Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina - Free
First Published in 1877

Anna Karenina is a novel by Leo Tolstoy. The novel was originally published in serial form from 1873 to 1877. This is a highly regarded book and one that I personally love. It has grown in popularity in recent years and is widely regarded as a flawless book. The new movie version looks really good with Keira Knightley as Anna Karenina and Jude Law as her husband Count Alexei Karenin.

Anna Karenina is a classic novel dealing with the grand themes of adultery, forgiveness, death and social change in 19th century Russia. Tolstoy loved to write and it shows in this 800 plus page book. His War and Peace is over 1000 pages but with the magic of the Kindle, the weight of the book disappears.

The novel starts out with some immortal words.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

The novel is split into eight parts with each part containing 20 to 30 chapters. Because the novel was originally serialized, you can read each chapter as a standalone within a greater work. Tolstoy managed to write a 800 page page-turner. A feat that is highly praised by many including William Faulkner who called it “the best ever written.” Read the book before you go out and see the movie because like I always say, the books are always better than the movies! The novel has been made into at least 12 different movie versions.

Download the book and see what is changed or left out in the new movie version.

Anna Karenina - Free The Constance Garnett translation.
Anna Karenina - $0.99 A nicely formatted version with a table of contents.
Anna Karenina (Maude Translation) - $2.99 The highly praised Maude translation.

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Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoyevsky 1876

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Crime and Punishment - Free
First Published in 1866

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (also Dostoevsky) was a Russian writers who lived from 1821 to 1881. He is widely regarded as one of the best writers and psychologist in literature. His novels portray the psychology of characters living in troubled times.

Crime and Punishment takes place in Russia and follows a former student, Roskolnikov, through some tough times. He is very poor and is driven to commit a terrible crime with which he must suffer the aftermath. Dostoyevsky was a master of psychology and he paints a haunting picture of the criminal psyche. Roskolnikov must live with his conscience after the crime and becomes hollow version of himself.

Through desperation Roskolnikov commits a crime that forever changes him. He tries to rationalize his actions and ultimately fails to make sense of it all. The story follows his descent and the consequences that not only he has to live with but his family as well.

Dostoyevsky shows us a troubled Russia that is plagued with poverty and class warfare. Dostoyevsky was himself imprisoned for years and seems to try to show us some of his desperation through Roskolnikov.

Crime and Punishment is one of the best novels from one of the best writers. It is a classic in every sense of the word. Roskolnikov is a well developed character that you can empathize with and that will live on long after you finish the novel. This is a book with the power to change the way you view the world.

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The Epic of Gilgamesh

Anonymous
The Epic of Gilgamesh - $5.59
2150 - 2000 BCE

The Gilgamesh Epic dates back to the Bronze age! That is over 4000 years old. It was discovered in 1853 or 1849, depending on the source. This great work was lost for thousands of years. It dates back to the earliest civilizations in the fertile crescent, modern day Iraq and surrounding areas.

Epic n. - A long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation

The Epic survives in tablets. The standard versions of the epic consist of twelve tablets. They also found a few other versions in different languages and they used the different versions to fill in the missing or broken pieces.

The Akkadian versions is considered the standard version. They also have an older babylonian version and alternate poems of the different parts of the epic in Sumerian.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is split into two parts. The first part is the tale of Gilgamesh who was a demigod and a bad ruler to his people. The gods create a rival to Gilgamesh in Enkidu. Enkidu has many similarities to Adam in the bible. Gilgamesh and Enkidu battle and Gilgamesh is the superior fighter but they end up becoming friends. Gilgamesh was lonely as a demigod and now he has an equal. They go about doing heroic deeds until Enkidu is killed.

The second part of the epic is Gilgamesh quest for immortality. He is distraught over the death of Enkidu who he thought immortal like himself. Gilgamesh searches for the secret to eternal life and does not find it.

"The life that you are seeking you will never find. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping."

He does find a version of immortality in the form of epic poetry. The poem survives today and so does Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is now considered to have really lived, not as a demigod but as a king in ancient times.

When I first heard of the Gilgamesh epic I knew I had to read it. It is one of the oldest pieces of literature that humans have created. What surprised me about the story is how good it is. I don’t know why I didn't expect this epic to be as good as others. The Odyssey is one of my favorites works of literature and that is about 2500 years old. That is considered one of the best things ever written and I think that Gilgamesh is not up there yet because it has not been around as long because it was lost. It has not had enough time to be studied and become a part of our culture. Gilgamesh has only been studied for 150 years compared to The Odyssey that has influenced all literature for 2500 years.

Gilgamesh seems to be more interesting to historians than to literature professors. The epic just needs more people like us to read and spread the word.

Here are the different versions of the epic available in the Kindle store:

1 An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic - Free This is one of the versions I read. Compares the different versions of the tablets and has a lot of analysis as well as a history of the tablets.

2 The Epic of Gilgamesh (Classics) - $5.59 This is the Penguin Classics versions. Has a great introduction and is the standard versions of the epic.

3 Gilgamesh: The Oldest Epic Tale (Annotated) - $0.99 This versions compiles the tablets to produce a more complete text of the story. This is an almost direct translation with some annotations.

Check out our Facebook Page and Like us to keep up to date on the latest Kindle Literature news. You can share this post or any others on your social media of choice and bookmark the site for future post. You can also grab the RSS feed or try a   free 2 week trial*  on your Kindle to have the posts delivered directly to your Kindle. Follow me on twitter @seframos. Happy Reading.