appropriate times to use words/phrases between e.g. far away and faraway, everyday and every day, past and passed. Even the native speakers don’t always get these right.
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I heard chinese has no tenses???
Yes, that’s true. It was infuriating for other people that I happened to start learning German first year we were taught Ancient Greek at school, and Dativ and Akkusativ were so easy to me, because it’s the same rules basically.
I know I’m the minority, but I always preferred his more autobiographical books, like the Movable Feast.