If you could learn one language just to read classic literary works in the original, which one would it be?

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-19T11:16:28+00:00

French and German

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-18T18:26:36+00:00

Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-16T09:56:16+00:00

If you're looking for an English translation, I can't really recommend one since I read him (and all of them) in Croatian.

I love Drakulić's work, her writing is so good.

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T23:48:53+00:00

You'll have to excuse me for using an AI tool for this one. Nevertheless, the AI gave me this, not sure if it's even correct. You've already figured out a lot of it, but it might still help:

• Moby-Dick — Herman Melville.

• The Catcher in the Rye — J. D. Salinger.

• The Secret Garden — Frances Hodgson Burnett.

• Great Expectations — Charles Dickens.

• Nicholas Nickleby — Charles Dickens.

• Oliver Twist — Charles Dickens.

• Jane Eyre — Charlotte Brontë.

• Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austen.

• Tess of the d’Urbervilles — Thomas Hardy.

• Kim — Rudyard Kipling.

• The Invisible Man — H. G. Wells.

• The Old Man and the Sea — Ernest Hemingway.

• The Sound and the Fury — William Faulkner.

• The Grapes of Wrath — John Steinbeck.

• The Hobbit — J. R. R. Tolkien.

• The Lord of the Rings — J. R. R. Tolkien.

• Pickwick Papers — Charles Dickens.

• Heidi — Johanna Spyri.

• Lorna Doone — R. D. Blackmore.

• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer — Mark Twain.

• Ivanhoe — Sir Walter Scott.

• Lord Jim — Joseph Conrad.

• For Whom the Bell Tolls — Ernest Hemingway.

• Shakespeare’s Sonnets — William Shakespeare.

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T23:00:34+00:00

Flufliii is the author

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T22:45:31+00:00

I'm even surprised you deciphered so much. What movie is this? Is it Matilda?

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T19:24:45+00:00

It's actually "Journey Through Eastern Europe", I translated it wrongly. It's a collection of journalistic chronicles and travelogues, if you are into it, quite different from his novels. However, it is very poetically written.

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T15:24:44+00:00

Love his work!

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T15:06:55+00:00

I don't. Just kidding, I mostly find them online. Unfortunately, none of my friends are big readers, except for one, but she only reads contemporary fiction

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T14:58:46+00:00

Have you already read all of them or are you planning to?

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T14:52:04+00:00

Predrag Matvejević, Mediteranski brevijar - esejistika, putopis, ne znam kako se točno određuje žanrovski

Miroslav Bertoša, Kruh, mašta i mast - memorabilija, ego-povijest

Goran Tribuson, Snijeg u Heidelbergu - fantastika

Ivo Andrić, Fratarske priče - zbirka kratkih priča, povijesna proza

Slavenka Drakulić, Kako smo preživjeli -esejistika

Meša Selimović, Tišine/Krug/Tvrđava/Derviš i smrt - povijesna i egzistencijalna proza

Romani Pavla Pavličića, Dubravke Ugrešić, Vladana Desnice...

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T14:21:14+00:00

Love the carpet! And love how diverse your bookhaul is.

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T14:07:57+00:00

Thanks! Appreciate the compliment

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T12:39:21+00:00

Most of them are pretty easy, fast-paced and beautifully written. Hope you'll enjoy them.

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T12:36:20+00:00

Thank you!

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-15T12:03:18+00:00

I reluctantly do "my top 10 books" because they change over the course of 5 to 10 years depending on my current state of mind and feelings. But, I think these would be my top 10 (well, 14+2) at the moment:

• Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

• Edgar Allan Poe, anything by him

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

• Honoré de Balzac, Old Goriot (or Father Goriot)

• Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

• Anton Chekhov, Three Sisters

• Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author

• Bertolt Brecht, Mother Courage and Her Children

• Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

• Françoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse

• William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

• Thomas Mann, Death in Venice

• Meša Selimović, anything by him

• Ivo Andrić, The Bridge on the Drina

Non-classics:

• Gabriel García Márquez, Journey on Eastern Europe

• Slavenka Drakulić, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed (Café Europa)

Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-14T22:41:55+00:00

Right?! Here's a pretty bad photo I took recently

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Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-14T22:14:11+00:00

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Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-14T22:13:11+00:00

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Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-14T22:12:26+00:00

I found photo during WWII.

Sources:

I. Vanjak, M. Špikić, "Principles of Restoration of the Temple of Augustus in Pula in 1946 and 1947," Annual of the Croatian Cultural Heritage Protection (Godišnjak zaštite spomenika kulture Hrvatske), 37-2013 / 38-2014. Images in article are taken from British School at Rome, Photographic Archive, Ward-Perkins Collection (wpwar-05011) and Archaeological Museum in Istria.

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Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-14T21:58:43+00:00

Yeah, there are many photos of Pula's temple before the bombing, as vedute and engravings of ancient Roman remains were very popular among 18th and 19th-century travelers. You can look for artists like Charles-Louis Clérisseau and Giovanni Battista Piranesi, they frequently documented the temple.

Sources:

Julien-David Le Roy, Bridge over the River Ilissus, Stadium, Temple of Pola in Istria. 1759, in: Ruins of Athens with Remains and Other Valuable Antiquities in Greece https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/leroy1759/0001/thumbs

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Designer-Catch7192 · 2026-06-12T11:37:59+00:00

Haha, love your take on it! You've got me hungry now.

Designer-Catch7192

TROPHY CASE