Suggest a book from Gutenberg.org

Niceguy Myeye

I came ill prepared for work today and do not have enough to distract me on this slow slow day. Fortunately, a lot of old books that are out of copyright are online for free at Gutenberg.org. Now, I've read a few books from there before, but I'm at a total loss of what to read now.

I suppose the alternate title of this could be "Recommend me some fancy classic literature."

One thing about it, though, I would like the language of it to not be too heavy. On a normal day, I'll need to be able to drop and pick up the train of through multiple times per day.

grungebox

The Great Gatsby is high quality and readable, assuming it's on there

Burnage

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, if you like the idea of classic literature featuring lesbian vampires. Arsene Lupin by Maurice leBlanc isn't bad if you want to read about a truly classy thief.

... they're probably not the best novels on Gutenberg, and by no means the most well known, but I'd still recommend them if you wanted to read something different.

Grid System

I'll suggest some Maupassant. He mostly wrote short stories, so the maximum time investment for a given piece is pretty low. Also, I find manybooks.net to be a superior resource overall in terms of both browsing and content delivery.

Niceguy Myeye

Thanks, guys.

LadyM

Charles Darwin's The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with Observations on Their Habits. Not only is it interesting to read about someone being the very first person to seriously investigate something that we now take for granted (that earthworms have a huge effect on soil compaction), but Charles Darwin is awesome and, at times, hilarious. Like when he tests the worms for auditory reception.

Worms do not possess any sense of hearing. They took not the least
notice of the shrill notes from a metal whistle, which was
repeatedly sounded near them; nor did they of the deepest and
loudest tones of a bassoon. They were indifferent to shouts, if
care was taken that the breath did not strike them. When placed on
a table close to the keys of a piano, which was played as loudly as
possible, they remained perfectly quiet.

Just imagine that distinguished gentleman blasting whistles and playing bassoons for all these worms in his drawing room. AWESOME.

I certainly skimmed some portions, but a lot of it was surprisingly interested (and I did in fact come away with a new respect for worms.)

Wiley

Plenty of good stuff by Charles Dickens. I'd recommend David Copperfield or Bleak House.

Dalboz

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Short reads, and it's interesting to read the original source material.

Mike Danger

Sherlock Holmes! Should be enough there to keep you busy for a while.

Quid

Is War of the Worlds on there? It's still a pretty good light read over a century later.

Saddler

The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

Proposed Roads to Freedom by Bertrand Russell - a good nonfiction political book that is easy to read and still relevant today.

MisterGrok

Candide by Voltaire. Great book with short chapters and the translations on there are in rather plain english. One of my favorite books.

TychoCelchuuu

The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce or Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson