Q: What big European classics can I read? I want long, thick books to get me through autumn and winter.
Enid Lacob, 70, Cape Town, South Africa
Sandro Ferri and Sandra Ozzola, founders of Europa Editions, write:
The first titles we would suggest are the great masterpieces of the 19th century. The Russian novels by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and the French novels by Balzac, Dumas, Hugo and Zola, as well as the English ones by Austen, Dickens and Conrad. The foundations of literary realism – not only are they able to tell of social and personal universes, but they remain compelling narratives that allow the reader to identify with characters and situation despite the temporal distance.
It’s also very enjoyable, if more demanding, to read the masters of modernism, those who questioned the basis of the traditional novel. We’re talking about Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf and James Joyce.
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