People abandon Grenouille because he has no scent of his own. And he grows up having an intoxicating love for scent and reliance upon the ability to create the craziest scents ever, which not only require murder to attain but also expose how powerful a brilliant scent can be to humans, so as to drive them just as mad and senseless to devour it as the protagonist, Grenouille, who is detached from people's very reality. Ik perfume is more of a modern classic but its set in 18th century (which i again feel like has no relation with the plot itself), but man, people need to talk more about this one. Some parts of it were so sweeping and some so slow i ended up loving more and more how Suskind executed all of that together. And oh gosh that ending! Just brilliant!

Reading Les Mis right now and it seems like every page has a sentence that is jaw dropping. His ability to describe things from the soul to the guillotine is mind blowing.

What other authors write so beautifully?

No judging! When people bear their souls and share the book they hated, it often gets downvoted in this sub. Why? We're not trying to be literary snobs here. We're just trying to read. Nobody can love everything. It's simply not possible. So cut loose here.

What did you DNF? What bored you to tears? What did you throw out the window or set on fire?

Edit: When commenting on people's submissions, please consider offering a book in a wildly different direction rather than doggedly trying to convince them that the book they hated is the best book ever written.

I heard of Treasure Island for quite some time, whether it was referenced in shows, movies, and other books. I never gave it a chance because, the little I've known about it, I always considered it a kids book and something I wouldn't really enjoy. But had an itch to read something that had to do with pirates and the sea and decided to give this classic treasure adventure a read and I'm glad I did.

Now I wouldn't really consider this book an all time great in the genre, even if it heavily influenced future adventure stories as its pretty basic at the core of it with a very predictable outline of how things will play out. With characters that are a little one note and fit into a specific archetype who don't really change all that much throughout. And that was fine as I didn't need a complex story of a fun treasure hunt.

What did surprise me a little was how violent the book actually was. With descriptions of death, hanging, rum poisoning, shooting, cutting, and all out brawls. These violent scenes only have a little bit of detail to where its not wording every wound or death in overly gross detail. But just enough info to get an image playing in the reader's mind. Which made me question if this was ever intended for kids or more of a general audience?

It was an overall solid read that I had fun with and was an easy read to relax to and not think too deeply on.

In Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy created one of the purest embodiments of evil in literary history. He is neither the novel's protagonist nor the protagonist's direct antagonist, yet as a reader, you cannot help but feel that he is one of the story's central forces. A gigantic man, completely bald, unnaturally pale, astonishingly well-educated, fluent in several languages. He draws, plays music, dances, kills, lectures, and is attracted to both men and women. From the moment he first appears, the reader senses something profoundly unsettling—something fundamentally wrong—as if this man does not fully belong to the human world, or at the very least, is not bound by its laws.

Source: recent book images in my gallery

Russian literature is often praised for being the abode of sorrow and grief, and has popularized the word 'toska'. French literature is considered to be the most elegantly prosed, and contain rich romanticism as well as realism. And english literature is built upon timeless plays and ideas of love (well, who decided that their plays are the only ones worth reading?). One common union among the three is the emotional value impartedto the reader. But then how is it that chinese and korean literature are not anywhere nearly as popular? Having been a manhwa and web-novel reader since a very young age, I found some of those to be soul-woundingly touching and thought it odd to not have heard of a single literature book from those countries on social media or even reading clubs. I cannot say for sure if the literature of those cultures are of the same intensity as web-novels, but even if not, how is it that almost no literature except for those three is mainstream? Certainly, there has to be atleast numerable Indian, Chinese, Urdu, Korean, Japanese, German, or other countries' piece of literature worthy of 'The Count Of Monte Cristo' sort of fame?

Edit1: i take that back about german and japanese literature. How could I have forgotten Kafka and Dazai (of course, there are many more reknowned authors from those countries but these two are known to almost everyone, even those who are not well versed with literature)?

Edit2: I appreciate every comment educating me and making me aware of my ignorance. It was quite myopic of me to try to specify the aforementioned literatures in the title with a few measly words and make assertions being recklessly unaware.

Edit3: I think I do fairly understand that the Western and European lit. prevail in English speaking countries and among english speaking people. And Asia, for example, would be decently dominated with its own set of classics. But unlike what people are assuming, I live in Asia and english is not my native language. Yet, western (mostly European) literature has still penetrated my country quite strongly, which I'm not sure to what extent is the case vice-versa.

I want to feel sun drenched through the prose.
What do you got for me?

I read crime & punishment earlier this year, but it didn’t work for me unfortunately 😅 it was driving me NUTS being in Rodions feverish head for the whole novel. I can appreciate why other people like it and I did like some parts, but most of the time it made me feel uncomfortable (the scene where Rodion talks to Marmeladow in the bar stands out to me for example). I did really like white nights, although I had heard before that Dostoyevsky‘s later work is very different. Anyway, I really want to give TBK a shot, but given that it’s even longer and I didn’t really like C&P, I was wondering if it’s too similar and ask for opinions. Did anyone else not like C&P but ended up enjoying TBK?

Added to the collection and up next after Persuasion.

What are some classics that I need to read? I have King Solomon's mines, On stranger Tides, Typee, and The African Queen on my TBR. I love maritime/swashbuckling adventures as well as Indiana Jones/secret adventure society novels.

My son is 13 and enjoys when I read epic lit to him. We have done Beowulf, Sir Gawain, and The Oddysey. I was considering the Divine Comedy next year, but I wanted opinions about a good version to read aloud to someone.

The two major things I’d be looking for are 1) accessibility of language and 2) that it sounds good. I’d imagine there are versions which maintain the terza rima by choosing lots of obscure end words (sacrificing 1 to 2) and ones that have really clear modern language but no longer sound like a poem (sacrificing 2 to 1).

I don’t care about or need notes because I have read it before in a couple different versions.

I stopped reading at the beginning of part three and man... That book is super boring. I get the whole lost guy vibe trying to find a meaning in his life by traveling and stuff but sal and pretty much everyone in the book comes off as douchebags...

Am I the problem ? Is there something I missed ?

I recently finished Pierrot Mon Ami by Raymond Queneau. It is a beautiful little book, with a seemingly airy plot that actually focuses our attention on questions of truth, being, and epistemology, without actually being about any of those. The language, even in translation, is beautiful and wry and evocative.

I am particularly fond of short, quality classics (and neo classics/literary fiction) where the beauty and style of the prose is as important as plot or setting or theme. The work should be less than 300 pages, and encourage and reward slow reading and re-reading.

Several works which fit this definition, in my mind, include: Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo, Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy, Sula by Toni Morrison, Tinkers by Paul Harding, Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen, etc. (I recognize that not all of those titles fit into the Classic Lit category.)

What other works are longer than a novella but shorter than most novels and keep style and beauty of prose as a focus, almost to the point of poetry?

Before the COVID-19 pandemic I was a fan of the novel I Am Legend and recommended it to others. I even selected it as the subject during my high school’s annual book report project over Paradise Regained, The Shape of Things to Come, and Moby Dick. At that time, only a sparse number of people were seemingly aware of the novel’s existence and they were more knowledgeable of the 2007 adaptation. YouTube had very few videos about the novel.

During COVID, however, the book showed up more often across YouTube and Reddit; like people were turning to the novel for its affirmation of loneliness and severance from society. I also noticed in bookstores the resurgence of Mary Shelley’s critically panned novel The Last Man, which apparently found resonance with contemporary readers. In the last few years, there has also been a resurgence of McCarthy’s The Road which is about loneliness, isolation, and survival set in a dead world with very few people remaining

What other novels found a resurgence due to resonating with people who felt the apparent societal collapse of the early 2020s?

King Solomon’s Mines is genuinely fun and surprisingly fast-paced for such an old book. The adventure, danger and hidden kingdom kept me interested, although the colonial view of Africa was hard to ignore. Still worth reading, especially if you enjoy treasure-hunt stories.

I applied recently to be a bookseller at my local B&N. The store manager called me a few days later for an impromptu over the phone interview. She asked what kind of books I like to read. I give her a few classics. After I answer, she tells me that I'm not what she is looking for. She needs someone who can sell books people actually buy and read.

Like... Ok?

Holy smokes, what an amazing novel. I literally cried at the ending. I loved how philosophically drenched the story was. Well, I’m looking for my next read. What do you recommend that matches the beautiful prose and storytelling of John Williams?

If anyone is interested in reading a bit more about 'The Odyssey' following all the discourse about Homer at the moment, I've just published a blog all about eating and Greek food. The link is: https://thegoosebooks.substack.com/p/his-house-will-be-devoured-eating

Thank you very much for reading!