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Peder, I'm impressed by your flexibility. Recommendations follow. Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte (She knew Bronte and wrote this bio using her letters and family stories.) Byatt, Possession (a literary mystery, ignore the movie which was awful) Bowe, The Death of the Heart or The...

Many names here that I don't know and many represent other cultures/languages than the American English/English English I have spent most of my time with. Exceptions: the names bolded are English/English and first class and should be on anyone's list.

The book can be boring, but I found it a worthwhile experience, especially when I reread it a couple of years ago for my book group. I was older than the first time around and more willing to wait and see what developed. I detected three stories: Clarissa's, Peter Walsh's, and the young...

Addendum. I have just read Peder's Pond blog and find I worked from the earlier version of the list. I certainly get out of date fast.

So many books, so little memory. I think I have read 254 of them, but did I really read The Last of the Mohicans, or did I only see the movie? Like all lists I find some things I like and some I don't. He included Raymond Chandler and John LeCarre, who would not have made it on some lists...

Women wearing high heels and being chased by sadistic rapists or killers will weave from side to side, thus slowing their forward progress. People who live in the country and feed chickens, milk cows and plow fields rarely get their hands dirty. An artistic smudge on one cheek is sometimes...

One of the reasons I love using a word processor is so that I can write in a flow of words, then go back and delete what doesn't belong there or which obstructs the text. The best advice in Strunk and White's The Elements of Style is "Omit unnecessary words."

This quotes from Robert's useful list a couple of weeks ago. How about choices, like first, second, third? Here are mine: 1. Villette 2. The Good Earth 3. We Have Always Lived at the Castle

To me, teaching "the Bible" is not equivalent to teaching "Christianity" inasmuch as the Bible includes both the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) revered by Jews as well as the New Testament revered by the many Christian sects with different interpretations thereof. The Koran, so I understand...

Here are a few which would stimulate good discussion: Collapse by Jared Diamond Fast Food Nation by Schlosser Nickel and Dimed by Ehrenreich Fast Food Nation, for example, is not just a put-down of McDonald's. It's revelatory of our whole food system and how it works for and against us...

While we are talking about difficulty in understanding speech on TV and in movies, let me register a complaint about those terribly authentic films where are significant conversations take place on noisy street corners. Important information is exchanged with traffic rumbling in the background...

And I have trouble with accents in some British films. I'm just back from watching Brick Lane. I loved the book, but could not understand what most people were saying in the film. It was best when they switched to Bengali and I could read the subtitles.

So far I haven't read The Lord of the Rings, The DaVinci Code or Lolita. I have never read Ulysses by Joyce.

We have had a lot of interesting speculation and interpretation here with regard to the three people and their relationship. The General, it seems to me, was rewriting the past even as he brooded on it. Maybe Konrad was his sincere friend. Maybe Krisztina was a sincere (if not totally loving)...

The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott was written after World War II, but is set in India during the war. Scott was there himself, so many of the incidents were things that he observed. These books were the basis for The Jewell in the Crown television series.

The theme of the Embers is also shown by Henrik throwing the diary - which he had resisted reading for 41 years - on the embers of the fire. This could be interpreted as turning away from 41 years of suppressed emotions, or it could be interpreted as the final act of a man who never really knew...

In dialogs by Plato, the leader of the discussion is Socrates. Socrates wrote nothing, we only know him through the works of others, principally Plato. I suggest you read the Wikipedia entry Trial of Socrates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for some quick background. Most of the material in...

The Symposium can be found in paperback and is often included in various collections of Plato's dialogs. In the dialogs Socrates engages in discussion with one or more disciples. The disciples raise various points and occasionally object, but always end by agreeing with Socrates. You can play...

Oskylad, I think your analysis is much more perceptive than mine. I reacted to the General's arrogance without seeing what it was covering. It was part of his heritage and training, to stoically present an unemotional face to all events.

Charcoal. It gives a better flavor. Chocolate, vanilla or strawberry ice cream?