I had to read a Wizard of Earthsea for school and HATED it (probably because I was expecting it to be like harry potter ngl). However, every discussion I’ve seen online about the best fantasy series almost always includes Earthsea, so I was wondering if I was just too young to appreciate it and should revisit it. I’ve heard similar things for Jane Eyre, which I also found boring but found out it’s apparently meant for middle-aged people.
I got into reviewing a few classics.
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species.
Origin is a fascinating read. People give Galileo and Newton credit for founding true science and its methods, but Darwin earned credit too. He forced us all to understand that we are just animals, despite whatever the holy books say. That was a rough fight, and Darwin won. In so doing, he helped lay down the blueprint for how to do science.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1228Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince.
This is one of the most maligned pieces of literature ever written. It as coldly logical and sensible as could be imagined. Niccolò had some things to say, and whether or not you agree with his conclusions about how we should act, he is demonstrably correct about how we do act. This is a slim volume, written in direct language, doesn’t take too long to absorb.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57037Johnathan Swift, A Modest Proposal
One of the most famous essays ever written. Savage satire that skewers the causes of the famines in Ireland in the 1700s. This is the same guy that wrote Gulliver’s Travels, which probably also has more teeth than one might expect upon re-reading it as an adult. Only a few pages long, A Modest Proposal is a master class in effective writing.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htmDante Alighieri, The Inferno
Officially known as The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, this is a trilogy about someone losing his way and going to hell. And back. The Inferno is the first book, and unsurprisingly, the Hell bit is the only part really worth reading. To be honest, even just The Inferno is hard slog. It’s supposed to be a poem, or at least be in verse of some sort. It was published in 1321. That’s a lot of language gap, they simply talked a lot different. Anyway this work is where an awful lot of our conceptions of heaven and hell came from. It’s worth the time, if you can stand the very, very old text.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41537I also hated earthssea btw, didn’t even read it at school, just at recommendation from the internet. The style just didn’t vibe with me, I fear, it didn’t feel immersive or intricate in its worldbuilding because nothing was unsaid - at least, as far as I got to reading it before I put it down, it was just like a legend or something, and not s particularly interesting one.
Top three: the crucible, things fall apart and to kill a mockingbird
I never had to read Pride and Prejudice in school but it’s really good.
At this point you can use the banned books in the Krause list. Some of the best books ever are in there.
We had classes where we analyzed parts of the Odyssey, Iliad and other ancient books/plays. I didn’t like most of them but at least the Odyssey deserves a full read at some point.
Earthsea is just great, totally worth revisiting. The first three are wonderful and self contained.
I read 1984 for school. If you haven’t read it, it’s definitely worth it at least once.
In Germany not a single thing. We call ourselves “land of poets and thinkers” yet the books I had to read during my time in school only made most people despise books in general. What a joke.
In Russia it’s kinda the inverse. Like 80% of the books I’ve read in middle/high school I’ve re-read as an adult, most of them were still really interesting even on the second read.
Your famous and kick ass writers is your literature laid bare, it’s all you have. Meanwhile the Germans have to wade through, I dunno, mein Kampf to get to phenomenology of spirit (you read that in high school, right?)
Of the two good books I had to read in school in germany (Krabat and The Great Gatsby), I had already read both of them before. Everything else was at least boring and often actively bad.
