Ask MetaFilter

My partner and I have been reading Hemingway books to each other before bed each night, as we have found them to be the right recipe of enriching literature + easy listening after a long day + a some armchair travel while we're lockdown. Besides Hemingway, which classic books (novels or memoirs) offer this same recipe for a pre-sleep ritual? [more inside]
posted by egeanin on Jun 13, 2020 - 21 answers

I read a great semi-short story whose title was something along the lines of 'the Locked Room' or 'the Man behind the Locked Door.' Not this this this this or this. The plot involved a man whose friend disappeared, leaving him, for all intents and purposes, his life and his wife. The main character is convinced his friend is alive and becomes obsessed with tracking him down. As I recall, it was considered a classic and came in a book with three other stories.
posted by es_de_bah on Dec 4, 2018 - 4 answers

For the past couple of years, I've been doing an informal, personal challenge to read a new-to-me book published in each year from 1900 to 1999. The only decade I haven't touched yet is the first, and I'd appreciate recommendations for books published from 1900 through 1909. [more inside]
posted by mixedmetaphors on Oct 20, 2016 - 51 answers

I'd like to stock up my Kindle relatively inexpensively (and am also a little overwhelmed by the phenomenal quantity of cheap public domain books available). What are the best works of literary fiction under $2 available for the Kindle? Preferences/requirements inside. [more inside]
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl on Aug 6, 2015 - 21 answers

I'm on a "read all the classics" quest and trying to figure out the best translations into English. Blog recommendations would be awesome! [more inside]
posted by blue_and_bronze on Aug 2, 2013 - 7 answers

Non-Americans! I'm beefing up my to-read pile (especially on my kindle), and I would like suggests of Great Classics of Your National Literature that would typically be assigned in secondary school. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee on Jul 21, 2013 - 31 answers

I looked at my bookshelf recently. Nearly every writer on there is dead and male. I should rectify this. Which books by women, living or dead, might I like? Details inside. [more inside]
posted by Rustic Etruscan on Oct 24, 2012 - 51 answers

Could someone suggest a nice reading edition of Henry James's The Ambassadors? [more inside]
posted by feelinggood on Oct 14, 2011 - 3 answers

What are the great patterning works of literature? In Book by Book, Michael Dirda presents a list of what he calls “patterning works” which he describes as books that “. . later authors regularly build on, allude to, work against.” and which he says “ . . . ought to lie at the heart of any structured reading program.” [more inside]
posted by jason's_planet on Sep 17, 2009 - 72 answers

Help me find classic English literature! [more inside]
posted by coolnik on May 10, 2009 - 16 answers

I want to acquire familiarity with famous works of German literature. What works would a typical person growing up in Germany have been exposed to as classics or as exemplary works? [more inside]
posted by philosophygeek on Jun 12, 2008 - 13 answers

Do you know any good sites in Spanish about literature, preferably with an emphasis on classic books or writers? Sites about both international and Spanish/Latin American literature are welcome. [more inside]
posted by ersatz on May 8, 2008 - 7 answers

Looking to make a list of famous artists, in all media, who "started it all." [more inside]
posted by Melismata on Mar 5, 2008 - 68 answers

Which book would you consider a "universal" book? [more inside]
posted by Jaybo on Mar 14, 2007 - 57 answers

Who is buying music by Shostakovich, watching silent movies, and reading Thackeray? [more inside]
posted by grumblebee on May 10, 2006 - 33 answers

Any suggestions for classic literature that offers the hope of belly laughs? I'm looking for laugh-out-loud funny classic fiction, preferably pre-1900. Kind of like this question, but with books instead of movies. [more inside]
posted by mediareport on May 8, 2006 - 62 answers