RECOMMEND UNTO ME GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE

Jan 6, 2008 at 5:48 PM
10 comments

Recently a friend told me about Barnes & Nobles Classic Literature section. Great works of Literature for as little as $2.50. In a bit of synchronicity, I received an $100 B&N gift certificate for my birthday.

Yes, that sloppy squishy sound you hear is me salivating (rummages for drool bucket). The stars have aligned. The Book Nerd Gods are smiling down upon my beetled little brow. I'm almost giddy. So giddy that, like Michael Jackson at an International Cub Scout Jamboree, I can't make up my mind.

So help me fellow book nerds. Recommend unto me great works of literature for my collection. I've read a few. Twain and Cervantes come to mind. RPM has already recommended Hardy's "Jude The Obscure." But there's plenty room for more.

10 comments

Tags:

books,
recommended

Comments

[this is good]

I did my work. *sits back comfortably and waits*

[this is good]

Jude the Obscure is an excellent novel! I'm always down with some Virginia Woolf. Frankenstein and Dracula are both great reads. Madame Bovary - surprisingly witty. Jane Austen, of course. Hmmm. I'd do better with "great novels of the last 30 years".

Read Frankenstien and Dracula already. Will add Bovary and Woolf to the list... any particular Woolf?

And by all means, "the last 30 years" or the last 30 minutes works for me. The discounts won't be as deep though.

I might add that I'm a freak for Sci-fi

I'm not much of a sci-fi reader, but you might enjoy Jonathan Lethem's "Girl in Landscape" as a literary/ sci-fi/ western.... For Woolf I would recommend "Mrs. Dalloway." Apart from that, these are some of my faves:

Paul Auster: New York Trilogy
Martin Amis: The London Fields
Barbara Kingsolver: The Poisonwood Bible
Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicles
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: 100 Years of Solitude

The list of possibles so far - link

I second your suggestion of 100 Years of Solitude. Loved.That.Book.

I might add that I'm a freak for Sci-fi

Don't shortchange yourself. You're a freak, in general. *ducks*

Philistine

Sci-fi geek! YEA! Robert Asprin - Phule books always a hoot (and the Myth series is also entertaining even if it's more fantasy). As for serious stuff, I stand before the classics-for-cheap section and wish for guidance. I have To Kill a Mockingbird (no - never saw the film). Beyond that, I am worthless. I know we read a bunch of stuff in high school that I was far too young/disinterested to appreciate. Now that I'm old, I can't remember what any of them were.

Bartleby the Scrivener springs to mind. But I understand if you would prefer not to...

W. Somerset Maugham, Dickens, Trollope, Wilkie Collins (the first authentic mystery novel ever!), Raymond Carver, EM Forster, Hurston, DeLillo, Didion, Voltaire, Balzac, Stendahl, Defoe. That's just a start.

RECOMMEND UNTO ME GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE

Comments

Post a comment

About Me

Neighborhood

Tags

Archives

Freak Angels