billy
@silly
wyze guy
Great Short Books
Does what it says on the tin, get it done in a day
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
Mental German dude finding inner peace via a fantasy India. Cannot recommend enough.
The Fall - Albert Camus
Very good, but if you haven't read the stranger read that first.
Fear and Trembling - Soren Kierkegaard
Beautiful, unique, mostly went over my head. Read the first few chapters about Abraham and Isaac. No where else have I encountered someone thinking so deeply about a short piece of text and drawing so much out of it.
The Stranger - Albert Camus
A really niche, obscure one, from a nearly forgotten author. Well worth the read, probably shouldn't take its view on life to heart. Despite the associations its actually super fun.
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Twisted Sci-fi tragicomedy.
A Farewell To Arms - Ernest Hemmingway
"ahhhh where have they gone" Great book, bit longer than the others. Maybe a long weekend, not long afternoon.
The Gospel of Matthew - Eponoymous
"How's the water?" said the old fish to the young fish. "What's water?"
Chess - Stefon Zweig
Beautiful, tragic, about the great crime of the last century.
Great Long Books
Commitment
War & Peace - Leo Tolstoy
You gotta commit, but it's worth it. Get through the first ~100 pages, where he's setting it all in motion, and you'll be rewarded with the greatest read of all time. It didn't get its reputation for nothing.
Wolf Hall, Bring up The Bodies & The Mirror and the Light - Hillary Mantel
Do not start these if you have anything important that needs your attention in the next month or so.
A Place of Greater Safety - Hillary Mantel
Her debut, probably not as good technically as the wolf hall trilogy, but I enjoyed it even more. Maybe more appealing because the characters are younger, living more intensely than Cromwell? Have re-read multiple times. Genuinely detracted from my studies, could not pull myself away from it.
The Seven Deadly Sins
The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde
Pride - “A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognised himself for the first time. He stood there motionless and in wonder… The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation”
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Greed - “Mere existence had always been too little for him; he had always wanted more. Perhaps it was just because of the strength of his desires that he had thought himself a man to whom more was permissible than to others. “
The Kreutzer Sonata - Leo Tolstoy
Lust - “Our love was exhausted as soon as our desire was satisfied, and now we stood facing each other in our true relationship, which was of two completely alien and completely selfish individuals who only wanted to get the greatest amount of satisfaction out of each other”
Othello - William Shakespeare
Envy - "But jealous souls will not be answered so. They are not ever jealous for the cause, But jealous for they’re jealous. It is a monster Begot upon itself, born on itself. "
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Gluttony - “And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful wine-press for awhile”
The Ilyad - Homer
Wrath - "“Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous , doomed, that cost the Acheans countless losses, Hurling down to the house of Death so many sturdy souls, Great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion, Feasts for the dogs and birds”
Underappreciated books by great Authors
I'm not saying you don't know these books, only that they are great, and don't get as much love as their more famous siblings.
The Gambler - Dostoyevsky
Honestly don't know why this doesn't get much more attention.
The Fall - Camus
"The most beautiful and least appreciated" of Camus novels, according to friend and rival Jean-Paul Sartre. I can't compete with praise like that.
Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
His masterpiece. I really like the great gatsby, I love this.