1878
4 books
- Dick's a fifteen-year-old suddenly running a whaling ship after disaster wipes out the crew, and Verne makes you feel every mile of that responsibility. Fair warning, it turns darker on land, taking hard aim at the slave trade, and daffy Cousin Benedict chasing insects is the one bit of relief.
- You’ll enjoy this if you like your mysteries formal, twisty, and a little creaky around the edges. A wealthy man is found murdered in his library, and Ebenezer Gryce works through the household’s secrets while young lawyer Everett Raymond narrates with appealing uncertainty.
- You settle into Egdon Heath, where the landscape feels like a living force and Eustacia Vye burns against its limits. Hardy is patient, gloomy, and occasionally wry, so you need some tolerance for tragic misjudgments, but the atmosphere and morally tangled characters stay with you.
- Travel Essays non-fictionYou get Stevenson at his most companionable here, grumbling cheerfully through rain, bad beds, and the stubbornness of his donkey Modestine while noticing every landscape and passing stranger. The travel is often less important than his voice, so you’ll enjoy it if you like wandering prose with wit, digression, and a little discomfort.