Tag: Little Black Classics

  • The Wife of Bath

    We didn’t read this in class. Of course, we talked about the Canterbury Tales but actually reading it, no. That’s why I was pleased to see it as a part of the Little Black Classics, giving me the opportunity to read a small part without necessary the feeling that I should read it all. The… →

  • The nightingales are drunk

    The nightingales are drunk is one of the nicest titles from the Little Black Classics collection. Unfortunately, the poetry editions have been a bit hit and miss (but mostly miss) with me. I often feel like I don’t get them. Hafez liked his drink – I don’t. Maybe that is why we didn’t connect. Either… →

  • Of Street Piemen

    I had to read the title multiple time to finally get it was pie-men. Mayhem was a Victorian social reformer who spend a lot of time writing about ordinary life in that period. This is a part of that collection. As a book to read, I found it very mundane. There are lengthy descriptions of… →

  • Circles of Hell

    I bought a copy of the full Divine Comedy a couple of years ago, but have so far been holding out on reading it as I foresee another multiyear project to finish it. Circles of Hell – some snippets from the more sinister part of the collection looked like it could give me a taste… →

  • The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows

    I have never read The Jungle Book – in fact I’m only vaguely aware of its story. This collection of short stories however deals with Northern India, where Kipling grew up. They were a quite random collection and it hardly resonated with me. The title story, the Gate of the Hundred Sorrows, was rather depressing… →

  • Bringing 127 books into my home without raising suspicion

    Or: That year my TBR took a serious turn for the worse. Recently I finished the last of the aforementioned 127 books, which were all part of Penguin’s Little Black Classics. Small bites of Classics, to try them out and discover new authors. Or that was what I thought. In a couple of posts I… →

  • The Tinder Box

    I grew up with Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales so I was glad to see that this collection (six stories) was made up of some of the lesser known stories. Most of them I hadn’t heard before because they were less child-friendly lets say. I knew The Red Shoes from the Efteling, but was glad… →

  • How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher’s Dog

    This was a Little Black Classic that I was looking forward to read, mainly because of its strange title, which was almost as long as the story. It sort of spoils the story sure, but what intrigued me mainly was that in such a long title there was still room to discuss different names for… →

  • The Eve of St Agnes

    Having never read anything by Keats before, but having heard a lot of it, I was really looking forward to this collection of five of his poems. The poem of the title is the longest and it is, as his other poems, very visual. It really tells a story, and while this is a nice… →

  • How to Use Your Enemies

    This is more than a guide on How to Use Your Enemies, it is at the same time a guide on How to Use Your Friends (considering you have some left after behaving like the author suggested). It was so manipulative that it was actually an awkward read for me. It is compared to Machiavelli,… →

  • A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees

    “It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met…” Kenkō If I ever wanted to read a complete collection of random thoughts, I would seriously consider a full edition of Yoshida Kenko’s work. The short and… →

  • On the Beach at Night Alone

    This one wasn’t for me. I had of course heard of the author, but had never read anything by him. Based on this collection, a selection from Leaves of Grass, I don’t think I will either. With the Little Black Classics you never know up front what to expect, there have been some very nice… →

  • Three Tang Dynasty Poets

    This is exactly why I thought the Penguin Little Black classics would be great. This edition contains three poets from the Tang Dynasty and I will be the first to admit that it wasn’t something that I would have usually picked. But I’m very glad that I read it now, because I was most pleasantly… →

  • A Modest Proposal

    I first came in contact with Swift’s Modest Proposal in school where we read certain passages. I was immediately smitten with the nice way in which he wrote his satire. It is so businesslike that it is almost hard at first glance not to agree with his arguments and business strategy. That is, of course,… →

  • Wailing Ghosts

    According to the blurb Wailing Ghosts collects some of the most wonderful stories in Chinese literature. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t like them. With some stories I was wondering if I was missing the clue, because the end was rather abrupt and not funny. At other times I was wondering if time might have influenced… →

  • Traffic

    Traffic consists of two different pieces. The first is a speech where John Rushkin is asked to talk about an Exchange but he just tells them he couldn’t care less and talks about other things instead. This part was mildly interesting, but in fact very forgettable. The second half was worse, and I had a… →

  • Aphorisms on Love and Hate

    I was a little bit afraid to start this collection of Aphorisms, because the last one I read, another one of the Little Black Classics, was a real disappointment. I’d previously only seen a little bit of Nietzsche in class, but was curious to what he had to say. I can only speak for this… →

  • On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

    Thomas de Quincey states at the start of the essay that it is a transcript from a meeting of a mysterious group of gentleman who are fascinated by murder. The rest of the essay is then the transcript and elaborates on several murders and the murder of philosophers. Based on the fact that people are… →

  • The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue

    The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue is the third of Penguin’s Little Black Classics, and it is because of titles like this one that I picked up the series, as they represent the kind of books I would maybe not have read otherwise. The story was quite enjoyable. A young Icelandic noble holds a gap-year (several… →

  • As kingfishers catch fire

    The second of Penguin’s Little Black Classics shows a collection of poems of Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Unfortunately, they were not my taste and failed for the most part to hold my attention. One nice little detail I wanted to point out though. I’m sure it has happened to a lot of us for… →

  • Mrs Rosie and the Priest

    Mrs Rosie and the Priest is the first of the (up to now) 126 Little Black Classics. As they occupy an entire bookcase, I’m planning to read them all in the near future. This was a light starter. When people think about ‘old’ literature, they often assume that it will be higher or more moral… →

  • Love that Moves the Sun and Other Stars

    This Little Black Classic offers but a small view at the Divine Comedy, and it is a fragmentary one at that. I understand the choice to provide several canto’s from different parts of the stories, but this made it more difficult to read this on its own. I have the full Divine Comedy as a… →

  • The Dolphins, The Whales and The Gudgeon

    I used to translate these fables in Greek class, and as such one spends a lot of time analyzing the structure even more than the actual stories. In this collection, I could focus on the stories. It is an introduction into Aesop and fables in general, so if you have already read some before, there… →

  • Trimalchio’s Feast

    Much has been written and said about Rome in the first century. Petronius however, gives a first-hand account of the decadent parties that were thrown in order to establish one’s position in the city. While interesting from a historical perspective, I didn’t really like this Little Black Classic. It’s translated, of course, and I think… →