Dickens and Mark Twain are still entertaining and (mostly) easy to read, even after all these years.

On 5/10/2021 at 1:26 PM, phetphet said:

The book is out of print, but is for sale on Amazon at £180 for a paperback.

 

 

For that price for a paperback, I'd hope it's liberally sprinkled with gold  pixie dust.     ????

 

3 hours ago, blazes said:

1898 Conrad, Heart of Darkness

 

I like the part when the narrator's vanity is insulted because the natives don't find him appetizing enough to cannibalize. 

2 minutes ago, BananaBandit said:

 

I like the part when the narrator's vanity is insulted because the natives don't find him appetizing enough to cannibalize. 

Spoilt it now.

2 hours ago, maxcorrigan said:

am reading "The Idiot" at the moment

This was my favorite of all the Russian novels I read.. but read it a long time ago.. 

 

I even named my first dog Nicki.. wonderful character.

2 hours ago, maxcorrigan said:

reading "The Idiot" at the moment not as gripping as "Chrime and Punishment" so far that is!

Gave up I am ashamed to say. 

Victory was my favorite Conrad...

 

For all those who complain abt Thai loud music

 

Joseph Conrad, quote from Victory 

 

“The Zangiacomo band was not making music; it was simply murdering silence with a vulgar, ferocious energy.”

Just now, 1FinickyOne said:

it was simply murdering silence with a vulgar, ferocious energy.”

Thailand to a T

 

As a child, I was loaned a book called " Great Short Stories of the World". Was never asked to return it. Wish I could have brought it to Thailand with me.

It created some lasting impressions with me, there were one or two stories from every nationality on the planet, even going back to the Ancient Egyptians.

I can still remember a short story by Schiller, who described the butterfly effect about 200 years before it came into modern parlance.

A story by Tolstoy called "How much land does a man need?" particularly resonates with me. It's about a peasant, Pahom, in new lands who is told he can claim all the land he can walk in a day, marking it out in a square.

Due to his greed, he expires from a heart attack brought about by exhaustion as he is about to reach the last marker. "They buried Pahom where he fell. Six feet of earth was all he needed".

 

 

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) published in 1889

 

Got that on my Kindle and must've read it 10 times since a child (when I read it in a conventional book) and it still makes me laugh.

Also have the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 

On 5/10/2021 at 10:21 AM, BananaBandit said:

My best friend is my Kindle.

I couldn't agree with you more.  I read 4 or 5 books a month on Kindle and they span a huge swath of time regarding when they were written.  About 20% of books I read are in the older (100+years) category.  When the book was written doesn't seem to matter to me as much as the quality of the writing.  That said, however,  the much older books often require a few pages (or more!) to "switch modes" to the style of the times and the style of the author.

 

Here are some of my favourites that are over 100 years old (in no particular order):

• Pere Goriot:  Balzac, 1835
• virtually any of Anton Chekhov's plays, especially Uncle Vanya, 1897,  and The Cherry Orchard, 1903.
• Bleak House:  Dickens, 1852.  I just read this a few weeks ago!  How it slipped through the cracks, I don't know.  I think it is his BEST work.
• The Decameron:  Giovanni Boccaccio, 1353 (first complete English version, 1886).  Seven young women and three young men isolate from the Black Death epidemic of 1348 in a villa outside Florence.  Taking turns, 100 tales of love, wit, and life lessons are told by the ten while in their "quarantine."
• A Doll's House:  Henrik Ibsen, 1879. (and many other Ibsen plays worth reading)
• Edward the Second and Doctor Faustus:  Christopher Marlowe, 1592.
• The Government Inspector:  Nikolai Gogol, 1836.
• War and Peace:  Tolstoy, 1865.
• Kim:  Kipling, 1901.
• King Solomon's Mines:  H. Rider Haggard, 1885.  (Allan Quartermain adventure)
• The Phantom of the Opera:  Gaston Leroux, 1910.
• Lord Jim:  Joseph Conrad, 1900.
• The Call of the Wild:  Jack London, 1903.
• The Mahabarata:  Vyasa, 3rd century BCE - 3rd century CE.  I've read this at least three times.
• Richard III and Titus Andronicus:  Shakespeare, 1592 and c1594.  These are two of my favourites by this author.  Many of his other plays are also worth reading; some, sadly, are not (such as The Merry Wives of Windsor).  Editions with extensive footnotes really help the enjoyment of the reader.
• The Wind in the Willows:  Kenneth Grahame, 1908.
• Pride and Prejudice:  Jane Austen, 1813.
• The Three Theban Plays:  Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone:  Sophocles, 5th century BCE.

Occasionally, a book will be just not worth the effort; for example, Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte, 1847).  There, the author attempts to capture the dialect of her characters, making most of the dialog almost unintelligible.  

 

There are many more favourites that I could add, but I guess I should stop here.  Needless, to say, I LOVE to read!  

Lord Byron, he went to the same school as me.

On 5/10/2021 at 1:26 PM, phetphet said:

There is a book that I wish would be available on Kindle: Whispering Wind: Adventures in Arnhem Land by Syd Kyle- Little.

He was some sort of policeman, patrol officer in Arnhem Land in the earlier part of the last century.

 

The book is out of print, but is for sale on Amazon at £180 for a paperback.

Check the "Gutenberg Project"  Many Many free, out of print books.

7 hours ago, BananaBandit said:

 

I like the part when the narrator's vanity is insulted because the natives don't find him appetizing enough to cannibalize. 

The horror!  The horror!

3 hours ago, VBF said:

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) published in 1889

 

Got that on my Kindle and must've read it 10 times since a child (when I read it in a conventional book) and it still makes me laugh.

Also have the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 

The follow up is good too - Three men on the Bummel.  

"The diary of a nobody" (1892) by Weedon Grossmith is in a similar vein.

11 hours ago, Lacessit said:

...

I have harbored the suspicion for some time Kindles are planned obsolence in action, the battery is impossible for a layman to replace. I had one fail under warranty, it was also more expensive to send it to the USA from Thailand than its cost.

My current Kindle is my fourth one, it will also be my last.

I have the same Kindle ( bought in Thailand ) for at least 9 years, read everyday , never failed

for the old books, I have tried to read Flaubert, Hugo, Dumas ( original , it's my language ), i found that so long, boring, too rich , long sentences to say what now we say in a few words 

but ok, I shall give an other try, let say Dumas ( father or son, don't know yet ), but I really prefer modern style ( let's say second half of 20  th century and now : sober, in a few words everything is said ) 

When you're in a grumpy mood, look up quotations of Oscar Wilde.  Perhaps the funiest and most insightful person ever:

 

“A good friend will always stab you in the front.”
― Oscar Wilde

tags: friends-betrayal

9740 likes

Like

“Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

tags: sphinx-without-a-secret

9607 likes

Like

“I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.”
― Oscar Wilde

And my personal favorite:

"Bigamy is one wife too many,

Monogamy is the same."

tags: humor-heaven

9308 likes

Like

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

tags: sin

9292 likes

Like

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”

Conrad has been mentioned.  You can get his complete novels and novellas on Kindle for $0.99, or, if you want more, the complete works for $5.99

 

Another author, who began writing in the 1880's and continued through to the 1930's, is Kipling.  Although largely reviled these days for his imperialism, he was a fine story teller.  His complete works are also available for $0.99

 

Going further back to the 18th century, the works of Samuel Johnson, although heavy going at times, are, in my opinion, worth a read.  Equally so is his biography "The life of Johnson" by James Boswell - particularly the stand alone book on a journey they made through Scotland - "The journal of a tour to the Hebrides" (1796), which is full of Johnson's pithy, caustic and humorous insights.  All are available for Kindle at low prices.

Anyone liking humorous short stories from the 19th century, check out "O' Henry"

"The Ransom of Red Chief" just might be the funniest ever written.

1 hour ago, ballpoint said:

The follow up is good too - Three men on the Bummel.  

"The diary of a nobody" (1892) by Weedon Grossmith is in a similar vein.

Oddly enough I couldn't get on with "Three men on the Bummel."  I have both as hardbacks inherited from my Father and found it tedious - as I sad "Boat" remains one of my favourite books of all time.  Good movie too, Jimmy Edwards, David Tomlinson and Laurence Harvey Three Men in a Boat (1956 film)

 

I shall investigate "The diary of a nobody" - just found it https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1026 Thank you????

8 hours ago, dddave said:

When you're in a grumpy mood, look up quotations of Oscar Wilde.  Perhaps the funiest and most insightful person ever:

 

“A good friend will always stab you in the front.”
― Oscar Wilde

tags: friends-betrayal

9740 likes

Like

“Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

tags: sphinx-without-a-secret

9607 likes

Like

“I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.”
― Oscar Wilde

And my personal favorite:

"Bigamy is one wife too many,

Monogamy is the same."

tags: humor-heaven

9308 likes

Like

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

tags: sin

9292 likes

Like

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”

My favorite Oscar Wilde quote is on sex:

"The expense is abominable, the position ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting".

Another was his take on fox hunting:

"The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible".

20 hours ago, Surelynot said:

Gave up I am ashamed to say. 

I am thinking the same, but will stagger on a bit further!

On 5/12/2021 at 8:30 AM, Lacessit said:

Unreadable is Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum. An author proving to the proles how much smarter he is than them.

I have harbored the suspicion for some time Kindles are planned obsolence in action, the battery is impossible for a layman to replace. I had one fail under warranty, it was also more expensive to send it to the USA from Thailand than its cost.

My current Kindle is my fourth one, it will also be my last.

I have a paperwhite bought in UK about 11 yrs ago no problems at all so far, also got a kindle tablet type running a crippled version of android bought about 8 years ago still going strong, so your usage surprises me!

Quote: "the writing style strikes me as verbose, unnecessarily complex, and often rife with melodramatic sentiment".

It may strike us like this today as we have lost half of our vocabulary. The "richness" of languages is gone. Be it English, French or German, compared to before, we speak and write those languages as "skeleton-languages".

Even Arthur Conan Doyle and Aghata Cristie spoke a different English compared to todays English. Remarkably: The youth of today seems to be limited to some basic 600 words. Even refusing to pronounce the words understanably. Their speach resembling the speach of a 95 year old toothless senior.

Like everything else, languages change/adopt over time. The greatest literature ever written was during a time when it was perfectly normal to ship millions of Africans to the new world and the kings ruled the world in the name of "God" and the Pope in Rome.
----------------
The future of languages. Thanks to AI we will only have to commence a sentence. AI will complete the sentence for us. Therefore, we should manage just fine with a vocabulary reduced to 200 words.

 

15 hours ago, swissie said:

It may strike us like this today as we have lost half of our vocabulary. The "richness" of languages is gone. Be it English, French or German, compared to before, we speak and write those languages as "skeleton-languages".

Forty years ago, US Public Broadcasting and the producer, Ken Burns produced an exhaustive television documentary series on the US Civil War.  Much of their research and the entirety of the narration was sourced from mostly unpublished diaries and letters written by soldiers and their families on both sides of the conflict.  Computer analysis of these documents revealed that in that era (1860-1865) the average person had a working written English vocabulary of between 40,000 to 60,000 words.  By the 1980s, the average American adult had a working vocabulary of between 15,000 to 25,000 words.  Note that this number was determined before the advent and subsequent dominance of email and texting.

  

Easy solution. Just read from 1920 onwards.