What are the best public domain books you've read?
What are the best public domain books you've read?
What are the best public domain books that you've read? My currently downloaded books include "The Time Machine", "Pride and Prejudice", "Frankenstein", "War and Peace", "On Liberty", "Metamorphosis" (all from Librivox), etc. I especially like "Crime and Punishment" and "Brothers Karamazov" and others by Dostoevsky since they delve deeper into human psychology, values, and morality. Also to add, Librivox is so fucking cool and now I have something to listen to on my daily bus/car rides.
Not a book suggestion, but I cannot recommend Standard Ebooks highly enough as a source of public domain ebooks. Professionally typeset, with consistent standards, all while being free and volunteer-driven!
Thank you for the link. I didn’t know about Standard Ebooks: looks like a very broad range of material!
Legit my favorite place to get books. Actual stores that sell books wish they had the quality StandardEbooks releases have.
Saving this for later. I love project Gutenberg, but the quality is kinda all over the place.
My fiancée absolutely loves the Count of Monte Cristo. I have not yet read it.
I like Lovecraft's stories.
I recently finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It's a good start if you want to get into Agatha Christie novels.
I absolutely adore Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
As an aside, I tried so hard to read Crime and Punishment(twice), but I don't think I ever finished it. Or if I did I can't remember the ending. Maybe I had a bad translation, or maybe I have a short attention span, I don't know...
(Sorry for the edit, I hit send before I was done typing)
I'm throwing in The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, which I really enjoyed, and The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin, which is a really interesting travel journal. Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne is also great. And since you like Dostoevsky, maybe try Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev?
People always praise Frankenstein, but I thought it was poorly written and frankly nonsensical. Shelley's The Last Man is better, but a bit dull.
Frankenstein really is a fantastic read. Anything by Ray Bradbury, I read the short story "The Pedestrian" in school and it had a strong impression on me.
Frankenstein, Count of Monte Cristo, HPL
Great stuff
Dostoevsky is amazing. I'm not sure I could have followed his writing over audiobook, though. Tolstoy is an obvious add if you like Russian lit.
I haven't read any of it in a while, but I loved anything by Jules Verne when I was a kid. Frankenstein is arguably one of the first science fiction books, but Verne really made it a genre.
Not to be too much of a "the book is better than the movie"-person, but Les Miserables is really good and has a lot deeper meaning than the play or movie based on the play. The Count of Monte Cristo is also worth a read.
"Starting forth" the best book to learn about forth or programming in general
The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Most people are aware of her children’s books like A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, but she wrote dozens of other books and short stories for adults. The Shuttle is probably one of my absolute favorite books, and I re-read at least once a year.
Some favorites of mine:
Salammbô. Probably has the strongest first chapter in any book I've read. Read that and you'll know if you'll love this book. https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/gustave-flaubert/salammbo/j-s-chartres
All Quiet on the Western Front. Not much of a "war" book, completely centered on the human experience as opposed to "heroic deeds" and "epic battles". https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/erich-maria-remarque/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/a-w-wheen
The King in Yellow. I think this one is the first example of what is considered " cosmic horror". Very moody read. Short stories and a couple towards the end are a bit bleh, but still worth to check out the first stories at least. https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/robert-w-chambers/the-king-in-yellow
I almost forgot "The Gambler", great way to get into Dostoyevsky. For one it is a short read, and it is surprisingly comical and light (even when it tackles more serious subjects). Even being so short the insight into characters that Dostoyevsky is known for is in full force here. https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/fyodor-dostoevsky/the-gambler/c-j-hogarth
Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18137
+2 more not in public domain yet. :(
Ive had a good time with anything by Mark Twain. His satire and comedy is great. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/53 Try not to get the amazon re-releases. They removed a lot of the language of the time, which (in my opinion) changes the books meaning slightly.