Coming up: A list of noteworthy, accomplished and exciting authors…
…and the books that didn’t quite work.
Not all of these classics are total failures or trainwrecks – but with all of them, the author either has much better alternative books (I’ll work out a list with recommendations next month)… or the book just wasn’t a very profound or joyful reading experience.
If I could travel back in time and prevent my younger self from wasting time with certain “classic” books… these would be my candidates:
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Chingis (Tschingis) AITMATOV: ‘Jamilia’ (Dschamilja), 1958
Martin AMIS: ‘Time’s Arrow’, 1991
Jane AUSTEN: ‘Pride and Prejudice’, 1813
Simone de BEAUVOIR: ‘All Men are mortal’, 1946
Thomas BERNHARD: ‘The Loser’ (Der Untergeher), 1983
Georg BÜCHNER: ‘Leonce & Lena’, 1838
Mikhail BULGAKOV: ‘Master and Marguerite’, 1942
Albert CAMUS: ‘A Happy Death’, 1971
Lewis CARROLL: ‘Through the Looking Glass’ / ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, 1871 / 1865
Bruce CHATWIN: ‘Songlines’, 1987
Paulo COELHO: ‘Veronika decides to die’, 1998
J.M. COETZEE: ‘Disgrace’, 1999
Don DeLILLO: ‘Falling Man’, 2007
Junot DIAZ: ‘The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao’, 2007
Ford Madox FORD: ‘The Good Soldier’, 1914
Richard FORD: ‘The Sportswriter’, 1986
E.M. FORSTER: ‘Howard’s End’, 1910
Nathaniel HAWTHORNE: ‘The Scarlet Letter’, 1850
Gerhard HAUPTMANN: ‘Lineman Thiel’, 1888
Ernest HEMINGWAY: ‘To Have and Have not’, 1937
S.E. HINTON: ‘The Outsiders’, 1967
James JOYCE: ‘Portrait of the Artist as a young Man’, 1916
Uwe JOHNSON: ‘Speculations about Jakob’, 1959
Heinrich von KLEIST: ‘The Marquise of O’, 1808
Guiseppe Tomasi di LAMPEDUSA: ‘Il Gattopardo’, 1958
Margaret LAURENCE: ‘The Diviners’, 1974
Klaus MANN: ‘Pathetic Symphony’, 1935
Gabriel Garcia MARQUEZ, ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’, 1985
W. Somerset MAUGHAM: ‘Of Human Bondage’, 1915
Ian McEWAN: ‘Enduring Love’, 1991
Haruki MURAKAMI: ‘Afterdark’, 2004
Vladimir NABOKOV: ‘Transparent Things’, 1972
Juan Carlos ONETTI: ‘A Brief Life’, 1950
Annie PROULX: ‘The Shipping News’, 1993
Jean-Paul SARTRE: ‘The Words’, 1964
Andrezej SZCZYPIORSKI: ‘The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenmann’, 1972
Ingo SCHULZE: ‘Simple Storys’, 1998
Birgit VANDERBEKE: ‘Das Muschelessen’, 1990
Thornton WILDER: ‘Theophilus North’, 1973
Virginia WOOLF: ‘Orlando’, 1928
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What books did you regret? What classics are overrated? Let me know in the comments!
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