Latest posts
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The Golden Age of Children’s Classics: Alice, Oz, and the Books That Shaped Childhood
Sometime in the half-century between 1865 and 1911, childhood acquired a literature of its own, and the books written in those years have never been…
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The Complete Sherlock Holmes: Reading Doyle Beyond the Hits
Almost everyone arrives at Sherlock Holmes through the same four doors: A Study in Scarlet, “The Speckled Band,” The Hound of the Baskervilles, and “The…
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Charles Dickens: Where to Start With the Great Victorian
Most people meet Dickens through abridgment, adaptation, or a school assignment they resented, which means most people have never met Dickens at all. They…
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‘Song of Myself’: A Guide to Whitman’s Great Poem
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,” the poem begins, and a reader meeting it for the first time can be forgiven for flinching at the apparent vanity.…
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The Eddas and the Sagas: Where to Start With Norse Mythology
Most people meet the Norse gods sideways — through a Marvel film, a video game, a heavy-metal album cover, a Tuesday (Tyr’s day) and a Wednesday (Woden’s)…
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Where to Start With Wilkie Collins
There is a particular pleasure in reading a writer who does not trust you to sit still. Wilkie Collins, the most ingenious and least respectable of the…
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Edgar Allan Poe: Where to Start
Which Edgar Allan Poe stories should I read first?
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Jules Verne: Where to Start With the Extraordinary Voyages
Which Jules Verne novel should I read first?
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The Three Musketeers and the d’Artagnan Romances: A Reading Order
What order should I read the d’Artagnan novels?
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Is Ulysses Worth Reading? An Honest Guide
Is Ulysses by James Joyce worth reading?