MM (in TX)
Posted on 06/20/2010 4:11:07 PM PDT by HungarianGypsy
It's Sunday evening, so how about a relaxing thread? What books do you wish to read or recommend others read, and why? Not necessarily political or non-fiction, but books that are for general or literary education or just entertaining. Classic or brain candy.
Something of Value by Ruark
The Last Centurion by Ringo
Bible
Animal Farm
1984
Anything by Jane Austen such as:
Emma
Sense & Sensibility
Mansfield Park
Northanger Abbey
Pride & Prejudice
Persuasion
Adam Smith:
The Wealth of Nations
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte
The Invisible Man
H.G. Wells
F. A. Hayek
The Road to Serfdom
That’s off the top of my head. There are others.
Just read Jane Eyre for my book club. I read it years ago and forgot about it. The proposal scene is perhaps the most romantic thing I have ever read. As is the scene when she returns to Edward.
George Eliot
Middlemarch
Thomas Hardy
Return of the Native
Charles Dickens
Bleak House
Great Expectations
MM (in TX)
I like the old movie on Jane Eyre.
It’s a rare gem.
Freedom or Death by Nikos Kazantzakis
a novel on the heroic or epic scale about the rebellion of the Greek Christians against the Turks on the island of Crete, where Kazantzakis was from.
Mauthausen by Iakovos Kambanellis
a love story and the story of surviving the notorious Nazi death camp and the effort to make sense of this experience. The book is based on the notes Kambanellis took after he was liberated by the Americans in 1945.
Reaching for the Sky by Matina Psychogeos
story of a young Greek girl growing up during two terrible periods, the German occupation and the Greek Civil War and her life up to 9/11. It is the story of the strength the author gained from her experience and the courage it took for her family to immigrate to the USA. A book about the loss of innocence with a rich cast of characters and a deeper message that many will find inspiring.
Another favorite is Gone With the Wind.
Who can forget that one?
Just read “Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler, and can’t recommend it highly enough.
When I first started it I thought, “Oh no, a book about a old commie having to “confess” during the time of Stalin’s purges. I already know what they did and how they did it.” But the book is so much more, there are so many levels to it, and at the same time, it is hard to put down.
This book is a masterpiece, and will be read 100 years from today.
Amazon.com’s Product Description says:
Originally published in 1941, Arthur Koestler’s modern masterpiece, Darkness At Noon, is a powerful and haunting portrait of a Communist revolutionary caught in the vicious fray of the Moscow show trials of the late 1930s.
During Stalin’s purges, Nicholas Rubashov, an aging revolutionary, is imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the party he has devoted his life to. Under mounting pressure to confess to crimes he did not commit, Rubashov relives a career that embodies the ironies and betrayals of a revolutionary dictatorship that believes it is an instrument of liberation.
A seminal work of twentieth-century literature, Darkness At Noon is a penetrating exploration of the moral danger inherent in a system that is willing to enforce its beliefs by any means necessary.
THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE by Edward Gibbon
THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO by A.I. Solzhenitsyn
THE HISTORY OF NEW YORK by Diederich Knickerbocker (Washington Irving)
THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
LYRICAL BALLADS by Coleridge and Wordsworth
And thousands more.....
If I am checking out the lest thing I would be doing is reading. Just saying....
Apparently I will not be doing grammar exercises either.
Haven’t read a book since high school!
anything written by Russell Kirk
You punctuate that with an exclamation point as if you are proud of your non-accomplishment.
The paperback book is about 1400 pages and the first time I read it I did so in less than 3 days even though I was working 8 hours a day. I couldn't put it down! I don't think I slept those 3 days. It starts out a bit dry at first but once you get past the first couple or three chapters it pulls you in. BTW, the second time I read it I took my time to savor it and it took me about 6 weeks to read in my spare time.
My second recommendation is: 23 Minutes in Hell by Bill Wiese. I read it after I became born again but still hadn't realized that Hell truly exists. After reading this book I started confessing every sin I could remember going back to my childhood (and I read this when I was 51 years old!). How I wish someone had given this to me when I wasn't a Christian as it would have straighten me out decades sooner!
I highly, highly recommend both of these books.
Really?
When did you graduate?
I read Darkness at Noon when I was a freshman in high school, over 60 years ago. It was probably above my comprehension then so this is a good reminder to read it again. Wonder if any of it will seem familiar.
I’m impressed by the quality of books being mentioned!
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