Jacob’s Room, Virginia Woolf
Before this book I generally did not read, unless it was a Star Trek branded airport novel. I had just got an iPad and was rummaging around the Project Gutenberg texts they’d dumped into iBooks. I chose it impulsively.
This book set my brain and heart on fire and opened the world of literature for me. It’s very specific, though, and I can’t -recommend- it to anyone.
There is little spackle in this book, as if every sentence and scene is cropped a bit beyond the point of readability. But reading aloud it flows well. There is effectively no plot and a great deal of its merit is at the sentence level. Furthermore, this book in particular resonated with me emotionally.
I was thirsty for more and read other classics. My favorites; To the Lighthouse, Picture of Dorian Grey and Thus Spake Zarathustra (the translation they have on Gutenberg).
This hobby dominated my attention for years. What displaced it was I had to learn Polish. At first I tried to combine these; I read Charlotte’s Web, the Little Prince and Pulp (bukowski) in Polish. But it really wasn’t an effective way to continue and Polish was the priority. All other hobbies had to go.