Can you advise a wonderful book?

Welcome, Primat.

If you go here, to the Portal, and look under "Listings" - (in the second three quarters of the page) there are many sites with lots of books and poems available online.

May I suggest you browse there until you find something which suits you?

Generally, online literature will be older, and may contain some words and phrases not in common use today.

I will go and have a look in a bit, and see if I can recommend something.

here is the link:

http://search.able2know.com/Books___Literature/index.html

Good luck!

FOR A START . . .
Welcome to A2K, primat!

It depends on what type of book you like to read. Could you give us some information about this?

Meanwhile, here's one title for a start: "The Origin : A Biographical Novel of Charles Darwin" by Irving Stone. This is a fictionalized account of Charles Darwin's life. VERY well written and well researched. Rather large, but fairly fast moving and never boring.

I'll try to come back with some other titles. I'm always looking for "a good book," too.

Primat--

Welcome!

Children's books are no bad way to learn about a culture. After all, many English speaking children grow up to enjoy reading Shakespeare.

What sort of books do you enjoy reading in Russian?

Wild hunch: You just might enjoy something by Agatha Christie. She wrote murder mysteries and while she's dated, I don't think she's as dated as O'Henry.

Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction?

OOPS! JUST REREAD YOUR REQUEST . . .
Oops! I just reread your request and saw the part about needing to download a book. No library? Are you familiar with http://www.bartleby.com (free)? Would or could you pay for the downloading or does it have to be a "freebie"?

If you want free downloads you'll have to stick to classics.

Most of the classics are on the web.

Primat -- What about an English translation of a Russian classic?

Here's Crime and Punishment...Dostoyevski's Crime & Punishment

Here are a couple by Tolstoy...
Tolstoy works

Here's Turgenev...
Turgenev works

My favorite book of all time is a simple children's story called Wind in the Willows -- It is a simple and sweet allegory, supposedly like the Odyssey, but with animals.
Wind in the Willows text online
Link to Wind in the Willows illustrations (just for fun!)

Don't read ANYTHING by Jane Austen!!


It might seem a little redundant, but Joseph Conrad was a Polish fellow fluent in French when he settled down to write some damn fine literature. Just a thought.

I love Jane Austen - and her English is perfect - though a little archaic...

Well. As for me, i'm rather indifferent person - i can read book of almost every genre (except may be biographies, cause i haven't read them yet and dull books). But i prefer detective stories (Noddy24 - thanx for reminding me this), sci-fi, adventures (like A.Duma), O'Henry in Russian is great, J.Vern also (but he was so 10 years ago for me), "Lord of the Rings" (i dunno why, but I liked it much, though i read it last year) - but all these are in the past. I've already read them and i wanna something new. I don't know, has anyone here read Remark's "Time to live & time to die" - But it is GREAAAT book, not for its plot, but for it's ideas, for it's view on life, for it's philosophy. I cant' say that i enjoy philosophy, but when it is in reasonable proportions - it is great. I can also add, that Remark (Erich Maria) is really outstanding writer.

So i want to read a book, which i can think over and over, but which is at the same time interesting to read. Or may be some unpredictable book, where you don't know what will happen next an? that's why it becomes more interesting. or, at last, a book where each chapter finishes in the most interesting moment, so u can't stop reading it!!!

Ps I want to download it free of course, cause money in our country cost different than yours!
PS2 Of course i don't think about Russian Classics in English - it's foolish to read national arts in foreign language, so i ask u to advise some me native-english writer with good language to make me love English more and more!!!

Primat, I would suggest reading this story. It is one of my favorites and considered by some to be the best American short story ever written.

Ambrose Bierce story

Primat, welcome to this site . . .


I don't know if this will help you or not, but when i was learning French, i found that reading plays helped a great deal. It gave me a feel for how the language is used in conversations on a great range of topics. I also suspect that you could find transcripts of plays more easily on-line than novels or non-fiction works.

I would suggest you look for plays by Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Eugene O'Neil . . . authors such as Shakespeare and Marvell, that is to say, authors from centuries past, might not be very helpful in this regard.

Well, I wouldn't want you to be so foolish, Primat, as to read something that wasn't what you wanted. The problem is, you want to read modern works but don't want to pay for them. Maybe there is something on this website that you'll find interesting.

Bibliomania -- Free Texts online

Oh, gustavratzenhofer, thanks very much - i liked "your" story, though i understood the savour of the story a bit early. But nevertheless it's language is was i need - not easy, but also not too difficult for me.

I think that everyone understand the problem in wrong way. I ask for help cause i almost don't know english writers. this doesn't at all mean, that i want to read modern literature. i simply want to know what book to choose from the list of hundreds different books om some site!!! That's why i ask native-speakers!!!

PS HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!

MAYBE START WITH . . .
This link was given earlier by Piffka and in the selection by dlowan:

BIBLOMANIA INDEX

Open the Index given by the link here. Five books recommended to start with: "Alice's Adventure in Wonderland, Around the World in 80 Days, Brave New World, The Call of the Wild," and "A Christmas Carol." All very different. Probably, it's best to stay away for the present from books like those by Mark Twain. They are dialectical and not the easiest to understand by non-native speakers. Gook luck!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU, TOO! [/color]

sorry Mr S but i love Jane Austen and loathe Conrad!

gender choices??????

Primat, a good contemporary English author you might enjoy, and who would be readable while giving you good practice in the language is John Fowles, who wrote some of my favorites:

The Collector,
The French Lieutenant's Woman,
Daniel Martin

For a rather strange but entertaining contemporary American author, try Tom Robbins:

Just Another Roadside Attraction,
Still Life with Woodpecker

And a more serious American author, John Irving, most noted for:

The World According to Garp, and
Ciderhouse Rules

Good luck, Boss . . .

As for Jane Austen (whom i love), her final novel, Persuasion, is often described as her "most serious," and i think you would not find it difficult to read, although published nearly 200 years ago.

Apropos the Austen argument, I like her a lot. I concede that one could consider that her plots are largely uneventful, but her comedy-- and her knack at creating characters-- is superb. She would not be in my top 10, though. As for Conrad; I like some of his novels, but not Hearts of Darkness.

Hmm-- unfortunately, most of the books that I could recommend to you are either Russian, French, German, or classics from the mid 20th Century. Nabokov wrote 'Lolita' and 'Pale Fire' in English, though, and I would seriously recommend those.

Are you interested in reading good poetry? That proliferates around the internet. Wuthering Heights (which you'll find on the Bibliomania website) is delightful; it's funny that so many people consider it be a nice love story, when it actually is rather dark. Ulysses by Joyce is also fantastic (and on the site), and I know that you want English-speakers, but the translation of Madame Bovary is brilliant too.

This is probably the best you will find. "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk is very easy to read, and it is fun for your age group. I read it. It was hard to put down. It has very simple sentence structure. It's set up almost like Harry Potter, but it is for adults. You can download it from KAZAA.