Project gutenberg (website)
What is it?
Project Gutenberg is a library of over 70,000 free eBooks.
Who is it for?
It is for anyone who likes reading.
Some of the eBooks on the Project Gutenberg website include…
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
The Odyssey by Homer
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Republic by Plato
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Through the Looking-glass by Lewis Carrol
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
My thoughts…
Why read the classics?
I think what makes reading the classics different from reading other books is that it is an opportunity to be surprised. You will have probably heard others talk about a certain book, so you might think you know what to expect, but the classics would not be so widely read if they were predictable. Reading them is often a welcome change from contemporary books for this reason. As well as this, reading works from the past can help us understand who we are today, as some of the classics have actually influenced our culture. The classics provide insight into the lives of previous generations and can illuminate new perspectives on life. I would also argue that the time we spend reading and reflecting on profound, thought-provoking literature is the perfect antidote to today world’s of stress and scrolling.