So am I and I was an English major, so most of those were assigned reading in high school or college.
I didn’t read “Bleak House,” but did read “Oliver Twist” and “David Copperfield.” I somehow managed to escape ever having to read “Moby Dick.”
Whenever I see a reference to the book “War and Peace,” I can taste a McDonald’s Big Mac. That book was a semester and I spent a lot of my lunch hours in college reading it. I was in a Big Mac phase then (plus, it was what I could afford.)
It’s funny how the mind does that. I haven’t had a Big Mac in forever.
Actually Moby Dick is quite good once you get past the nonsensical section on whales!
“It’s funny how the mind does that.”
When I think of Frank Herbert’s “Dune”, I always get reminded of the Black Flag album that I was obsessively listening to in high school while I read it.
Dostoevsky is my favorite novelist but David Copperfield is my favorite novel. I still get thrills reading that book... I think it’s just how incredibly ‘English’ it is... It’s also the first major novel I ever read.
You should give Bleak House a go... it is nothing like the title suggests is all I’ll give away.
Moby Dick is a bit ponderous... once you adjust to the whaling lingo it’s a good read.... it’s interesting that it was a complete flop in Melville’s lifetime.
I thought War and Peace would be a slog because of the length... I loved it, even found it a bit of a page turner. I was studying Napoleon at the time as part of a modern history survey I was doing - Tolstoy’s perspective on Napoleon the man was really interesting to read.
It’s funny how the mind does that. I haven’t had a Big Mac in forever.
When I was in college I read "Lord of the Rings" over a long weekend. The night before I tended bar at a dorm party. In the morning I had a bunch of leftover mix packets for whisky sours, which, for no particular reason, I nibbled on thoughtfully as I followed Frodo to Mordor.
I can still open one of those books at random, read a few lines, and taste sour mix.