1750s

3 books

sort era audiobooks

Candide Voltaire
You can read it in an afternoon, and it moves like a prank: earthquakes, shipwrecks, absurd disasters, all while Pangloss insists this is the best of all possible worlds. If bleak comedy makes you laugh out loud, this is a very good afternoon.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Laurence Sterne
You spend time with a narrator who keeps losing his thread before he can properly tell his own story, while Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim quietly steal the book with their model fortifications. It is digressive, typographically mischievous, and occasionally trying, but its jokes and odd tenderness reward patience.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam Smith
Forget the invisible hand guy for a minute; this is Smith watching people, asking why we wince at a stranger's pain and care what an imagined observer thinks of us. The prose is leisurely and eighteenth-century, but if you like slow, humane thinking, it rewards you.

3 books

sort era audiobooks

Candide Voltaire
You can read it in an afternoon, and it moves like a prank: earthquakes, shipwrecks, absurd disasters, all while Pangloss insists this is the best of all possible worlds. If bleak comedy makes you laugh out loud, this is a very good afternoon.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Laurence Sterne
You spend time with a narrator who keeps losing his thread before he can properly tell his own story, while Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim quietly steal the book with their model fortifications. It is digressive, typographically mischievous, and occasionally trying, but its jokes and odd tenderness reward patience.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam Smith
Forget the invisible hand guy for a minute; this is Smith watching people, asking why we wince at a stranger's pain and care what an imagined observer thinks of us. The prose is leisurely and eighteenth-century, but if you like slow, humane thinking, it rewards you.