Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a good one, but not really happy if I remember. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins if you like detective stories. It's considered the first English-language detective novel, and stands up pretty well, iirc. Depending on your tastes, there's Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle... check online at Project Gutenberg, they may have some of the rights-expired stuff entered there. Not of Conan Doyle, though; his estate's never letting them go.
Ooo. Also Lovecraft if you're into weird, twisty, brain-screwage wrought in purple prose. It's an acquired taste though, and not much on the happy endings.
Now, Shakespeare's an odd one for reading unless you're used to reading plays. I read most of them in high school. Hamlet's always a good one (no happy endings there), 12th Night, Midsummer Night's Dream. As for film adaptations, I love Kenneth Branagh's "Much Ado About Nothing" and ooo. If you can find it (doubtful but worth a shot) there's a comedy troupe that's done "The Complete Works of Sharespeare" in... I forget. Either an hour or two. Must be seen if you can find it, it's rather obscure.
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Date: 2009-08-10 03:36 pm (UTC)Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a good one, but not really happy if I remember. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins if you like detective stories. It's considered the first English-language detective novel, and stands up pretty well, iirc. Depending on your tastes, there's Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle... check online at Project Gutenberg, they may have some of the rights-expired stuff entered there. Not of Conan Doyle, though; his estate's never letting them go.
Ooo. Also Lovecraft if you're into weird, twisty, brain-screwage wrought in purple prose. It's an acquired taste though, and not much on the happy endings.
Now, Shakespeare's an odd one for reading unless you're used to reading plays. I read most of them in high school. Hamlet's always a good one (no happy endings there), 12th Night, Midsummer Night's Dream. As for film adaptations, I love Kenneth Branagh's "Much Ado About Nothing" and ooo. If you can find it (doubtful but worth a shot) there's a comedy troupe that's done "The Complete Works of Sharespeare" in... I forget. Either an hour or two. Must be seen if you can find it, it's rather obscure.