[meristohm]

Thanks for the recommendations. I’m feeling old, so I’ll add:

Edith Grossman’s translation of Don Quixote (1609! The more things change, the more they stay the same)

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley (I thought I knew the story until I actually read the book—whoah, that opened my eyes to our relationship with technology and industry and how we use energy)

Dracula, by Bram Stoker (from Blindboy’s podcast episode “Paddy Dracula” I learned Stoker is from Dublin, son of a Protestant mother who told him stories, bedridden until seven years old, about the horrors of cholera)

Moby Dick, by Herman Melville (further awareness of how we convert resources, this time before petrol, and for the descriptions of sea life and human relationships)

For background, I’m also into contemporary sci-fi and fantasy and would have an easier time going without electricity than without books, unless I was part of a community that carried on storytelling traditions.

Two others: Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Finding the Mother Tree, by Suzanne Simard, both about ecology and reciprocity, guiding how I garden, parent, and relate to the bleeding edge of life in general.

[jackconsidine]

Don Quixote is 900 pages of gut-busting humor that will ruin most comedy for you. And Moby Dick was an incredible read (if you're into audiobooks, Anthony Heald is the perfect narrator for Moby Dick IMO).

Will have to check out the others!

[melonbar]

Wow thank you for taking the time to write this list I really appreciate it! I have always wanted to read Don Quixote but had trouble figuring out which translation. This is awesome I will for sure be getting that one and perhaps some others. Have a great Monday.

[innocentoldguy]

To your recommendations of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula, I'd add Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera. That is by far my most favorite of the classic "monster" books.

[handrous]

> Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley (I thought I knew the story until I actually read the book—whoah, that opened my eyes to our relationship with technology and industry and how we use energy)

Can confirm, the novel is very unlike every film adaptation I'm aware of. It also, incredibly, hits its themes even harder than those do.

[ashika]

  Through the lacings of the leaves, the great sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving the unwearied verdure. Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!--pause!--one word!--whither flows the fabric? what palace may it deck? wherefore all these ceaseless toilings? Speak, weaver!

Love Moby Dick

[arduinomancer]

Just to add a counter opinion: I found Moby Dick a real slog to get through

It has very detailed descriptions of whaling which I didn't find interesting

[mindcrime]

I second this 100%. I found Moby Dick extremely tedious and mostly boring except for a few highlights here and there. And as the old saying goes "Melville never met a run-on sentence he didn't love."