[Tax-chick]

I like Wilkie Collins, too. I have “The Moonstone,” “The Woman in White,” and a collection of his ghost stories.

With writers of this era, it might take the first hundred pages of a novel to adjust to the style. If you give it that, you can enjoy a great story.

For really long works - Anna Karenina, War and Peace - I get recorded books and listen to them in the kitchen while cooking or washing up.

[Buttons12]

For really long works - Anna Karenina, War and Peace - I get recorded books and listen to them in the kitchen while cooking or washing up.

I do that too! Just not Tolstoy. Had my fill of him in homeschool. :(

I've got the plays of Shakespeare in LP recordings, and some of the ancient Greek dramas. You can listen to them over and over again and never be bored.

[Buttons12]

While we're on the subject, I recommend Ambrose Bierce most highly. I have at my side a copy of "Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce," and the man was funnier than Twain. Here's the first sentence of his short piece, "An Imperfect Conflagration."

Early one June morning in 1872 I murdered my father -- an act which made a deep impression on me at the time.

Grabs you with the first line and doesn't disappoint.

Complete SS of AB contains 3 categories: Horror, War, and Tall Tales. He fought (when it was unavoidable) in the American Civil War, so those stories are not very amusing, but they're powerful. The horror stories are excellent and I'm no fan of the genre. The tall tales is where you'll LOL the most.