This
And this.
Those 2 books have shaped my life more than any other.
Literature
- Thread starter TerokNor
- Start date
Those 2 books have shaped my life more than any other.
IMHO....
Anything by Shakespeare
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Scarlet Letter
Lord of the Flies
Edgar Allan Poe's short stories (The Cask of Amontillado, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Masque of the Red Death are particularly good.)
1984
Animal Farm
The Guns of August
If you're looking for a more modern selection, I'd suggest....
The Killer Angels
Anything by Louis L'Amour (but especially his later works like The Iron Marshall and The Haunted Mesa.)
The Da Vinci Code (even if you don't agree with it's theology - which I don't - it's very well written and a page turner.)
The Left Behind series (again, even if you don't like the theology - which I again don't - they're very well written page turners.)
Are you looking for pure English-language works? Or are you open to English translations of works in other languages?
Anything by Shakespeare
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Scarlet Letter
Lord of the Flies
Edgar Allan Poe's short stories (The Cask of Amontillado, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Masque of the Red Death are particularly good.)
1984
Animal Farm
The Guns of August
If you're looking for a more modern selection, I'd suggest....
The Killer Angels
Anything by Louis L'Amour (but especially his later works like The Iron Marshall and The Haunted Mesa.)
The Da Vinci Code (even if you don't agree with it's theology - which I don't - it's very well written and a page turner.)
The Left Behind series (again, even if you don't like the theology - which I again don't - they're very well written page turners.)
Are you looking for pure English-language works? Or are you open to English translations of works in other languages?
I don't agree that it's well written. In fact, it's one of the worst examples of modern prose writing. I'm not saying that I could do better, and its success has made Dan Brown wealthy, but it sucks as literature.
ETA: An examination of Dan Drown's prose style by a professional linguist: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.html
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^ While I certainly don't put up as high as Lord of the Flies or Shakespeare, I think it definitely keeps the narrative flowing and effectively holds your interest.
I would put Dan Brown's books in the same category as Arthur Hailey's -- disposable pulp fiction for reading on airplanes. That's why most of them end up in charity shops.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8213355.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8213355.stm
A lot of people have said Huck Finn, but I wouldn't get into that yet, it's very dialect heavy, native English speakers can have a rough time with it.
Read Tom Sawyer first, then Huck Finn later on, IMO.
Also, if you'd like to develop a complex, read King Lear, Tale of Two Cities and Count of Monte Cristo back-to-back-to-back.
Thanks for all the suggestions. After I have finsihed my current books I will take a look at those books and see, if I like to read some of them.
I am not only looking for pure english books, if the english translation is well, it can be of course also books, that were written in other languages.
TerokNor
I am not only looking for pure english books, if the english translation is well, it can be of course also books, that were written in other languages.
TerokNor
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
Cather in the Rye is basically over-rated to me in that it's talked about too much. I've read it three times: high school, when I was 22, and when I was 35.
Holden is the biggest phony of them all.
Holden is the biggest phony of them all.
Then I'd also suggest the Signet Classics editions of Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Phantom of the Opera.
I'd also suggest John Ciardi's translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy.
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
He was never genuine in the whole book. He lies and is hypocritical.
He's not really a bad guy, but a typical teen that's scared about moving on and growing up after high school.
Oddly enough, the title refers to a line in a Sherlock Holmes story.
In retrospect, most of the books I read for school were decent, even if they weren't enjoyable at the time. However, can we please retire The Scarlet Letter from this pantheon of "great" English literature. It's boring as hell and while it deals with some interesting themes about guilt, its treatment of those themes is far too sophisticated for 99% of all high schoolers.
(At least we were lucky enough to escape Moby Dick. We still did a unit on it in my English class but we didn't have to read the book. We just watched the Gregory Peck movie.)
And while Brave New World presents some interesting sci-fi concepts, Huxley's prose is godawful. Plus, none of the characters are interesting and it's very jarring because it switches protagonists halfway through the book.
I didn't have to read Lord of the Flies until college, but even then, I couldn't make it through more than maybe 20 pages of it. There was just too much thick descriptions to cut through.
I didn't get Jane Eyre but I think that's just because I'm a boy.
Meanwhile, some classics that I would recommend:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Death of a Salesman
The Fountainhead (It's not a great book or even necessarily a popular book, but finishing it feels like an accomplishment!)
The Grapes of Wrath (I'm a huge John Steinbeck fan.)
Of Mice & Men
A Tale of Two Cities
The closest to so called "literature" (an oxymoron, if you ask me since all books can be considered such) that I've read were The Red Badge of Courage and Les Miserables. I also have The Great Gatsby and several Herman Mellville books as well as the entire Mark Twain collection in my library, but haven't read them yet.
I loved Macbeth and it was reading that play that got me into Shakespeare, but I wouldn't recommend reading the original if you don't speak English extremely well. I'ts one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult of Shakespeare's works in terms of language - not because of the outdated words (that is not a problem if you have a good edition with notes and a dictionary) but because of Macbeth's soliloquies which are full of complicated phrases.
I find it very odd that some posters found Wuthering Heights boring or couldn't like it until later in life, it shows you how we're all different. I first read it when I was 12 and adored it to the point of obsession (granted, I probably wasn't a typical 12-year old...), and re-read it multiple times over the course of the next year or so. That was in translation, though - I first read it in English at the university (3rd year) but it was easy to read, apart from a supporting character called Joseph who speaks in a thick Yorkshire accent (and it is made obvious in the writing, which makes his words near unintelligible, but it's not particularly important, you just need to get the general gist of what he's saying). I found WH as impressive at 22 as I did at 12, it's a timeless classic IMO (and pay no attention to any of the film adaptations, which are mostly sanitized and simplified Hollywood garbage).
Out of the other 19th century authors, I recommend Thomas Hardy, and some of the better Dickens novels like Great Expectations.
I also find it funny that people just throw Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen together as if they're the same, when they're not even remotely similar. I guess it's a case of "they all had a vagina, so they're the same, it's chick lit, right?"
Jane Eyre is more conventional in its narrative technique and attitudes than Wuthering Heights, though it was in its time quite revolutionary itself, with its representation of a young independent woman, and of a female desire and passion (something that was deemed shocking in Victorian age when good women were just supposed to be passive 'angels of home' who only sleep with their husbands out of marital duty and devotion to family) but from today's point of view it's just a tame little romance, a little naive and outdated. There's a great book of feminist criticism called "The Madwoman in the Attic" that derives its title from that novel, and it contains a great analysis of Jane Eyre (as well as Wuthering Heights and many other books of 19th century literature written by women) from the historical, psychological and cultural point of view.
Jane Austen is... well, very different. I am definitely not a fan, but Pride and Prejudice is OK as far as she goes. While Charlotte Bronte's work was full of emotion if a little naive at times (I think she would more aptly be compared to Dickens; they both criticize some aspects of the society, and tug at the heartstrings in the process, and their books tend to feature a young protagonist who is poor, orphaned, etc. dealing with life's hardships), Austen is very level-headed and rational in her portrayal of the English middle class society, and whatever anyone will have you believe, the matchmaking described in her novels has at least as much to do with social standing and class issues than with any romantic feelings.
As far as classics go, you could also try Thomas Fielding - his Tom Jones is a long novel, but it is fun, easy to read (you'll see that 18th century language wasn't really that different or difficult to understand, as long as the author wrote in simple, everyday language), and more colorful and lifelike than Victorian literature in many ways... let's just say that English culture of 18th century wasn't nearly as repressed (especially sexually) than that of the 19th century, so after you've been used to the ridiculously 'chaste' Victorian mainstream novels, Fielding is very refreshing. He has some very modern humanist ideas and criticized false morality of his day (such as can be found in some other 18th century authors that I was forced to read at the university).
As for American literature - I loved The Scarlet Letter. But I have to say that it deals with some difficult themes and concepts and has a very particular mindset... It certainly wouldn't be something I'd recommend to a high school student (I read it at year 3 at the university).
Back to the 20th century... You can't go wrong with To Kill a Mockingbird when it comes to rather simple English language, and it's not a difficult book to understand on any level, but it's still good. I also second The Lord of The Flies, but that one is... well, considerably darker. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a good book, but I prefer Point Counterpoint by the same author, it's richer and presents many of his ideas in more depth (though that one is not SF at all, while Brave New World is). I must say I wasn't all that impressed by The Catcher in the Rye... I wonder if that was because I was 22 when I read it and was already past the teen angst stage in my life. Maybe I would have related to it better when I was a teenager... we'll never know.
On the other hand, an author you should avoid before your command of English is excellent is William Faulkner - he tends to intentionally use some... odd styles and language constructions in his works.
As for SF - try something by Ursula LeGuin; how about The Left Hand of Darkness. And I most definitely recommend anything written bu Kurt Vonnegut, whether it falls into SF (Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, Galapagos), has nothing to do with SF at all (Mother Night) or falls somewhere in between (The Breakfast of Champions); the distinctions are irrelevant in his case, he was a unique author with a very specific style, themes,narrative structures, and worldview. And he's not difficult to read at all, even you have only basic English skills, so you really must give him a try.
I find it very odd that some posters found Wuthering Heights boring or couldn't like it until later in life, it shows you how we're all different. I first read it when I was 12 and adored it to the point of obsession (granted, I probably wasn't a typical 12-year old...), and re-read it multiple times over the course of the next year or so. That was in translation, though - I first read it in English at the university (3rd year) but it was easy to read, apart from a supporting character called Joseph who speaks in a thick Yorkshire accent (and it is made obvious in the writing, which makes his words near unintelligible, but it's not particularly important, you just need to get the general gist of what he's saying). I found WH as impressive at 22 as I did at 12, it's a timeless classic IMO (and pay no attention to any of the film adaptations, which are mostly sanitized and simplified Hollywood garbage).
Out of the other 19th century authors, I recommend Thomas Hardy, and some of the better Dickens novels like Great Expectations.
I also find it funny that people just throw Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen together as if they're the same, when they're not even remotely similar. I guess it's a case of "they all had a vagina, so they're the same, it's chick lit, right?"
Jane Eyre is more conventional in its narrative technique and attitudes than Wuthering Heights, though it was in its time quite revolutionary itself, with its representation of a young independent woman, and of a female desire and passion (something that was deemed shocking in Victorian age when good women were just supposed to be passive 'angels of home' who only sleep with their husbands out of marital duty and devotion to family) but from today's point of view it's just a tame little romance, a little naive and outdated. There's a great book of feminist criticism called "The Madwoman in the Attic" that derives its title from that novel, and it contains a great analysis of Jane Eyre (as well as Wuthering Heights and many other books of 19th century literature written by women) from the historical, psychological and cultural point of view.Jane Austen is... well, very different. I am definitely not a fan, but Pride and Prejudice is OK as far as she goes. While Charlotte Bronte's work was full of emotion if a little naive at times (I think she would more aptly be compared to Dickens; they both criticize some aspects of the society, and tug at the heartstrings in the process, and their books tend to feature a young protagonist who is poor, orphaned, etc. dealing with life's hardships), Austen is very level-headed and rational in her portrayal of the English middle class society, and whatever anyone will have you believe, the matchmaking described in her novels has at least as much to do with social standing and class issues than with any romantic feelings.
As far as classics go, you could also try Thomas Fielding - his Tom Jones is a long novel, but it is fun, easy to read (you'll see that 18th century language wasn't really that different or difficult to understand, as long as the author wrote in simple, everyday language), and more colorful and lifelike than Victorian literature in many ways... let's just say that English culture of 18th century wasn't nearly as repressed (especially sexually) than that of the 19th century, so after you've been used to the ridiculously 'chaste' Victorian mainstream novels, Fielding is very refreshing. He has some very modern humanist ideas and criticized false morality of his day (such as can be found in some other 18th century authors that I was forced to read at the university).
As for American literature - I loved The Scarlet Letter. But I have to say that it deals with some difficult themes and concepts and has a very particular mindset... It certainly wouldn't be something I'd recommend to a high school student (I read it at year 3 at the university).
Back to the 20th century... You can't go wrong with To Kill a Mockingbird when it comes to rather simple English language, and it's not a difficult book to understand on any level, but it's still good. I also second The Lord of The Flies, but that one is... well, considerably darker. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a good book, but I prefer Point Counterpoint by the same author, it's richer and presents many of his ideas in more depth (though that one is not SF at all, while Brave New World is). I must say I wasn't all that impressed by The Catcher in the Rye... I wonder if that was because I was 22 when I read it and was already past the teen angst stage in my life. Maybe I would have related to it better when I was a teenager... we'll never know.
On the other hand, an author you should avoid before your command of English is excellent is William Faulkner - he tends to intentionally use some... odd styles and language constructions in his works.
As for SF - try something by Ursula LeGuin; how about The Left Hand of Darkness. And I most definitely recommend anything written bu Kurt Vonnegut, whether it falls into SF (Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, Galapagos), has nothing to do with SF at all (Mother Night) or falls somewhere in between (The Breakfast of Champions); the distinctions are irrelevant in his case, he was a unique author with a very specific style, themes,narrative structures, and worldview. And he's not difficult to read at all, even you have only basic English skills, so you really must give him a try.
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In my case, I tended to dismiss such works as "chick-lit" and of little value. I certainly wasn't tempted to read WH by Kate Bush's gyrations. In any case, I've always been more interested in reading non-fiction than fiction.
If someone's trying to improve their English reading skills, I would think that both Shakespeare and Huckleberry Finn might not be so much help. Neither uses modern English--HF uses a lot of localized slang, doesn't it? Easy enough for a fluent English reader, but might not be as easy to understand for one working on his English skills. However, if one is seeking to increase their enjoyment of English (and plot and theme) after already knowing English, then he can't get better than Shakespeare.
Some of the Victorian writings--really enjoyable and some great films made that might aid in understanding--are also often different in their construction from modern English. I'm thinking of the huge use of commas and semi-colons, with sentences running for paragraphs. Not your typical written English.
Tons of other works to choose from that more clearly reflect modern English for one learning English or seeking to improve his skills. So many listed in this thread.
Some of the Victorian writings--really enjoyable and some great films made that might aid in understanding--are also often different in their construction from modern English. I'm thinking of the huge use of commas and semi-colons, with sentences running for paragraphs. Not your typical written English.
Tons of other works to choose from that more clearly reflect modern English for one learning English or seeking to improve his skills. So many listed in this thread.
I think Huck Finn is difficult for even fluent English speakers/readers. It's pretty heavy on the slang. When I read it for the first time in 10th grade, I remember struggling to understand Jim without my teacher's help at times. That's why I said Tom Sawyer first, then Huck Finn later on.
I was 11 or 12 when I read HF at school, corresponding to 6th grade in the US. Perhaps southern slang is close to some UK dialects.
