How to read classic books.

Disclaimer: I am not claiming to be an expert in reading classic books. I simply have a love for reading them and would like to share a few tips on how to enjoy them more.

1. Prepare 

An average person reads around 40 pages in an hour, so an average classic book takes between 10 to 15 hours of your time. If you are ready to invest that much time of your life into it, it makes sense to spend 30 to 50 minutes on research, which would help you understand and enjoy the book.

2.Time Travel Tool.

I would strongly recommend perceiving any classic book as a time travel tool. If you are not genuinely interested in the epoch when a book was written, it would be better not to bother yourself with reading that particular composition.

3. Audiobook option

Before the 17th and 18th centuries, most compositions were created for public reading, which implies that the majority of books written before the 18th century were intended to be listened to rather than read silently. Reading silently to oneself became more common after 1780-1800. Therefore, my advice would be that if a composition was written before 1780, audiobooks may be better suited for it. If you are not completely opposed to audiobooks, give them a try. Audiobooks are particularly well-suited for epic poetry such as The Iliad, Beowulf, and so on.

4. Historical surroundings

Read about the historical events that surrounded the time when a book was written. The further back in history you go, the broader your scope of historical events should be. For example, if you're reading The Great Gatsby, researching the period from 1910 to 1925 would be sufficient for understanding the spirit of the time. However, if you're reading The Iliad, it would be beneficial to spend some time reading about the Bronze Age and Aegean civilization on websites like Wikipedia.

 5. Laws of the genre

Figure out the genre of the book and read a bit about the conventions and expectations within that genre. It will save you from feeling perplexed when encountering text structures and character behaviors that are too archaic and not congruent with the literature of our time.

That's all for today. Read good books.

We would also like to offer you our classic leather bound book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley