In this list, we have selected 10 great books that we think you should read at least once in your lifetime. Now, if you are ready, let’s review these books together. Enjoy reading..
“Pride and Prejudice” Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice, written by Jane Austen at the age of twenty-one, is a novel about how stereotypes actually turn into the opposite in the atmosphere of the country-noble conflict of 18th century England. In the book, which is thought to have traces of the author’s own experiences, things change when the countryman Elizabeth Bennett and her large family, the noble and wealthy Charles Bingley, rent a mansion close to where the Bennet family lives.
After Charles Bingley’s close friend Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett dance at the ball, the friction between the two begins. It can be said that Darcy’s prejudice for the non-noble Elizabeth, who is proud of his ancestry and wealth, and Elizabeth’s moral pride towards Darcy and his prejudice towards Darcy’s wealth flow in the flow of the novel with a course that will surprise both the characters and the reader.
“A woman’s loss of virtue has irreparable consequences. One wrong step he takes causes him to suffer forever. A woman’s reputation is as sensitive as her beauty.”
“Hamlet” William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare, one of the greatest names in English and world literature, tells a tragic story of revenge in Hamlet. Hamlet plots to take revenge on his uncle Caludius, who killed his father and married his mother. In Hamlet, an indispensable work on concepts such as madness and reality, chaotic relations, morality and betrayal, which always concern all humanity, you will discover the resurrection of a poetic harmony in our world over the centuries.
“To be or not to be, that is the question. Is it nobleness to endure all the bad things that luck throws your way, or to fight and overcome them?”
“A Tale of Two Cities” Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens, with its calm and still atmosphere, contrasts London with Paris in the shadow of the guillotine; He puts the notorious British lawyer Sydney Carter in front of exiled French aristocrat Charles Darnay and tells the French Revolution on the axis of contrasts. A Tale of Two Cities is a novel of anger, pain, chaos and hope despite everything.
“The Happy Prince” Oscar Wilde
The work, which tells a sweet story that happiness can be intertwined with everyone’s happiness, and that sacrifice and effort can open the doors of truth to people, allows us to look at the world from a different perspective. A small bird and a statue watching the whole city with its body made of jewels will make you question what life really is.
“The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” Victor Hugo
At the beginning of the 9th century, Notre Dame Cathedral was wanted to be demolished due to its neglect. Victor Hugo wrote this novel to draw the public’s attention to this cathedral, where he saw the word “destiny” written in Greek letters on one of the walls while he was wandering around years ago.
For this reason, we encounter a type of person who is perhaps as “scruffy” as this cathedral: Quasimodo, the church bellboy, one foot shorter than the other, deaf, one-eyed, hunchbacked. Yet, despite this outward appearance, Quasimodo also possesses superhuman strength; just like Notre Dame, which managed to survive by defying the years. This unusual appearance and superhuman strength lead to various rumors about him: “The devil Quasimodo!”, “The traitor Quasimodo!” But despite all this, the bellboy of Notre Dame falls in love with the beautiful Gypsy girl Esmeralda, with perhaps the only humane act. And now Quasimodo has begun to step out of his “destiny”, which has been stuck between the walls of the church he has consented to since his birth.
Victor Hugo, one of the most famous representatives of the romantic movement, in this novel, which has been translated into many languages, not only deals with the place of fate in human life, but also reveals Paris to the readers with his master pen.
“Jane Eyre” Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre is one of the greatest and most romantic heroes of world literature. An orphan, first of her wealthy cousins and then of the Lowood School, Jane Eyre later becomes the nanny of a little girl at Mr. Rochester’s estate. The romance they had with Mr. Rochester, Jane’s learning of the terrible secret hidden on the roof of Thornfield Manor, and therefore fleeing from there, is narrated with great grip.
Jane Eyre is a love story with a happy ending. As the famous English Novelist Thackeray said, ‘A masterpiece of great genius’.
“The Great Gatsby” F. Scott Fitzgerald
It is hopeful that we are sailing now, even though we are sailing boats against the current, even if we are thrown back and forth into the past, what a pity… F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century, called the ‘Jazz Age’ in post-World War I America. tells his decade of glory with a broken love story of a society where money is considered the only value, adorned with descriptions whose mastery and originality have yet to be attained.
“1984” George Orwell
Described as dystopia, this magnificent work of George Orwell reveals how much the past actually carries traces of the future. With this work he wrote in 1948, Orwell leaves a protest to today’s modern world. Although he describes the year 1984 in his book, it is possible to find traces from today in the depths of the book. In this case, of course, George Orwell’s foresight is effective.
This book, which is a critique of Soviet Russia, also focuses on concepts such as the pressure of today’s politics, the injustice in society, the desire to standardize people, the control of the mind and the destruction of individuality. The novel, which includes realistic aspects as well as utopian, invites you to think in the social order you live in. You will not be able to let go of this novel, which gives clues about where we might be dragged if no action is taken.
“Fahrenheit 451” Ray Bradbury
One of the prominent writers of American literature, Ray Bradbury’s work, Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953, hurls harsh criticisms at the world of today and the distant future from decades ago. The work, which progresses on a dystopian fictional plane, deals with the declining world of art and thought of the society with the development of technology.
Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, about a dark future, blends science fiction elements with the oppression regime and a robotized society. The plot of the book revolves around a totalitarian order in which firefighters are tasked with burning books rather than putting out fires. The novel takes its name from the temperature measure, which is the degree of burning of books.
Social life in 451 Fahrenheit, set in the 24th century, is very similar to the Middle Ages, when scholastic thought was dominant. In his statements about his book, Bradbury states that his purpose in writing the novel is to emphasize that television dulls his interest in reading. At this point, the author explains that his criticism is aimed directly at the public rather than at any government. The author, who blames those who do not read with those who burn books in his work, underlines that the main factor that harms society is the refusal to think.
“Animal Farm” George Orwell
The novel Animal Farm, published in 1945 by the British writer George Orwell, who is famous for his dystopian novels, contains a deep system criticism under its fairy-tale atmosphere. The work, which was written as a fable, is among the works that reached the widest audience together with the author’s novel 1984. The novel about a farm and the animals living in it; it deals with states, forms of government and societies with a simple as well as symbolic expression.
Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, which is considered among the contemporary classics, is among the most remarkable satirical novels in world literature. The author, who includes the negative aspects of more than one administration in the subtext of his novel, builds his main theme on the criticism of socialism. In addition to being ideologically inclined towards socialism, Orwell challenges totalitarian rule in his novel.
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