What book should I read next?

Question

I have read many books, some of which are Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment", Shelley's "Frankenstein", Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and My Hyde", Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" and some of Poe's works. Bearing my area of interest in mind, what book do you recommend I read? If the original work was not in English, which translation is adequate? Do you recommend I re-read a book?

Answer 1

Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Answer 2

Pompeii - Robert Harris. Basically, it's set in AD 64 during the eruption of Vesuvius. I'm 15 and study Latin, so find this especially interesting, but as you have read the Iliad and Odyssey I'm positive you'll really like this!

Answer 3

If you like Poe, try Ambrose Pierce.

You might also want to try:

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Sterne;
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by James Hogg;
A Hero of our Time, by Mikhail Lermontov;
The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov;
The White Guard, also by Bulgakov;
The Red and the Black, by Stendahl.

Answer 4

Try John Steinbeck's Monterrey Trilogy: Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. But be very careful these books may make you re-evaluate your life and change you forever...they did it to me.
If you want a really weird mystery read John Fowles' The Magus; I can guarantee you'll have to read that twice...even the Author wrote two versions but it's a tough read he expects a lot of you.
Abebooks can supply all the above.

Answer 5

Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
Money by Martin Amis
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Anything by Shakespeare, especially the sonnets

Answer 6

Sophie's World is a great book. You should really enjoy it. I have read The Agony and the Ecstasy twice and Pride and Prejudice about four times. If a book is good then it bears more than one read. I read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius all the time.

Answer 7

Hey Daniel M,

Interesting books. I have some in my mind that I hope you get to read.
If you enjoyed Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", you should enjoy reading "The Last Man" [written 8 years after Frankenstein;a post-apocalyptic work].

Along the same line, go for "La invención de Morel"'(The Invention of Morel, ISBN 1590170571) by Adolfo Bioy Casares. An splendid work of fiction that deals with immortality, loneliness, love, and inventions of course!

Umberto Eco's "Il pendolo di Foucault" ( Foucault's pendulum) (http://www.amazon.com/Foucaults-Pendulum/dp/0345368754/sr=1-1/qid=1156913558/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-4960416-9641713?ie=UTF8&s=books)
is also a great work that has hermeticism as one of its main topics. (Many people have pointed out that Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" is nothing but a no brainer version of Eco's 1988 novel).

Italino Calvino's "Le città invisibili"(Invisible Cities) [http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Cities-A/dp/0156453800/sr=1-2/qid=1156913839/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-4960416-9641713?ie=UTF8&s=books]
is also a great book to read. People still debate the true and singular nature of this beautiful book that is presented as the conversations between Marco Polo and the Mogol emperor Kublai Khan.

The best suggestion I have is yet to come: Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine master whose short stories are highly unique.(His work has been praised by Italino Calvino, Mario Vargas LLosa, and Umberto Eco who has acknowledged his influence on his works). His works deal with immortality, subtle and never ending labyrinths (sometimes contained in libraries, others in a single book, yet others in a single letter!!), impossible worlds, concrete and alternate reality.

His two best collection of short stories are El Aleph
( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142437883/102-4960416-9641713?v=glance&n=283155)
and Ficciones (http://www.amazon.com/Ficciones-English/dp/0802130305/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b/102-4960416-9641713?ie=UTF8)

I really hope you get to read these books.

Answer 8

Read something like War And Peace or Tess Of The Durbervilles, two excellent and classic books.

Answer 9

I know it might not be your usual fair but Ive been reading a book called "Rules of Engagement by Colonel Tim Collins"
It's his biography and the man is a true hero brave and intelligent.
Just a suggestion my friend.

Or maybe the true horror of "George Orwells 1984"

Answer 10

I am finding that the Eye Of The World books are very good. If you like Lord Of The Rings then I would recommened you read these.