Books!

[romanajo123]

 This might come across as a vague question,  but can anyone on here recommend any classic books that are interesting but wouldn't be extremely difficult? 


*this comes from trying to read Henry James and having to look up a lot of the words. Yes, I know Context Rules but even in context , I didn't know words like "prodigious," "beatific," or "fortitude" if I'm being honest. :/ 

Comments

[liadt]

I don't know what you mean by interesting, but The Raffles books are easy and except for one are all short story collections. Warning for old views and probably not much good for English Lit courses. 'Treasure Island' was quite easy I think. There's someone on DW who is a fan of Stevenson's 'Kidnapped' too. 'Dracula' is short and there's a yearly reading thing centered around it.

[romanajo123]

I think I've heard of Raffles.

lurking_latinist was doing (I think she might still be? I subscribed but didn't keep up) one of those "Daily/Weekly" things on substack with Kidnapped. Like how a couple years ago the big thing was Dracula Daily.

(From what I can tell, basically you get an email each day or week with a chapter to read)

[liadt]

Raffles was inspired by Sherlock Holmes except he's a master thief, being a gentleman he couldn't possibly work for a living;p

I don't think Kidnapped is long so you could catch up or not. I'd be rubbish at a daily/weekly readalong, lol.

[smallhobbit]

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a classic and definitely fun - more than just a child's story.

[romanajo123]

Noted! I asked someone over on AO3 as well. She recommended things like Narnia (which I've read most of it and it's a fave if not my absolute fave), Little Women, Ann of Green Gables, Treasure Island, Little House books, and Treasure Island

[john_amend_all]

Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice is an edition with copious explanatory notes, including the originals of the poems that Carroll was parodying. The 150th anniversary deluxe edition is the most comprehensive.

(He also did an annotated edition of The Hunting of the Snark - that was the first book I ever ordered from a bookseller)

[apachefirecat]

Now THAT'S the one I want to read!! Thank you for sharing that information! :)

I've never quite made it all the way through Dracula, but I IMMENSELY enjoyed the original Frankenstein. It was also a pretty easy read.

And definitely agree on Narnia!

[romanajo123]

I own a box set of Narnia and have read over half of it. It’s a personal favorite. I love the characters and world building and the themes in it.


I haven’t read Frankenstein ( I think we watched the movie in school).

[apachefirecat]

I read them all when I was real young, like around 9 or so. It's funny, but I used to read more classics back then than I do today. I also immensely enjoyed the Three Musketeers series. Could tell you nothing about the latter today, and very little about the former other than the first book and how much I loved Aslan and Mister Tumnus.

[romanajo123]

Wait he didn’t just make those poems up? Been listening to a BBC Classics version of it.

Something in the latter sounds familiar but I can’t put my finger on why…

[john_amend_all]

A lot of them were parodies of the sort of moralistic poems Victorian children had to learn. For instance, "You are old, Father William" is a parody of "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them".