A Clockwork Orange

The more I read, the more I realize that fiction has a way of teaching the same lessons as nonfiction, only in a better, humane way that is not like someone lecturing at you from a podium, but more like a friend sitting down for a heart-to-heart conversation with you. In this vein, I've started catching up on all the classics I haven't read yet, and there are a lot of them. At first, I was hesitant to dive into classics, because I thought they were hard to read and highbrow. This has mostly not been the case (with the exception of Wuthering Heights, which I found impossible to get through). To wit, the best books I've read this year include: A Tale of Two Cities - Impossible to get through the first several chapters, but after that, you're off to the races between France and England in the 18th century. Dickens used historical books as reference, but recreated the mood entirely from imagination. A better primer than anything in the news about Anglo-French relations, learning trust, and sacrifice.…

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. There is an invented slang used in the book, which make the first pages difficult, as you have to work out what is being said. But the book is much richer for it.

Oh, one more: A Clockwork Orange. The book is much better than the movie. It's nicer if you haven't already seen the movie and got Stanley Kubrick's acid-trip biasing your perceptions..