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Old 08-18-2013, 08:20 AM   #12
Neverwhere
Nameless Being
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by caleb72 View Post
This is one aspect of electronic literature that I've really profited from - the availability of public domain classics.

If you like societal comment and non-erotic romance, it seems appropriate to recommend authors such as E M Forster and Jane Austen. You've already written that you enjoyed Sense and Sensibility so there's no reason you wouldn't start working through more Austen novels.

If you do like Sci Fi, you could do worse than dabbling in some H G Wells. I've read two before and I'm just starting my third and I certainly haven't been disappointed.

I can't talk about classics without recommending Dostoyevsky. It's my goal to finish reading all of his novels before I die. I've only read three so far and enjoyed all of them.

Then there's the adventure type classics and there are an abundance of these: Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexander Dumas, John Buchan and Jack London.

I see there have been a couple of haunting/gothic suggestions come through (Lovecraft, Poe, M R James). You could possibly add another work or two:
- The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
- Dracula by Bram Stoker (of course)

Our book club also read Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu and some of us really enjoyed that.

Another book with a fairly heavy atmosphere that I really enjoyed reading was Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

I haven't read everything I've mentioned and (to be honest) I didn't actually like The Turn of the Screw. However its renown as a classic ghost story is indisputable.

I have to mention also, that when the book club read Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, I was blown away.

Lastly, if you like dystopian classics, let me throw my hat in the ring for 1984 by George Orwell and We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (this one not public domain in English).

In any case, there's so many wonderful books to choose from. I could drop all other books and just read public domain classics for the rest of my life and still got get my fill.
Hi Caleb. Thank you for replying! Depending on how I respond to the rest of Jane Austen's novels, I'll be sure to add a few of E.M. Forster's works to my list. I'm a big fan of sci-fi, but I've always been a bit uncertain with regards to HG Wells - wasn't that terrible Tom Cruise movie based on a book of his? (That being said, I've seen a lot of really terrible movies based on excellent books, so I shouldn't use movies as a gauge of merit!)

I've added all of the individual books that you've listed to my ever-growing document of to-be-read classics. I've actually wanted to read both Heart Of Darkness and Dracula for a while, but wasn't sure - I've heard some dreary feedback about both of them. I'm willing to give anything a go when it's presented as part of such a thorough post, though!

Dystopias are a source of great (albeit ... masochistic?) entertainment for me, and I've already read 1984. (I've read Animal Farm, too.) It was an interesting, short read, though I preferred Aldous Huxley's Brave New World by leaps and bounds - it always makes my top-ten-books list.

EDIT:

Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant View Post
Clearly you should read the other books by Jane Austen: Emma, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice.

No-one's recommended Kipling yet. I strongly recommend Kim - the version I uploaded here has a very clean text.

If you want to see the lighter side of Oscar Wilde, read The Canterville Ghost.

The Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are obviously worth reading.
Hi pdurrant. I apologise for seemingly skipping over your response - it didn't appear until I came back to check pwalker8's response. I'm not sure why. Jane Austen's other works are sitting on my Kobo awaiting my attention, as I read Sense and Sensibility from a Jane Austen collection that I purchased on Amazon. I'm really looking forward to them.

Thank you for your other recommendations - I've downloaded Kim, but not The Canterville Ghost - I'm not much for comedy in books. I prefer to listen to or watch humour. A friend owns a gorgeous edition of the Sherlock Holmes works, so I'll see if I can borrow it from her at some stage. (Or I'll simply download it - whichever suits my fancy when I get to it!)


Last edited by Neverwhere; 08-18-2013 at 08:58 AM.
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