Books

I started consciously trying to read more old books in the last year or two and I've discovered that I love adventure stories! Jules Verne, Sir Walter Scott's Waverly novels... Winston Churchill's "My Early Life" is nonfiction that might as well be an adventure story, haha.

For humour it's hard to go wrong with P G Wodehouse; he wrote much more than just the Jeeves stories.

Recently I read through all of Lucy Maud Montgomery's collected short stories (the author of Anne of Green Gables among many others).

Dracula was a great read and genuinely spooky, ditto Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.

Sometimes I go to Project Gutenberg, hit "random" and download anything that catches my eye :)

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!

I'd recommend reading Orwell's earlier works (which might or might not be public domain in the US, but is in Canada, Australia and parts of the EU). Like "Down and Out in Paris and London". Nothing at all like 1984 or Animal Farm, but still really good.

I recently finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It's a good start if you want to get into Agatha Christie novels.

My fiancée absolutely loves the Count of Monte Cristo. I have not yet read it.

I like Lovecraft's stories.

Frankenstein, Count of Monte Cristo, HPL

Sherlock Holmes is public domain now.

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.

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.

"Starting forth" the best book to learn about forth or programming in general

For Dutch an important source of public domain literature is the Database voor de Nederlandse letteren (dbnl), in cooperation of the Nederlandse taalunie (Dutch Language Union) with several heritage libraries and the Dutch Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library).

My favourite book you can find on there is probably De stille kracht (The silent force) by Louis Couperus. It's about a high ranking Dutch colonial family living in a town in East Java, and also the people around them, trying to get the Indies to follow their rules, to be what they want it to be, but in the end failing miserably.

There's always a lingering feeling of impending doom which, though it goes more to the background at times, never fully goes away. I love it.

De stille kracht is well-known as far as Dutch novels go, there are translations in major European languages (even one in Finnish!).

I'd like to add Dracula by Bram Stoker and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol to the books already mentioned.

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.

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.

Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18137

+2 more not in public domain yet. :(

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.