Jc Guan

9 books read for LibriVox

filter sort genre era audiobooks

Faust: Der Tragödie erster Teil Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Deutsch
Les Misérables Victor Hugo, translated by Isabel F. Hapgood
Yes, it's huge, and Hugo will stop everything for fifty pages on the Paris sewers, but Jean Valjean lifting that cart, or the bishop handing over his candlesticks, will sit in your chest for years. Skim the digressions if you must; the mercy at the center holds.
Les trois mousquetaires Alexandre Dumas Français
Notre-Dame de Paris Victor Hugo Français
The Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio, translated by John Payne
Ten young Florentines wait out the plague by telling each other stories, and most of them are funnier and filthier than you'd expect from the 1300s, full of scheming friars and wives outwitting dull husbands. Dip in and out; nobody reads all hundred straight through.
The Mystery of the Yellow Room Gaston Leroux, translated by Brentano’s
A locked room, a woman attacked inside it, and no way anyone got in or out. Rouletabille, the teenage reporter who cracks it, is cocky in a way that grows on you, and the solution actually plays fair.
The Seagull Anton Chekhov, translated by Constance Garnett
You watch Konstantin’s wounded ambition, Nina’s hunger for the stage, and Arkadina’s brittle charm collide around a disastrous play and a country estate. It’s funny in the way awkward people can be funny, then quietly painful, especially if you like drama that lets everyone misunderstand one another in painfully recognizable ways.
Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Thomas Common
You get a strange, beautiful mix of sermon, parable, and provocation, with Zarathustra speaking from a mountain in language that keeps turning into poetry. The tightrope walker, the dancing animals, and the attacks on easy morality reward rereading, though its grand voice can wear you down.
Trilby George du Maurier
You go for the sinister hypnotist Svengali, but what stays with you is bohemian Paris, three British art students, and tone-deaf Trilby herself, warm and doomed. Fair warning, du Maurier rambles and the Svengali caricature is ugly by any modern measure, so read it with eyes open.

tale.fyi

Jc Guan

9 books read for LibriVox

filter sort genre era audiobooks

Faust: Der Tragödie erster Teil Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Deutsch
Les Misérables Victor Hugo, translated by Isabel F. Hapgood
Yes, it's huge, and Hugo will stop everything for fifty pages on the Paris sewers, but Jean Valjean lifting that cart, or the bishop handing over his candlesticks, will sit in your chest for years. Skim the digressions if you must; the mercy at the center holds.
Les trois mousquetaires Alexandre Dumas Français
Notre-Dame de Paris Victor Hugo Français
The Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio, translated by John Payne
Ten young Florentines wait out the plague by telling each other stories, and most of them are funnier and filthier than you'd expect from the 1300s, full of scheming friars and wives outwitting dull husbands. Dip in and out; nobody reads all hundred straight through.
The Mystery of the Yellow Room Gaston Leroux, translated by Brentano’s
A locked room, a woman attacked inside it, and no way anyone got in or out. Rouletabille, the teenage reporter who cracks it, is cocky in a way that grows on you, and the solution actually plays fair.
The Seagull Anton Chekhov, translated by Constance Garnett
You watch Konstantin’s wounded ambition, Nina’s hunger for the stage, and Arkadina’s brittle charm collide around a disastrous play and a country estate. It’s funny in the way awkward people can be funny, then quietly painful, especially if you like drama that lets everyone misunderstand one another in painfully recognizable ways.
Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Thomas Common
You get a strange, beautiful mix of sermon, parable, and provocation, with Zarathustra speaking from a mountain in language that keeps turning into poetry. The tightrope walker, the dancing animals, and the attacks on easy morality reward rereading, though its grand voice can wear you down.
Trilby George du Maurier
You go for the sinister hypnotist Svengali, but what stays with you is bohemian Paris, three British art students, and tone-deaf Trilby herself, warm and doomed. Fair warning, du Maurier rambles and the Svengali caricature is ugly by any modern measure, so read it with eyes open.