Need help in order of reading..

[Nazish]

Today I got lucky and managed to take away my all time top-of-the-list books for years from the library. I'm just in a fix which one shall I read first. I need help arranging from page turner to slow reads. Books in question are :

The Great Gatsby
Heart of Darkness
Lolita
Les Miserables

Thanks in advance :D *happy reading*

[kiki1982]

Don't know the rest, but Les Misérables is slow. At least to me it was.

[David Lurie]

from page turner to slow reads you say but these four books deserve a slow read, anyway I'd say

Heart of Darkness
Lolita
The Great Gatsby
Les Miserables

nice selection by the way, you are going to have a good time :thumbs_up

[Emil Miller]

This is an awkward question because one person's page turner is another's slow read, but if I had to choose, I would read them as listed. I find Conrad to be a bit of a drag and Les Miserables is a slow read on account of it's length

[Dark Muse]

I am not familair with Les Miserables but for the other three the order in which you have written them is the same order I would would have recommended.

[dfloyd]

and I would read Les Miserables last. The other three are relatively short books with Lolita being the longest and possibly the hardest. I would read Gatsby first, then Heart of Darkness. For most, Gatsby is the easiest. Lolita is a great book, but for some reason, many think it is a difficult book. It is a little non-linear so maybe this is why some:ack2: have a problem with it. I enjoyed it more the second time I read it.

Les Miserables will need some secondary sources to get through it. Hugo's description of the battle of Waterloo is almost a second novel within Les Miserables. Bone up on your French history and find a source which delineates the plot and and gives a character study. Don't be disgusted if you find it too difficult at the first reading. I tried to read it when just out of college, and I couldn't do it. Ten years later with a lot of reading experience behind me, I went right through an unabridged copy. Hugo is harder to read than many French authors. You might want to try his other classic, Notre Dame de Paris which is an easier read, and ease into Les Miserables, which is a much harder read than Tolstoy's long novel, War and Peace.

[Buh4Bee]

The Great Gatsby
Lolita
Les Miserable

I haven't read Heart of Darkness. The Great Gatsby is often a part of the American HS English curriculum. It is also a great classic! Lolita reads like a flowing stream, just dive right in. Les Miserable I have sampled it (Kindle) and it seems decent. I have also heard it requires some work to get through.