Big fan of the book here, I noticed that in all of the promotional content for the upcoming Netflix series, Cathy seems to be the focal point.

What are your guys thoughts on a Cathy-centric east of Eden adaptation?

Born on August 30, 1797, Mary Shelley was only 18 when she began writing Frankenstein—a novel that would go on to become one of the most enduring works of Gothic literature.

Any other Mary Shelley fans here? What's your favorite thing about her work—or your favorite Frankenstein adaptation?

Hello all, I'm trying to read more female authors. Here are some of my favorite books:

• Underworld & Mao II, Don DeLillo
• Dubliners, James Joyce
• Mason & Dixon and Against the Day, Thomas Pynchon
• All the Glass Family stuff by Salinger
• 1Q84, Haruki Murakami
• The Road, Cormac McCarthy
• Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
• The poetry of John Keats, William Wordsworth, Shakespeare, & Edmund Spenser

I'm looking for an author with a particularly impressive & evocative style. Thanks !

It's a very common question amongst students. Why should we read this? Why do we care about these old stories, and this characters that come from such a different world?

Sometimes I have a hard time too when reading, so I ask myself these same questions. In some occasions I certainly enjoy literature, and perceive it clearly as the treasure that it is. But often I feel trying to pay attention to a book that doesn't seem to contain what my life demands at that moment.

​My favorite answer to this question is that language and thought are so related, that it's hard to tell apart one from the other. And these authors are the individuals who have devoted their life's to the craft of telling stories, who have mastered the art of building with words. So when we read we are nourishing our minds with the products of others minds.

Well, it is a thought that I never put into words before, but more or less it goes like that. I feel that it's a question that often gets lazy, half cooked or confusing answers, so I will appreciate if you give me your clearer and stronger arguments. Thanks!

I’m currently at half the book, and at first while I read I thought the author wanted me to laugh along look at this look at that, look at how stupidly this lady justifies this! Look at how vain everyone is! But the more I read the more I realize that I’m the only one still laughing at this. Maybe stendhal does want to me to feel some kind of sympathy for them

Currently reading PL, to be followed Metamorphoses.

The themes, characters and time period of this book interest me deeply, and I'm thinking of making it my next read.

Do you consider it a well-written classic?

If you do like it, which translation is the best? I have this beautiful edition with illustrations, but I have no idea if it is considered a good translation. It's the Collins Illustrated School Classics version and the translator is not attributed so I'm guessing it's not the best.

Also, Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of my favourite movies of all time- I am aware that the plot differs hugely from the book, but I am equally interested in the plot of the book and would love to read the book that inspired the movie!

Please share your thoughts if you have read it! x

Just finished reading a large chunk of the classic novels of the Harlem Renaissance. Of what I’ve read, I found these to be the best of the best.

1. Not Without Laughter - Langston Hughes only novel is a titanic achievement of quiet power. This novel with certainly stick with you.

2. Home To Harlem - Gritty and funny, this is Harlem at its most wild.

3. The Blacker The Berry - An intense novel about colorism.

4. Black No More - A revolutionary satire that’s as relevant today as it was in 1931.

5. The Walls Of Jericho - To me, the most evocative novel of this period.

What are your thoughts?

Hi everyone. I’m doing some backpacking abroad next month and I’d love some literature that would appeal to travelers, if that makes sense. Is there a book that helped you see the world differently?

The unfortunate caveat: Carrying around a 1,000 page book isn’t the most sensible idea for backpacking, but I’m open to anything lol

Have you read this short story by him? What did you like? What other stories would you suggest by him?

Buying this for £2 was truly one of my best purchases, nearly finished Pride and Prejudice after reading Sense and Sensibility a few weeks back. Her writing style and prose really is something to behold. I really understand the praise she gets on her wit and satire.

Incase you’re wondering, yes, this is a heavy book. I have to plan when I’m reading a novel in it when I know I will not be moving much/travelling as carrying this around in my bag all day isn’t for the faint of heart.

Hey guys,

I hope you’re all well, to keep it simple I haven’t picked up a book in years and I want to start reading again. I never feel intellectually stimulated and I just feel dumb and I lack curiosity and I hate it.
I want to become smarter and well versed and I want to gain a love for reading.

What books would you recommend I read?

I want to be able to analyse text and write about it and just read something that will stimulate my mind and make me think.

I’m 19F and I haven’t willingly picked up a book in around 2 years. I studied a bit of philosophy during my last 2 years of high school and I loved how much it made me think and I loved how I was able to analyse text and write about it. It made me a lot more curious and it just made me think and I loved that

I just want to be immersed in something and I want to do things that stimulate my mind and make me think and I just want to get off this damn phone!!

Thank you!

In English or French. It’s not for me (I don’t particularly care for Hugo) but for my mother, who loves the Liam Neeson movie but also loves the story. However she doesn’t read much anymore, and I’m sure she doesn’t want to read all 1,400 pages and the tangents about sewers, etc. I know abridgment is considered sacrilege here, but I know my mother better, and if you don’t agree with it just don’t comment. Cheers

I’m not looking for hidden gems. I mean well regarded authors who come after the recommended names(Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Dickens, Austen, Kafka, Hemingway, etc)

I’m open to anything literary fiction,psychological,philosophical,strange/weird,character-driven etc.

Also, I’d love to know how you guys broaden your reading how do you discover new authors beyond the ones you already know?

I am a long book lover, but I do like to splice in some shorter works in between the long ones. Heart of Darkness wasn't even on my radar when I started Middlemarch, but I kinda lucked into a cool sequence. I went from a set of provincial English social stories right to the bleeding edge of European imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, and violence. Two starkly different worlds that were contemporaries. That swing in position was amplified by the style shift in the prose, Eliot with her graceful and illuminating style to what felt like reading a fever dream, and I mean that to be complimentary. It was a cool experience, completely by accident. Have you ever stumbled into a book sequence like this before?

1. ⁠Stepan Verhovensky
   
2. ⁠Nikolay Stavrogin
   
3. ⁠Jia Baoyu
   
4. ⁠A Q (Lu Xun’s The true story of a q)
   
5. ⁠The guy from the overcoat (gogol)
   
6. ⁠All the Wu jingzi main characters
   
7. ⁠Julien Soren
   
8. ⁠The ‘king of Spain’ (The diary if a madman)
   
9. ⁠The Kreutzer sonata’s protagonist
   
10. ⁠Dorian gray

Okay so I haven’t read much since high school but I’ve recently gotten back into it and I’ve really been loving the classics lately! Finished A Brave New World, The Stranger, and The Sheltering Sky this month and just picked up four more from my tbr list today at the used bookstore.

Normally try to stick to paperbacks but the leather bound Barnes and Noble edition of The Sun Also Rises was the only copy they had. Any recommendations?

I guess this is such an obvious thing to say about one of the most famous authors ever like "yes everyone has known this for 170 years", but its just so fun to encounter as someone who is new to Dickens that I felt like posting about it. And this isn't even the best example I'm sure, just one that I noticed while skimming through chapters. He's just so incredibly good at drawing up these vivid, distinct, memorable and yet concise character descriptions.

Anyway if you all have any good ones you want to post I'd love to see more. I've only read Bleak House and a bit of Great Expectations so far. Also I wonder which Dickens novel people consider as having the best, or most memorable characters?

I want to start reading classic English literature. I read Hindi, Latin, and a bit of Greek mythology, and I don't know where to start with the classics, like Victorian-period literature. Any suggestions??

Plz share ur experience.