There's also a lot of movie and tv adaptations of this book out there(Alan Badel was probably the best Count) and I really enjoy compering them to the book.
Michel de Montaigne, his Essays are awesome and touch a wide range of subjects. The 100+ chapters in three books require an investment that will payoff.
20000 leagues under the sea by Jules Verne was my introduction to science fiction and I also enjoyed Mysterious Island (which overlaps, but is less science fiction).
I had forgotten James Fenimore Cooper, and I have forgotten almost everything about the books, but yes, these were in the school library too and I read them.
(we had no TV when I grew up so I read a lot, mostly books in the styles mentioned above but also historical books and fiction from the WWII, but obviously none of these are over 100 years old.)
Also the Bible, it might not be highly regarded here, and I'm obviously biased, but as someone who reads other texts as well I think a number of people here could find parts of it interesting, especially contrasting it to what school and others might have told you. (Spoiler: besides the endless listings of who was who that most people will learn to skip, the full version is also a lot messier than what anyone working in school or wanting your money will tell you ; )
If you are going to read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, then you should probably read The Theory of Moral Sentiments first. It helps with the understanding.
> But some, perhaps, will say: Are we to have no word of God—no revelation? I answer, Yes; there is a word of God; there is a revelation. THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD and it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man... The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed....
On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin. It's pretty dense, dry, and can require a bit of a commitment, but there's some pretty interesting bits and pieces in there aside from just proposing evolution.
I would also highly recommend the sequel, the Descent of Man. That's where Darwin actually discusses the evolution of humans, a topic he gingerly avoided in TOOS
Great read! I especially like how a lot of his speculation turned out close to what we know today. Choice quote: "I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."
246 comments
[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 201 ms ] thread[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Strange_Manuscript_Found_in_...
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/70/70-h/70-h.htm
“Frankenstein” by Mary Shelly
“Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde
There's also a lot of movie and tv adaptations of this book out there(Alan Badel was probably the best Count) and I really enjoy compering them to the book.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Doctrine
Orthodoxy (1908) by G.K. Chesterton
The Brothers Karamazov (1880) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/a-journey-round-m...
Mysterious Island (1874), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), and other books by Jules Verne.
Books by James Fenimore Cooper.
The Sea-Wolf (1904) by Jack London.
The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) by Alexandre Dumas.
Oliver Twist (1839) by Charles Dickens.
20000 leagues under the sea by Jules Verne was my introduction to science fiction and I also enjoyed Mysterious Island (which overlaps, but is less science fiction).
I had forgotten James Fenimore Cooper, and I have forgotten almost everything about the books, but yes, these were in the school library too and I read them.
(we had no TV when I grew up so I read a lot, mostly books in the styles mentioned above but also historical books and fiction from the WWII, but obviously none of these are over 100 years old.)
Also the Bible, it might not be highly regarded here, and I'm obviously biased, but as someone who reads other texts as well I think a number of people here could find parts of it interesting, especially contrasting it to what school and others might have told you. (Spoiler: besides the endless listings of who was who that most people will learn to skip, the full version is also a lot messier than what anyone working in school or wanting your money will tell you ; )
Essays by Michel de Montaigne
Self Reliance by Emerson
Theory of Moral Sentiment by Adam Smith
A Treatise of Human Nature by Hume
And the memoir of my vote for the most interesting man who ever lived, Humphry Davy's Consolations in Travel
- The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
- Das Kapital, Karl Marx
- That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen, Frederic Bastiat
Philosophy / Politics:
- The Republic, Plato
- Second Treatise on Government, John Locke
- The Law, Frederic Bastiat
- Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
- Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
- Democracy in America, Alexis de Toqueville
- On Liberty, John Stuart Mill
Fiction:
- The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Mark Twain
- The Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin
- Metamorphoses, Franz Kafka
- Candide, Voltaire
- The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Ingersoll
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2662
Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. Not intended as oratory, but like Ingersoll's lectures, great fun to read aloud.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine
http://thomaspaine.org/major-works/the-age-of-reason-part-1....
> But some, perhaps, will say: Are we to have no word of God—no revelation? I answer, Yes; there is a word of God; there is a revelation. THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD and it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man... The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed....
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
Second Treatise on Government, John Locke
(I wanted to put in the Shape of Things to Come but it doesn't quite make the cut)
Edit: Not quite 100 years but will leave it here for posterity