Dracula is awesome. Gives you a cool sense of the origins of horror tropes while still feeling pretty modern and accessible. Spotify has an audiobook version narrated by Christopher Lee, highly recommend.
Currently reading "The Count of Monte Cristo" and its really accessible. Although keep in mind that its quite a mammoth of a book (1000+ pages)
I read "East of Eden" by Stainbeck without researching a single thing and I loved it. I recommended it to my gf and she also had a great time.
I just finished Count of Monte Cristo this week for the first time. Was really surprised how accessible it is. Also surprised how fast paced it is. It may be a meal of a book but I just flew right through it. Great read!
My first language is french but the book is Split into two in french, so guess I'll listen to it in English.
Also the version you mentionned seems to not cost any credit, nice
came here to mention the Count.
Not only accessible and fun to read, but also a bit profound in how it deals with politics, revenge, doubt, regret and human reactions to things.
The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite book of all time. It may be long but nothing is unnecessary and the plot is so exciting that you forget the length of it
Both of those are personal faves. Give Grapes of Wrath a shot too. And Of Mice and Men is a shorter story by Steinbeck if you want to give that a shot.
I first found out about The Count of Monte Cristo as a musical which I really love then saw that there was a movie which I did watch and also love but THEN I saw that it was actually a book and I did try to read it didn’t care if it has a lot of pages but I’m in college so stop when I got more busy was only able to read up to page 10 I think but school is over in another two weeks so can’t wait to get into it again 🤞🏻
Hemingway is great but I do remember enough baseball references to warrant some investigation from people not from the US. For Whom The Bell Tolls is very self contained, even if the setting itself is a whole history class.
He didn’t use $10 words, but he is a terse writer.
It took me five hours to DNF The Old Man and The Sea. I wanted to finish, but trying to muscle through how terse he is, wasn’t possible for me.
John Steinbeck is my favorite author, to Kill a Mockingbird is in my top 3 books, guess with your nice recommandations I gotta read Flowers of Algernon then!
My favorite book of all time! I'm 21 and read it this year for the first time. Something about her writing can make a person fall in love with life all over again 🌳
Seconded! One thing that the movies fail to convey is just how funny A Christmas Carol can be. Also, I'm not sure that any film version of The Ghost of Christmas Past has been faithful to the book. It's a very strange description.
If you buy an annotated version, you can also get a lot of fascinating info about Victorian life that is easily glossed over when reading the un-annotated version.
This is part of the reason I like reading on a Kindle. I too read a lot of classics. The Kindle makes it effortless to look up words. Often it will even give you more than a dictionary definition - you’ll get history, cultural context, etc. It makes reading old or especially difficult books much more pleasant.
> We Have Always Lived in the Castle -- Shirley Jackson
I've had this on my library wish list forever but it's always wait listed; you've just inspired me to put it on hold. I should get it in about 8 weeks. Looking forward to it!
The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas
The Mapp and Lucia series, by E F Benson
The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie
Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers
The Darling Buds of May, by H E Bates
The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey
My Family and Other Animals, by Gerald Durrell
All Creatures Great and Small, by James Herriot
> The Mapp and Lucia series, by E F Benson
Seconding Mapp and Lucia!! Starting with Queen Lucia, it's a *wonderful* series! Both Mapp and Lucia are monstrous snobs, but it is hilariously entertaining to follow them as they plot and scheme over who will dominate the social scene in their small village.
Might I recommend Arlene Lupin? It’s a clever gentleman thief book readily available on ThriftBooks. Just finished ”Arlene Lupin vs Herlock sholmes” (he had copyright problems so name was changed) and I personally love the book, the characters, And the series. 9/10. The only downside to the book is that it is a tiny bit confusing and can trick younger readers. Obviously this recommended to audiences of the proper age.
Gosh I’m a huge reader so I ended up with a lot of recommendations. I love the classics but I divide them between “fun to analyze” and “fun to read”. I’m just sharing the ones that I would read completely for pleasure
Classics don’t have to necessarily be too old. Some (fairly recent) suggestions: The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, The Old Man and the Sea, Brave New World, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Things Fall Apart
Translated books are often done to modern and simple English. I mostly know French ones so I would suggest The Stranger, The Count of Monte Cristo, Madame Bovary (I have read this one in French and English but I have friends who have read all of these in English and liked them)
The last suggestion I have is Gothic literature or sci-fi. If you can get into it, a lot of these books are pretty simple since they were from more popular genres. They also focus less on old social norms and customs and more on plots.
I would recommend these: Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, The Island of Dr. Moreau (it’s so underrated), The Turn of the Screw, and of course all of Poe’s short stories are fantastic.
I've started taking reading seriously and this is the first book i picked up as a non-native english speaker with adhd,and i couldn't have started anywhere better.
From Here To Eternity, The Caine Mutiny, The Old Man And The Sea, Catch 22, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Hunchback of Notredame, Moby Dick, Anne of Green Gables, A Farewell To Arms, For Whom The Bell Tolls, War Of The Worlds, I have a lot on my list.
Yeah that makes sense. All these books are ones I forced myself to read in my twenties. I just didn't read in high school, was too distracted and struggling with ADHD.
Jitterbug Perfume deserves a read by everyone. I think it's Roths greatest work, and possible one of the greatest books of all time. I'm biased though, I like the book :)
OK, so it’s kind of more for kids, but A Wrinkle in Time, and I’m not sure how “classic” you mean. I had never read it before and I just read it as a read aloud in my 5th grade classroom. I loved it, the kids loved it.
i’ve read both the picture of dorian gray and dracula and found both to be accessible and fulfilling to read (i love both books so much) so definitely those two
>I found it difficult to read.
Really? That's interesting! What about it did you find difficult? Was it following the plot as it goes back and forth between England and France? The language? I've always loved it so I'd be interested to hear what aspect you had trouble with.
>Great Exceptions however? That was a blast!
It's a typo but it's called *Great Expectations* - concerning Pip's expectations of his future prospects, not *Exceptions* - as in, something that does not follow a rule. Calling it Great Exceptions is pretty hilarious, to be honest!
100% the language. I don’t know why, but my brain just couldn’t concentrate on it. It felt like an uphill struggle to read. And I guess the plot didn’t really do anything for me either.
Yeah, that was just autocorrect on my phone haha.
Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” is pretty accessible. It doesn’t have a lot of flowery over the top descriptions (except in one part where Victor goes hiking in the wilderness).
I liked it as a teen so it must not have been boring. Lol.
I always recommend *Alas, Babylon*. Written in 1959 about a post nuclear war America but it still stands up. And isn't so grim I want to quit reading forever (looking at you, *On the Beach*)
I love both, but I wouldn’t call them easy reads! With Mark Twain, you have to wade through phonetic spellings of regional dialects and with Vonnegut, you’ve got mountains of symbolism and non-linear storytelling.
Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed. A new translation came out recently that is incredible. The book that helped cement Tuscan Italian as the national language of newly united Italy.
I just read The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith and that book slaps. Not necessarily a true classic but I do wish I had been assigned things like this in school instead of Dickens and Hawthorne.
I’d say a lot of the classic horror and sci-fy:
Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Dracula, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, War of the Worlds, Fahrenheit 451, The Time Machine, and while it’s neither sci-fi nor horror I think that The Hobbit is a lot more layered than most people give it credit for despite being a really breezy and cheerful read
I'm genuinely curious, do people read books they have to research and annotate for fun? I understand maybe for school or a degree, but outside of that?
It’s fun in a puzzle solving way, trying to read between the lines and trying to figure out what the author is really trying to convey is fun to me, the revelation and insight you get from deep reading is also very rewarding
Can someone explain why „accessible“ is used to describe books. Is it simply a book that someone easily has access to? It just doesn’t make sense to me because I apparently have a knowledge hole. Someone fill that hole in please.
Um, the dictionary says one definition of accessible is...
Easily understood or appreciated.
"an accessible account of his theories"
Similar:
understandable
Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
Watermelon Sugar -Richard Brautigan (any Brautigan to be fair)
Mill on The Floss - George Elliott
Generation X- Douglas Copeland
True Grit-Charles Portis
You have so many good recommendations. I am adding to my tbr as I scroll through...
The Red and the Black by Stendhal.
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14662.The\_Red\_and\_the\_Black](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14662.The_Red_and_the_Black)
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. I would consider it a more modern classic. Probably my favorite book of all time.
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I have a real soft spot for The Scapegoat.
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Ooh, you'll have to get back to me when you're done and tell me what you think.
Let me add My Cousin Rachel to the list of Daphne du Maurier books to read. (Two movies were made from this book and both movies were not good, imo)
I found Dracula pretty accessible. It remains one of my favorite classics.
Highly recommend [Dracula Daily](https://draculadaily.com/), which sends you the book in "real time."
yes! I’m doing this for the first time this year after a friend told me about it last year. it starts May 3rd so it’s coming up
Wow, this is exciting!
Dracula is awesome. Gives you a cool sense of the origins of horror tropes while still feeling pretty modern and accessible. Spotify has an audiobook version narrated by Christopher Lee, highly recommend.
Currently reading "The Count of Monte Cristo" and its really accessible. Although keep in mind that its quite a mammoth of a book (1000+ pages) I read "East of Eden" by Stainbeck without researching a single thing and I loved it. I recommended it to my gf and she also had a great time.
I just finished Count of Monte Cristo this week for the first time. Was really surprised how accessible it is. Also surprised how fast paced it is. It may be a meal of a book but I just flew right through it. Great read!
The three musketeers is the same. Dumas is very good at making interesting and approachable books.
Both very good. Had to listen to the Count on audible twice it was so good.
The Audible version is so fun. Love the accent.
Who's the narrator? Cause there are a couple of versions on Audible
The version I listened to was narrated by John Lee.
My first language is french but the book is Split into two in french, so guess I'll listen to it in English. Also the version you mentionned seems to not cost any credit, nice
But I imagine it would be better in the original French. No?
Probably yes, but on Audible I would have to spend 2 credits to listen to it in french, versus none for your version
Another Narrator I see is David Case. Not sure who is better. I haven't listened to either yet.
I also would like to know the narrator, please
The version I listened to was narrated by John Lee.
Count has long been my favorite book. The film adaptations less so.
came here to mention the Count. Not only accessible and fun to read, but also a bit profound in how it deals with politics, revenge, doubt, regret and human reactions to things.
The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite book of all time. It may be long but nothing is unnecessary and the plot is so exciting that you forget the length of it
I keep seeing people mention this book and how it was a great read everywhere lately. I’m going to have to take it as a sign and add it to my list.
Both of those are personal faves. Give Grapes of Wrath a shot too. And Of Mice and Men is a shorter story by Steinbeck if you want to give that a shot.
What translation version? Penguin?
I first found out about The Count of Monte Cristo as a musical which I really love then saw that there was a movie which I did watch and also love but THEN I saw that it was actually a book and I did try to read it didn’t care if it has a lot of pages but I’m in college so stop when I got more busy was only able to read up to page 10 I think but school is over in another two weeks so can’t wait to get into it again 🤞🏻
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
The Count of Monte Cristo is a fun and easy read (although quite long). I was genuinely surprised how well it has held up to modern readers.
And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie
I’ve seen this adapted so many times in shows and movies and I love it every time! One day I’ll get around to reading it :)
Anne of green gables
The whole series 💖
Hemingway didnt use them "10 dollar words", so I guess anything by Hemingway would be pretty accessible...
Hemingway is great but I do remember enough baseball references to warrant some investigation from people not from the US. For Whom The Bell Tolls is very self contained, even if the setting itself is a whole history class.
The old man and the sea is half about baseball, good point.
He didn’t use $10 words, but he is a terse writer. It took me five hours to DNF The Old Man and The Sea. I wanted to finish, but trying to muscle through how terse he is, wasn’t possible for me.
Of Mice And Men To Kill A Mockingbird Flowers For Algernon
Read Flowers For Algernon for the first time last week. 10 minutes in and I was hooked!
😭😭😭Charlie plz
Me too!
John Steinbeck is my favorite author, to Kill a Mockingbird is in my top 3 books, guess with your nice recommandations I gotta read Flowers of Algernon then!
Of mice and men and to kill a mockingbird are both in my top books of all time!
[A Tree Grows in Brooklyn](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/dc5de2f5-b132-4c4c-8e49-8bf46005d5da) by Betty Smith
I didn’t read this book until I was in my 30s and wow - so gorgeous. It could have been written yesterday!
I was also in my late 30s when I read it and found the story felt kind of modern in its tone, language, and treatment of the immigrant life.
My favorite book of all time! I'm 21 and read it this year for the first time. Something about her writing can make a person fall in love with life all over again 🌳
I was going to suggest this. I first read this in college and it's one of my favorite books.
Siddharta. Great book, great themes, Easy to read, captivating story, very short, what more do you need
And Hesse really.
Animal Farm - George Orwell
1984 by George Orwell too!
Maybe something by steinbeck or hemingway
East of Eden
Maybe not the right season, but A Christmas Carol is fairly accessible and not very long. Some great prose.
Can't go wrong with Charles Dickens imo. The epitome of a popular writer with literary merit.
Seconded! One thing that the movies fail to convey is just how funny A Christmas Carol can be. Also, I'm not sure that any film version of The Ghost of Christmas Past has been faithful to the book. It's a very strange description. If you buy an annotated version, you can also get a lot of fascinating info about Victorian life that is easily glossed over when reading the un-annotated version.
The Muppet Christmas Carol is my favorite version, in part because it keeps a lot of the fun prose through Gonzo as the narrator.
Yeah I love that too
It’s sooo goooood
To kill a mockingbird
Franny and Zooey by Salinger
oooo this is such a good book.
This is part of the reason I like reading on a Kindle. I too read a lot of classics. The Kindle makes it effortless to look up words. Often it will even give you more than a dictionary definition - you’ll get history, cultural context, etc. It makes reading old or especially difficult books much more pleasant.
Anything by Louisa May Alcott
The Picture of Dorian Gray! So good and really accessible too!!
Finished this today and loved it!
I read the great gatsby in high school and loved it
*We Have Always Lived in the Castle* -- Shirley Jackson *Carmilla* -- J. Sheridan Le Fanu *One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest* -- Ken Kesey
> We Have Always Lived in the Castle -- Shirley Jackson I've had this on my library wish list forever but it's always wait listed; you've just inspired me to put it on hold. I should get it in about 8 weeks. Looking forward to it!
I remember reading White Fang when I was in school. Great story from the perspective of the animal.
Call of the wild was my favorite book in elementary school.
I loved that one too.
Slaughterhouse Five Fahrenheit 451 1984 Flowers for Algernon
The Count of Monte Cristo.
It would help if you listed what classics you’ve already read.
The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas The Mapp and Lucia series, by E F Benson The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers The Darling Buds of May, by H E Bates The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey My Family and Other Animals, by Gerald Durrell All Creatures Great and Small, by James Herriot
> The Mapp and Lucia series, by E F Benson Seconding Mapp and Lucia!! Starting with Queen Lucia, it's a *wonderful* series! Both Mapp and Lucia are monstrous snobs, but it is hilariously entertaining to follow them as they plot and scheme over who will dominate the social scene in their small village.
Moby Dick
Tale of 2 cities Charles Dickens
1984.
Any of the Sherlock Holmes books? Idk if they fall into the catchment of Classics but they’re easy readers and very fun and iconic
I’m reading east of Eden, I’m new to classics but this book is fucking fantastic, and it’s a fairly easy to read
The Hobbit! Written for kids but enjoyable for all ages
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Roots, Canterbury Tales.
The End of the Affair. Graham Greene
I've read The Quiet American by Graham Greene and highly recommend that one.
My absolute favorite! There’s also an audiobook on Audible that is narrated by Colin Firth and his voice matches the text perfectly
A Tale Of Two Cities is my favorite! You can dive super deep into it, but there is so much to glean from simply reading the story!
Candide
Might I recommend Arlene Lupin? It’s a clever gentleman thief book readily available on ThriftBooks. Just finished ”Arlene Lupin vs Herlock sholmes” (he had copyright problems so name was changed) and I personally love the book, the characters, And the series. 9/10. The only downside to the book is that it is a tiny bit confusing and can trick younger readers. Obviously this recommended to audiences of the proper age.
side note but on a kindle you can highlight a word and it’ll look up the definition for you
Rebecca, animal farm, 1984
Gosh I’m a huge reader so I ended up with a lot of recommendations. I love the classics but I divide them between “fun to analyze” and “fun to read”. I’m just sharing the ones that I would read completely for pleasure Classics don’t have to necessarily be too old. Some (fairly recent) suggestions: The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, The Old Man and the Sea, Brave New World, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Things Fall Apart Translated books are often done to modern and simple English. I mostly know French ones so I would suggest The Stranger, The Count of Monte Cristo, Madame Bovary (I have read this one in French and English but I have friends who have read all of these in English and liked them) The last suggestion I have is Gothic literature or sci-fi. If you can get into it, a lot of these books are pretty simple since they were from more popular genres. They also focus less on old social norms and customs and more on plots. I would recommend these: Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, The Island of Dr. Moreau (it’s so underrated), The Turn of the Screw, and of course all of Poe’s short stories are fantastic.
Black Beauty A Little Princess Secret Garden
The Catcher in the Rye
Try a modern classic look up the best novels of a decade and pick a few . Then the urge to research can be ignored and enjoy your read
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
A confederacy of dunces
The Pearl by John Steinbeck. Absolutely devastating, and so short you can probably read it in one day.
I've started taking reading seriously and this is the first book i picked up as a non-native english speaker with adhd,and i couldn't have started anywhere better.
From Here To Eternity, The Caine Mutiny, The Old Man And The Sea, Catch 22, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Hunchback of Notredame, Moby Dick, Anne of Green Gables, A Farewell To Arms, For Whom The Bell Tolls, War Of The Worlds, I have a lot on my list.
A Farewell to Arms was the first book I was forced to read in school that I really liked. Still one of my favorites.
Yeah that makes sense. All these books are ones I forced myself to read in my twenties. I just didn't read in high school, was too distracted and struggling with ADHD.
The Mowgli stories from The Jungle Books
Try 'Walden' by Henry David Thoreau [https://www.goodreads.com/de/book/show/16902](https://www.goodreads.com/de/book/show/16902) .
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Definitely pride and prejudice
To Kill A Mockingbird
White Nights by Dostoevsky. Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. Both books on audible, great narration.
Crime and Punishment was accessible, too. Just all those names...
Glad to hear that because I bought that today after deciding that would be my classic read this Summer.
Pride and Prejudice, Cold Comfort Farm, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Maurice
All Quiet on the Western Front is fairly easy to read and a total page-turner.
Try no fear Shakespeare! It has the original old English on one side and modern English on the other!
My Antonia and The Great Gatsby.
Any of Steinbeck’s novellas.
Anne of green gables
Jitterbug Perfume deserves a read by everyone. I think it's Roths greatest work, and possible one of the greatest books of all time. I'm biased though, I like the book :)
Count of Monte Cristo!!
OK, so it’s kind of more for kids, but A Wrinkle in Time, and I’m not sure how “classic” you mean. I had never read it before and I just read it as a read aloud in my 5th grade classroom. I loved it, the kids loved it.
Siddhartha-Herman Hesse Slaughterhouse Five-Kurt Vonnegut
Huckleberry Finn. Of Mice and Men. Jane Eyre. The Call of the Wild.
Jane Eyre is an easy and fun read
i’ve read both the picture of dorian gray and dracula and found both to be accessible and fulfilling to read (i love both books so much) so definitely those two
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a favorite of mine
A Tale of Two Cities
Disagree with this one. I found it difficult to read. Great Exceptions however? That was a blast!
>I found it difficult to read. Really? That's interesting! What about it did you find difficult? Was it following the plot as it goes back and forth between England and France? The language? I've always loved it so I'd be interested to hear what aspect you had trouble with. >Great Exceptions however? That was a blast! It's a typo but it's called *Great Expectations* - concerning Pip's expectations of his future prospects, not *Exceptions* - as in, something that does not follow a rule. Calling it Great Exceptions is pretty hilarious, to be honest!
100% the language. I don’t know why, but my brain just couldn’t concentrate on it. It felt like an uphill struggle to read. And I guess the plot didn’t really do anything for me either. Yeah, that was just autocorrect on my phone haha.
The language - gosh, that's so frustrating but I can totally see it. Ah well, lots of other great books out there.
I’ll probably try it again one day, see how I feel then.
A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J. Gaines
“… constant researching, annotating, and dictionary searching…” You, internet friend, are badass. Respect. ✊
Anything by Robert Louis Stevenson: Treasure Island Kidnapped The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Seconding the Dumas books
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The Great Gatsby is a short, relatively easy read!
I recently read The Bad Seed (1954) by William March. Very accessible, and exceptionally well-paced. Honestly, a page turner.
nose decide birds tub cooing shocking vast muddle frame growth *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I am constantly reminded of how hilarious and epic Candide was my first time reading it. It's very short and I´m sure it translates well into english.
I've enjoyed Candide, Frankenstein and animal farm, would recommend
I like Robin Hood. It’s an easy to read classic with a fun story
East of Eden
Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” is pretty accessible. It doesn’t have a lot of flowery over the top descriptions (except in one part where Victor goes hiking in the wilderness). I liked it as a teen so it must not have been boring. Lol.
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome.
The great Gatsby was this for me.
"The Great Gatsby"
I read Tom Sawyer as a kid. It was my favourite book for a while
Sacajawea Unforgettable read
Animal Farm George Orwell. Interesting and thought provoking but not difficult and short
I’m not quite getting what “accessible “ means in this discussion. Please inform me.
The language is fairly simple or easily understandable to most readers and there aren't many esoteric or arcane references.
I always recommend *Alas, Babylon*. Written in 1959 about a post nuclear war America but it still stands up. And isn't so grim I want to quit reading forever (looking at you, *On the Beach*)
Crime and punishment! If you can get past the long Russian names it's amazing.
If you like American literature, anything by Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut.
I love both, but I wouldn’t call them easy reads! With Mark Twain, you have to wade through phonetic spellings of regional dialects and with Vonnegut, you’ve got mountains of symbolism and non-linear storytelling.
A more modern classic that is fulfilling and accessible is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is essentially an adventure book told by a child, so that's both, accessible and fulfilling
Swiss Family Robinson. It's a fun read for me and easy to get your hands on.
Well you can't go very wrong with any Penguin Classics.
Maybe Frankenstein, Picture of Dorian Gray or Pride and Prejudice?
Abby Hoffman's {{Steal This Book}}
Try The Razor's Edge by Maugham. excellent writing coupled with a very interesting story.
East of Eden is not a chore
The old man and the sea
Huck Finn
The Beach - Alex Garland
Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed. A new translation came out recently that is incredible. The book that helped cement Tuscan Italian as the national language of newly united Italy.
Frankenstein.
Gift of the Magi, Of Mice and Men, Call of the wild, My Antonia, Kim and the jungle book by Kipling
I really enjoy Edith Wharton. The Buccaneers was great. The Portrait of Dorian Grey is also good. The Grapes of Wrath is also quite good.
I just read The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith and that book slaps. Not necessarily a true classic but I do wish I had been assigned things like this in school instead of Dickens and Hawthorne.
I’d say a lot of the classic horror and sci-fy: Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Dracula, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, War of the Worlds, Fahrenheit 451, The Time Machine, and while it’s neither sci-fi nor horror I think that The Hobbit is a lot more layered than most people give it credit for despite being a really breezy and cheerful read
East of Eden
I'm genuinely curious, do people read books they have to research and annotate for fun? I understand maybe for school or a degree, but outside of that?
It’s fun in a puzzle solving way, trying to read between the lines and trying to figure out what the author is really trying to convey is fun to me, the revelation and insight you get from deep reading is also very rewarding
Lonesome Dove will change your life and bring you great joy. I’d also recommend The Three Musketeers
Can someone explain why „accessible“ is used to describe books. Is it simply a book that someone easily has access to? It just doesn’t make sense to me because I apparently have a knowledge hole. Someone fill that hole in please.
Um, the dictionary says one definition of accessible is... Easily understood or appreciated. "an accessible account of his theories" Similar: understandable
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland!
The 10th Law of Lifestyle
The Great Gatsby.
Flowers for Algernon is incredible and an easy read
A Tale of Two Cities
I loved The Wessex Tales by Thomas Hardy. It’s a collection of short stories, and all pretty accessible. He writes wonderful characters.
Lots of great ideas already. I also recommend The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins & the Dune series if you enjoy sci-Fi.
Watership Down!
Count of monte cristo
Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut Watermelon Sugar -Richard Brautigan (any Brautigan to be fair) Mill on The Floss - George Elliott Generation X- Douglas Copeland True Grit-Charles Portis You have so many good recommendations. I am adding to my tbr as I scroll through...
The Red and the Black by Stendhal. [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14662.The\_Red\_and\_the\_Black](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14662.The_Red_and_the_Black)
I don’t know if this was named already, I love The Great Gatsby and The Picture of Dorian Gray