Homer

The Odyssey

by Neil.B.Ennis 23 January 2026 Shortlink

Title: The Odyssey
Author: Homer
Written: circa 700 BCE
Translator: Emily Wilson, 2018
Pages: 582
Structure: 24 “books”, each about 400 to 900 lines (10 to 20 pages) long.

The Odyssey is a timeless tale about trying to return home.  After fighting in a brutal war for a decade a brilliant but battered man, Odysseus, finds himself continually thwarted by misfortune for a second decade while he tries to come back to his family.  At the same time his wife, Penelope, is harassed daily by suitors who try to convince her that her husband is dead and that she should marry one of them.

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Dostoyevsky

The Brothers Karamazov

by Neil.B.Ennis 16 January 2026 Shortlink

Title: The Brothers Karamazov
Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Written: 1880
Translator: Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (1988)
Pages: 796 Pages
Structure: 12 “Books” and an “Epilogue”, each consisting of up to fourteen chapters

After reading this book I feel like I have experienced a moral and spiritual tempest that has left destruction in its wake, and I am forced to ask how we are supposed to live when horrible things happen, innocent people suffer, and there are no clear resolutions to the conflicts that surround us.

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Tolkien

The Silmarillion

by Neil.B.Ennis 24 December 2025 Shortlink

Title: The Silmarillion
Author: J.R.R.Tolkien
Published: 1977
Pages: 358 Pages
Structure: 4 major sections, plus a series of tables, genealogies, index, and appendix

This is a difficult to read book which is also delightful.  It is well worth the effort for anyone who is a lover of Tokien’s world of  “Middle Earth”.   The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit were such successful books because they’re built on a massive mythic foundation.  They’re like the top 10% of the proverbial iceberg.  The other 90% is represented by the depth of epic detail in the Silmarillion.

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Faust by Goethe
Goethe

Faust

by Neil.B.Ennis 19 December 2025 Shortlink
Faust by Goethe

Title: Faust. A Tragedy
Author: Johann von Goethe
Written: 1772 – 1831
Translator: Walter Kaufmann
Pages: 503 Pages
Structure: A play in two parts, 12,111 lines

“Faust” is an old German legend that has been retold many times by many different authors. It is based on the life of Dr Johann Faustus, a German magician and astrologer who lived in the fifteenth century.

We have been fascinated with his story for centuries. His legend has inspired music by Beethoven, Schubert, Verdi, Wagner, Mendelssohn, and many others. It has inspired literature by Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Mann, Oscar Wilde, Louisa M Alcott, Lord Byron, and Robert Louis Stevenson, to name a few. But the work that stands our among all these is the play “Faust” by Johann von Goethe, considered by many to be the greatest work of German literature.

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Cervantes

Don Quixote

by Neil.B.Ennis 12 December 2025 Shortlink

Title: The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha
Author: Miguel De Cervantes
Written: 1605, 1615
Translator: Edith Grossman
Pages: 940 Pages
Structure: Two “Parts”. Part 1 (1605): 87 Chapters.  Part 2 (1615): 74 Chapters

I was shell-shocked after reading this book.  How can something which, on the face of it, is a farcical comedy about the exploits of a mad man have such a huge impact?  I sat there for ages afterwards trying to soak in this amazing story and realizing that in the folly of the protagonist I saw myself many times over.

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Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings

by Neil.B.Ennis 28 November 2025 Shortlink

Title: The Lord of the Rings
Author: J.R.R.Tolkien
Published: 1955
Pages: 1567 Pages
Structure: 6 “Books” each containing between 9 to 12 chapters, plus 6 appendices and 3 indexes, published in 3 volumes

Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” (LOTR) is a masterpiece – one of the greatest works of literature of the twentieth century. I have never read a book with so much depth in its world, and such broad and majestic themes.

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Hemmingway

The Old Man and the Sea

by Neil.B.Ennis 21 November 2025 Shortlink

Title: The Old Man and the Sea
Author: Ernest Hemmingway
Written: 1952
Pages: 99 Pages
Structure: No Chapters

How can such a short and simple story about an old man going fishing have so large an impact? Hemmingway’s “Old Man and the Sea” is one of the great stories of the twentieth century, earning the author the Nobel Prize for Literature shortly after it was published.

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Anonymous

The Epic of Gilgamesh

by Neil.B.Ennis 20 September 2025 Shortlink

Title: The Epic of Gilgamesh
Author: Anonymous
Written: 2,100 CCE
Pages: 119 Pages
Structure: 12 “Tablets”.

I will proclaim to the world the deeds of Gilgamesh. This was the man to whom all things were known; this was the king who knew the countries of the world. He was wise, he saw mysteries and knew secret things, he brought us a tale of the days before the flood. He went on a long journey, was weary, worn-out with labour, returning he rested, he engraved on a stone the whole story.

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Dostoyevsky

Crime and Punishment

by Neil.B.Ennis 26 July 2025 Shortlink

Title: Crime and Punishment
Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Written: 1866
Translator: David Mcduff (1991)
Pages: 671 Pages
Structure: 6 “Parts” and an “Epilogue”, each consisting of up to eight chapters

The Details

I feel dwarfed by this great work.

“Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is full of powerful ideas, and I feel like I have merely scratched the surface, and that I have missed much.

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