Pride and Prejudice

I can’t resist an invocation:) Most of these are old since I’ve been reading more articles these days but here are a few good books or series I’ve read more than twice: The Hobbit, LOTR, the Silmarillion, Neuromancer, the Chronicles of Narnia, Hong Lou Meng, The Heart Sutra, The Bhagavad Gita, The Tao De Ching, The Wheel of Time series, No country for old men, Persuasion, Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, The Way of Kings, The Talisman, the Dark Tower Series, and The Prophet.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

A few of this year's highlights for me and my notes on the books, where available. Fiction - Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky - https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/2ab29d16-0cb1-4ef8-8cde... (https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/2ab29d16-0cb1-4ef8-8cde-8c9d90db0daf) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/65214629-29ac-45a6-b474... (https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/65214629-29ac-45a6-b474-b9fad1285564) Bleak House by Charles Dickens The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy - https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/bd090cb4-bc9a-41cb-9833... (https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/bd090cb4-bc9a-41cb-9833-f60834ccd28c) Nonfiction - The House of Government by Yuri Slezkine (my luckiest find of the year) Stalin: The Court of The Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore - https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/13ebec0d-0859-4858-864a... (https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/13ebec0d-0859-4858-864a-8c28bacfed8f) Vienna by Richard Cockett - https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/c0e1d1fb-dea7-456b-a95e... (https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/c0e1d1fb-dea7-456b-a95e-fcccdd63814a)…

"Best" is always too hard - here are a handful that I love. Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susannah Clarke The Crow Road - Iain Banks Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson Black Holes & Time Warps - Kip Thorne The Inventions of Daedalus - David E H Jones The Cuckoo's Egg - Cliff Stoll I hope one or two of those float your boat!

Pride and Prejudice. Just love Mr.Darcy.

Between September and October I put down my usual collection of science fiction and cookbooks to read books from female authors. I strongly recommend each: 1. Pride and Prejudiced by Jane Austen 2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 3. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood edit: line breaks

Pride & Prejudice. There is something extremely silly about the squabbles of nineteenth century British upper class people.

I separate my books into levels. Level 0 are the books that I reread steadily over the years (also the ones that I pack in my suitcase when I'm moving as opposed to shipping), so I'll just post that list here, in no particular order: 'Good Poems' edited by Garrison Keiller; 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen; 'Persuasion' by Jane Austen; Fitzgerald's translation of 'The Rubaiyat'; Ford Madox Ford's 'Parade's End'; Hafiz, 'The Gift'; Modesitt, 'Gravity Dreams'; Heinlein, 'Time Enough for Love'; Bulgakov, 'Master and Margarita'; 'Ovid in Love' (Guy Lee's translation of the Amores). I've been revisiting a lot of Le Guin's novellas ('The Found and the Lost' is a great collection) and Borges's stories since the election. They have been a source of great comfort. I find that I don't reread nonfiction. I'll reference something I remember in it, but I can't think of a work of nonfiction I've reread in the past few years.

Well, "fiction" is an incredibly broad category (if it can even be called that). And "must read" is highly subjective ;-) If you're just looking for some light entertainment, go for sci-fi or fantasy (Lord of the Rings, anyone?). But if you don't mind some slightly "heavier" reading, have a look at the classics. In some cases they can be a little tricky to understand, but they are called "classics" for a reason... Specific suggestions (incomplete and in no particular order): Shakespeare's plays, Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe", Harper Lee's "To kill a mockingbird", JM Barrie's "Peter Pan", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories...

Check out http://www.librivox.org. They have a HUGE catalogue of audio recordings of public-domain works. Grab a list of the 100 classic books of all time and download them. Don Quixote, The Prince, Picture of Dorian Grey, Pride and Prejudice...