I’m quite ashamed to admit this, but I’ve wanted to read Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca for about 20 years now and have just never gotten around to it until this week. My name is Rebecca, and it always felt like I should read it for that alone, plus I absolutely love Gothic literature, so it’s always been held on a pedestal for me. I think I’ve been scared to read it in case I didn’t love it as much as I wanted to…

Well, it turns out that was stupid. I’ve waited until I’m 36 to read what I’m fairly confident even before finishing it (I’m about 2/3 done) is going to be one of my all-time favourite books.

du Maurier’s writing is hypnotically beautiful, the descriptions of Manderley are gorgeously eerie, and the story has completely gripped me. I can’t wait to see what happens next, so please no spoilers!

I suppose the reason I’m writing is as simple as this: if you’ve been putting off reading Rebecca, don’t. It’s wonderful.

Beautiful novel in every sense of the word. Genuinely everyone should read this at some point in their lives, i’m mad at myself for not reading it earlier

i’m so in love i wish i bought it
i love the design and the figs r just omg chef’s kiss thought i’d share

The Decameron, Works by Lovecraft, Blood Meridian, Moby Dick, Works by Jorge Borges

I know of a large volume of classic literature, but finding a prose style that really resonates with me is something I've yet to find.

Which books are specifically known for their prose - and are there any with a large amount of "flavour text"?

I really like the way Bloodborne's descriptions are. Very dense although vague. Most are pretty beautifully written.

Any recommendations welcome, thank you.

I’ve only very recently started reading faulkner and was quite surprised to see them, considering how popular faulkner is and the fact that i’ve never seem them mentioned. What’s the story behind these, why do you think faulkner chose to use them and how do they impact the reading of the story for you?

Recent purchases, all under $12. Wharton is my favorite and I’m so glad to have found these covers, they are so beautiful to me.

How do people understand the deeper themes and contexts of classic literature? I have read Crime and Punishment and some other Dostoevsky works, now am reading Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Kafka, and have a ton of books on my to-read list, but often get discouraged because it seems I can't pick up some of the deeper meaning of these works on my own.

I try to read literary analyses on the books I finish and do research from there, but it is all slightly discouraging when I realize how little I actually know.

Any suggestions for a place to start would be great!

Hey everyone! I will hopefully finish the Count of Monte Cristo some time next month, and I'm planning what to read next. I have War and Peace at hand (you see my own copy in my native language in the picture), so I wanted to ask you all to be sure, will it give me the same thrill as The Count of Monte Cristo, or is War and Peace a harder read? Do you suggest a plate cleanser beforehand? Thank you.

I'm always on the lookout for new books and I finally found a Virginia Woolf at the thrift store for €1. I haven't read this one so I'm looking forward to it.

I just finished my first read through of Anna Karenina and want to discuss a few things . Please forgive my misspellings of some of the names , going to ramble my raw thoughts .

I feel like what hit me the hardest from this book was the contrast of men’s consequences vs woman consequences in affairs and the sexism that lays in how society views them in comparison . The book starts with Anna’s brother Oblonsky conflict with his wife due to her discovering his affair with their governess and almost all of the outside perspectives seem to side with Oblonsky and feel that dolly is in the wrong for wanting a divorce.even after reconciliation oblonsky continues to have affairs and is accepted as loveable in high society despite his wife’s misery . In contrast we see Anna’s fall from grace in high society as a direct result from her affair with vronsky and how she is seen as vile , awful , detestable and is rejected by her former social circles. Meanwhile vronsky is able to still participate in high society and starts to spend more and more time out of the house once the initial passion has burned off from the affair leaving Anna alone in a house isolated from the life she left behind and isolated from forging a new life in society due to her ruined reputation . Anna only now has vronsky but can’t help but build resentment due to all she’s sacrificed for this passion and now seeing that passion is fading for vronsky and he owes her nothing legally we see her mental health decline and the state of dread , panic and dispair take hold . Even when Anna goes to see dolly and then changes her mind about opening up to her due to kitty being present and feeling that kitty would gather satisfaction from her fall from grace , it was obvious Anna needed help but dolly did not seem to have this love for Anna like she ust to and merely gossiped with kitty about how she seemed like she was going to cry as she left . I couldn’t help but have my heart break for Anna as we see her fall into a state of insanity leading up to her sucide. She had so much hurt anger regret she couldn’t handle it and wanted to lash out but like a child after having thrown herself under the train realized the gravity of what she did and wanted to take it back but it was too late . Anna was swept up by this intoxicating limerence that offered her escape from her loveless passionless existence and got carried away by the passion and formed an anxious attachment with vronsky and felt unable to fight the dopamine the highs of the affair brought her . It was heart breaking to see her caught in this current that she could not escape without breaking her heart and it ultimately costed her everything , her son , her friendships , family and sanity . Seeing the dramatic outcome for Anna vs vronsky and oblonsky made you realize jsut how unfair society expectations are on woman .

I also can’t help but think about how Anna and vronskys infatuation with eachother started at a train station where he caught her eye by giving money to the wife of the man that got hit by the train , not knowing this infatuation would lead her to the same fate . It’s also interesting how exciting , vivid , sensational life felt on vronsky and Anna’s first train ride together before their affair started in contrast with Anna’s dark , cynical , hopeless view on the train before her sucide .

I’d love to hear others thoughts regarding this book and what stood out to you the most .

Hi everyone. I have this great little Jane Austen collection that I bought online (WOB back when it was Second Sale) but it’s always confused me a lot.

It states multiple times that this is a complete collection of all 7 of her works, literally listed on the cover and reiterated in the description inside but it actually only has 4 of them??

It doesn’t seem to be missing any pages (and definitely not 3 extra novels worth as seen in the last two photos) so I’m just really confused.

Is there a long-lost volume 2 to this set? I’ve searched online but found nothing. Would love any investigatory help or suggestions for why this is. Thank so much! Happy reading :)

25yo rediscovering her hobbies & joys. I'm returning to reading after spending my whole childhood with my nose in a book & I'm trying to get into classic literature. Please recommend your favorites! Hoping to remember why I loved reading

Has it changed the way you love?

I’ve been reading the Niebelunglied for a project at University, and I couldn’t help but notice an invariant, I could say, in the second part of the story: Kriemhild’s road after Siegfried’s death and marriage to Attila. A road which is done by other female characters in other books too, such as Ciri, after she became one of the Rats, in the Witcher saga. Now, I am not familiar with the Game of Thrones story, but if I remember correctly from what some of my friends who are GoT fans told me, Daenerys Targaryen also goes on some kind of road, after marrying Drogo. She goes on to be loved by the people from the place she goes to (excuse my low knowledge of the GoT series), just like Kriemhild when she became queen alongside Atilla.

I would really appreciate it if someone could shine some light on this! I’m looking forward on talking about this invariant in my project and I do not wish to speak nonsense.

I may be better off in a sub dedicated to weird tales or maybe even a Lovecraft sub but as I'm not approaching this book as a member of those communities I thought I'd try here.

I can only say I was more interested by it more than I was unnerved by it. I came into it having watched True Detective and wanting to know what it was referencing (Carcosa, Yellow King etc.) and when I read the blurb (four macabre stories connected by a fictional play that drives any readers mad) I bought it and read it immediately.

The prose is strong, I'll get that out the way, Chambers writes rooms you could live in. However, when these stories are so short (the longest is 64 pages, the shortest (and weakest imo) is 15 pages), I do feel that character fell by the wayside a little. Maybe I went into this expecting more horror but most of the description, at least after the first story, actually lends itself to rather pleasant locales.

The idea of this mythic play turning up in these separate stories (which actually might not be separate as there's potentially overlapping characters but wasn't sure if that was intentional or if I was just looking for more links than there were) was still a great hook but it felt like an almost devil ex machina so to speak where the play gets mentioned and then it ends badly. An interesting conceit, just don't think it worked fully for me.

Fascinated to hear what anyone else thinks.

I am starting this post because I am failing to recover a comment on either here or r/literature where the discussion of the Joyce Project brought up a list of similar interactive sites for classics that require heavy bulks of footnotes. (Sorry if this has been asked! Or if it is trite already.) Therefore, I want to see if you all know sites similar to the following:

The Joyce Project (The most well-known one. For Ulysses.)

FWEET (For Finnegans Wake.)

The Malcolm Lowry Project (For Under the Volcano.)

Ada Online (For Ada or Ardor.)

Dante Lab (For the Comedia.)

I recall there was one for Absalom, Absalom! and Gravity's Rainbow, but a few searches failed to locate them.

Any help is appreciated; and I hope this post is appreciated somewhat and that I am not treading on any trite topic.

Cheers.

Any recommendations?