Suggest a (study) book to me

[Jon_Dahl]

I have about one month now before I start studying English at a university level. I'm going to get a head start and read lots of things.

I'd like to read a book that would get me to the very core of English language. I'd read the book without a pause, then collapse and sigh, "I understand everything now, it's all clear to me, every bit of it!"

Since many of the playgrounders seem well versed in English, which in most cases is their mother tongue, I'd like to hear what this Quintessential Book of English Language would be. What is "Quintessential" in this case is completely up to you, but please remember the aforementioned effect!

[Flickerdart]

Ulysses, for sure.

[randman22222]

Ulysses, for sure.

That's cruel. I like how you think.

Seriously though, I don't think that's a request that can be meaningfully filled. English is old as balls, and its media, genres, and cultural/societal contexts have changed/evolved too much for there to be a quintessential work fulfilling that particular request. You'll have to break down your view of English lit/other media into smaller, manageable chunks, and then you'll be able to get an overview in the form of a timeline of English, which gets more and more branched and complex as you approach the current day. Or specialise, taking a microcosm of English. You'll find cores of microcosms, but a linear, branching smear, for English as a whole.

Edit: Unless you mean you want to reach the core of modern English, from the perspective of someone learning it as a second language? If that's what you mean, then I'm not sure I have any ideas.

I'm a scientist. Literature is not my specialty. Someone who has studied English media would probably have more to say, and more accurately.

[Peelee]

...the dictionary.

OH COME ON! How could I not?

[kgato503]

First off, I feel the need to ask if you are trying to learn English or American. The two are very similar, but over the past couple of hundred years the Americans have taken the English language and done some...interesting things to it. Some of the differences are subtle, but they are there. If you want to learn English, as spoken in England, then I would suggest finding a book written by a well known (and accredited) English author. If you want to learn American (English as spoken in the USA), then I suggest finding a book by a well known (and accredited) US author (I would not recommend the Twilight series). If you want the language as it is spoken today, find a book that was recently published (note, this would eliminate most of the classics). Look into the background of the author. If they have a degree in English/literature, then their grammar and language should be fairly spot on (note, this isn't strictly necessary). You should also try to find a book that takes place in modern times, in the country you are focusing on (England or the USA), so that you don't have to worry about a modern author doing medieval speak/foreign (to them) accents (thus I cannot suggest the Lord of the Rings). Also, Shakespeare is right out for these reasons (not set in modern times, author background is considered sketchy), although his works are considered by many to be quintessential English.

Truth be told, writing all this down, the suggestion that comes to mind for me (if you want English-English) would be the English (not American) versions of the Harry Potter Books. It is a fun read, has good English (as far as I know), and a good number of the made up words have gotten absorbed into the English language anyway. I am not sure if J.K. Rowling has an English/literature degree, But I have heard very few complaints about such things (and most books have at least one typo somewhere in them). It is also rather close to a modern setting. For a comparison of English and American, you can read one version and then the other, and note the differences (although, if you are just going for American English, I would still recommend finding a US author). As I said, the differences are subtle, but are enough that they went and created a translated version for sale in the US. Also, given the popularity of the books world wide, the books have probably been printed in your native language, and you can get those copies to use if you get stuck or confused. Note: Here I am assuming that you are not a native English speaker, based on some of your word choices in your opening post. If I am wrong I do apologize.

DISCLAIMER: I do not have an English, Literature, or even Fine Arts degree. I am by no means an expert. Make of this what you will.

[Jon_Dahl]

Thank you for the input so far. The dictionary, Harry Potter or Ulysses seem like interesting candidates

[Zrak]

There's no single, quintessential book that will get you to the core of the English language, or even English literature. English is spoken in enough societies and cultures, and has existed for long enough, that even putting aside the vast thematic differences between various works arising from those temporal and cultural divisions, there's not even a single quintessential example of English prose style, any more than there is one single, definitive style in which English prose is written; even within the scope of authors praised for their style (rightly or wrongly) from the same nation in the same period, you can get styles as different as Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald.

That said, the single, quintessential book that will get you to the core of the English language is Ulysses. That or Pale Fire.

The two are very similar, but over the past couple of hundred years the Americans have taken the English language and done some...interesting things to it.

As have the English, unless you are trying to advance the thesis that the language of Samuel Richardson is indistinguishable from the language of Zadie Smith.

[BWR]

Just in case you don't get the joke, I'm going to spell it out: "Ulysses" is the joke suggestion. It's famous for being long, involved, horrendously complicated and, frankly, rather boring. It's not as a bad as "Finnegan's Wake", also by James Joyce, but it's one of those books (and the author in general) that gives me the sneaking suspicion that those who extol the virtues do so only so they can seem superior and/or because they know other people think it's supposedly impressive and don't want to be left out of the club of lit-wallahs.

More generally, you won't get what you're after. Trying to sum up an entire language in one book is not only impossible, it's absurd. A language is not mere grammar or vocabulary, but how it's used. The more it's used for, the bigger the language is and the less any single work is definitive. Even a small collection of books is insufficient. We can make some suggestions about major works and much of what is currently popular, but it will still leave out a lot. Will you be studying language (grammar, phonology, philology, semantics, etc.) or literature? Because while they overlap, they are somewhat different approaches to the subject of English.

In any case, the short answer is the more you read, the more you will understand English - how it works, how it doesn't work, the culture, the history etc. Oh, and don't pay any attention to any comments about English vs. American. The differences are so minimal as to be almost meaningless as far as written dialects are concerned (unless the author gets into trying to accurately portray accents/dialects, or you move into Scots). Cultural differences are slightly more pronounced but still minimal. You put an English book next to an American one and the chances are the only difference you can tell between them is whether they spell a handful of words one way or the other and maybe the use of one or two words that aren't used by the other.

Now for a short list of English Literature's Greatest Hits (TM) and why they may be interesting.

The Bible (King James version). Love it or hate it, if you want to understand the basis of modern English poetry and culture, you need to know your Bible. Good luck understanding Beowulf, Chaucer, Pierce Plowman or any number of other works without a basic familiarity with Christianity. The KJ version is perhaps the most influential and one of the first really accessible Bibles that made an effort to not only be accurately translated but also sound good when read aloud. In so many cases when the Bible is quoted in literature or on screen, it's the KJ version that's used.

William Shakespeare. You knew he'd be on the list. There's a reason he's been held up as the epitome of English language. Some of it has to do with everyone else liking him and saying he's great so people feel the need to jump on the bandwagon in order to avoid ridicule. Most of it has to do with him genuinely being a good poet and playwright. Sure, some of his stuff's formulaic and repetitive (read one comedy, read them all) and exaggerated ("Titus Andronicus" was written in his, as one comedian put it, Quentin Tarantino stage), but few, if anyone, could turn a phrase like Willy. He's meant to be performed, not read, so find a good production of one of his works and enjoy English from one of the masters. Unless you read him as though you are putting on a stage production in your head, you will miss a lot of his genius. Reading and enjoying Shakespeare is perfectly possible, but he really does work best in performance.

Joseph Conrad. He was Polish and English was not his native tongue (it was his third language), and not acquired until his twenties. He still is famous for being one of the better writers in English. "Heart of Darkness" is his most famous work and rather short (and quite good). Similarly, Vladimir Nabokov is famous (in the Anglophone countries at least) as a writer in English despite being originally and additionally a writer in and of Russian. "Lolita" is probably his most famous English work, that or the aforementioned "Pale Fire". Reading these two is an interesting experience because they bring some decidedly non-English sensibilities (or at least rarely-found-in-English sensibilities) to the major canon of English.

John Milton is a famous poet, especially for "Paradise Lost". It may be a bit hard to get into, especially if you aren't too comfortable with English (but your posts around here suggest you are pretty good, so it shouldn't be an issue)

Edmund Spencer's "The Faerie Queen" is highly allegorical so understanding it might take some effort and research. It's also one of the more famous works in English and interesting enough.

Geoffrey Chaucer held the place of Shakespeare before S came along. He was immensely popular in his lifetime and later, especially for "The Canterbury Tales". You'll probably want to find a translation as 14th century English can be hard to read without some practice or a grounding in Old English (which I assume you don't have). Anyway, Chaucer is pretty good, if a bit stuffy at times. You might want to read excerpts. The CT's General Prologue and the Miller's Tale are the juiciest and funniest bits and the ones most referenced in English. (Don't bother trying to find a copy of Chaucer's original works because there are dozens of extant MSS of his various texts and trying to find the original version is a big, complicated and possibly futile endeavor. Putting together an edition of his stuff is a ton of effort and often comes down to whatever the editor prefers in any given case).

Beowulf is generally considered to be the beginning of English Literature (TM) (never mind that there were things written in English before this). Even if you have a basic understanding of Old English you'll probably want a translation because it can be difficult to understand. My supervisor at uni joked that you can make two grammars of OE - one based on Beowulf and one based on everything else. It's a fascinating piece of work and lots of fun. It was also one of Tolkien's great loves and the subject of one of his most important contributions to the study of English. However, its Englishness is quite removed from modern life so it will probably not qualify for the "this is what English is all about" criterion.

Of less famous but possibly more fun to read stuff, I can suggest Edgar Allen Poe. In many ways he was one of the pillars of modern fantasy fiction, being a major influence on Lovecraft. His poems are generally more interesting and accessible to the casual reader than poets held in higher esteem by the literati, and his stories are good too.

Mark Twain is always amusing and for his time quite radical. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and especially "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" are his most famous works, and quite good, but lots of his other stuff is sadly overlooked in favor of these, especially Huck Finn's racial issues. Things like "The diary of Adam and Eve" and "Captain Stormfield's visit to Heaven" are not only funny but spot on in their treatment of the subjects (the latter also being something of a spoof on the "Divine Comedy" and more importantly "The Gates Ajar"). You can't really go wrong with Twain, no matter what you pick up. Some of it's better than others but I have not come across anything of his I haven't liked.

Ernest Hemingway is famous for his minimalist style. I'm generally not terribly fond of him though he's good for learning minimalism and how little you really need to get the point across (though getting to the minimal point can be a helluva lot of work). Generally I find his style works for non-fiction when you try to be as clear and concise as possible, but in fiction it leaves me wanting. I thought "The Old Man and the Sea" was decent, however.

And I think I'll stop there though I could list hundreds of good authors and books of greater and lesser fame.

[Iruka]

You might also be interested in the history of the english language. I can't give you a definite recommendation, but this list looks interesting.

[BWR]

The problem with those sorts of books is that they are very often inaccurate to the point of actually being wrong. I both read and watched "The Story of English". Fascinating and fun piece of work but it does get some rather basic stuff wrong. Still, if you need a mostly OK introduction to the history of English, it's pretty good and very watchable.

[Zrak]

Just in case you don't get the joke, I'm going to spell it out: "Ulysses" is the joke suggestion. It's famous for being long, involved, horrendously complicated and, frankly, rather boring. It's not as a bad as "Finnegan's Wake", also by James Joyce, but it's one of those books (and the author in general) that gives me the sneaking suspicion that those who extol the virtues do so only so they can seem superior and/or because they know other people think it's supposedly impressive and don't want to be left out of the club of lit-wallahs.

Huh? I'm suggesting Ulysses in all seriousness. It's not really that long, or that complicated; it's easily under 400 pages and its narrative is basically straightforward. It's fairly involved because of the complex prose style, but that's the exact reason I'd recommend it; Ulysses makes full use of the the English language, from its literary traditions right down to its etymological bones, in a way few other novels do.

Also, I'm pretty sure Conrad never learned English. How else do you explain his opinion of Constance Garnett translations? =P

[BWR]

Haven't read any of her translations so I can't comment on that. Especially since I haven't read the originals to compare with.

[CurlyKitGirl]

I have about one month now before I start studying English at a university level. I'm going to get a head start and read lots of things.

I'd like to read a book that would get me to the very core of English language. I'd read the book without a pause, then collapse and sigh, "I understand everything now, it's all clear to me, every bit of it!"

Since many of the playgrounders seem well versed in English, which in most cases is their mother tongue, I'd like to hear what this Quintessential Book of English Language would be. What is "Quintessential" in this case is completely up to you, but please remember the aforementioned effect!

Well . . .

Seriously though, I don't think that's a request that can be meaningfully filled. English is old as balls, and its media, genres, and cultural/societal contexts have changed/evolved too much for there to be a quintessential work fulfilling that particular request. You'll have to break down your view of English lit/other media into smaller, manageable chunks, and then you'll be able to get an overview in the form of a timeline of English, which gets more and more branched and complex as you approach the current day. Or specialise, taking a microcosm of English. You'll find cores of microcosms, but a linear, branching smear, for English as a whole.

Edit: Unless you mean you want to reach the core of modern English, from the perspective of someone learning it as a second language? If that's what you mean, then I'm not sure I have any ideas.

That for starters.
As for my credentials (if such a thing exists), let's just say that I studied English Language and Literature at university, and this forum jokingly (or semi-jokingly) hails me as the Goddess of the Written Word.
Let's dive into BWR's stuff first before I start my own list.

Just in case you don't get the joke, I'm going to spell it out: "Ulysses" is the joke suggestion. It's famous for being long, involved, horrendously complicated and, frankly, rather boring. It's not as a bad as "Finnegan's Wake", also by James Joyce, but it's one of those books (and the author in general) that gives me the sneaking suspicion that those who extol the virtues do so only so they can seem superior and/or because they know other people think it's supposedly impressive and don't want to be left out of the club of lit-wallahs.

Yeah, don't read James Joyce's most famous works. There are those who've read it (as far as I know no one has ever really read FInnegan's Wake all the way through from start to finish) and loved it/them; but for most people, including the everyday reader and the vast majority of English-as-A-Second-Language Learners, you want to avoid them like the plague.

More generally, you won't get what you're after. Trying to sum up an entire language in one book is not only impossible, it's absurd. A language is not mere grammar or vocabulary, but how it's used. The more it's used for, the bigger the language is and the less any single work is definitive. Even a small collection of books is insufficient. We can make some suggestions about major works and much of what is currently popular, but it will still leave out a lot. Will you be studying language (grammar, phonology, philology, semantics, etc.) or literature? Because while they overlap, they are somewhat different approaches to the subject of English.

Agreed. As such below I'll add in some of the books suggested for my university reading list as a first year and what I recall of them, divided roughly by paper/module studied. I'm currently half a world away from them, so I can't guarantee my recollections are correct.

In any case, the short answer is the more you read, the more you will understand English - how it works, how it doesn't work, the culture, the history etc. Oh, and don't pay any attention to any comments about English vs. American. The differences are so minimal as to be almost meaningless as far as written dialects are concerned (unless the author gets into trying to accurately portray accents/dialects, or you move into Scots). Cultural differences are slightly more pronounced but still minimal. You put an English book next to an American one and the chances are the only difference you can tell between them is whether they spell a handful of words one way or the other and maybe the use of one or two words that aren't used by the other.

Also yes, for the most part. Linguistically, aside from American/British English spelling you'll find that it's mostly interchangeable. Not always, there are some grammar forms you'll almost never see in [insert version of English here] that you'll see in [another variation of English]. Now if your English course is doing a section on spoken English, especially the modern stuff, that's where you run into a great number of sometimes startling differences, but for the written format, the written stuff is essentially the same.
Culturally, you're looking at big differences.
When it comes to diachronic change (how the language changes over time i.e. the English written and spoken by Charles Dickens isn't the same as the English written and spoken by people in 2015 or Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe, 1719) there are going to be some big differences between British English and American English.
When it comes to synchronic linguistics (a study of languages/a language/different dialects of a language at a specific point in time or a very short time period and ignores the history of the language) you can be looking at anything. Text speak, for example compared to 'standard' written English.

Now for a short list of English Literature's Greatest Hits (TM) and why they may be interesting.

The Bible (King James version). Love it or hate it, if you want to understand the basis of modern English poetry and culture, you need to know your Bible. Good luck understanding Beowulf, Chaucer, PiercePiers Plowman or any number of other works without a basic familiarity with Christianity. The KJ version is perhaps the most influential and one of the first really accessible Bibles that made an effort to not only be accurately translated but also sound good when read aloud. In so many cases when the Bible is quoted in literature or on screen, it's the KJ version that's used.

Very much yes. Virtually anything written between c.1610 and 1970 probably referenced the KJB if they needed a Bible quote/reference (unless they were of specific denominations and stuff she shan't go into) the NIV (New International Version) was published in the 1970s and after that it's pretty much a toss up between which Bible you can reference.
The KJB is also wonderfully written in a style that was deliberately as Anglicised as possible. It was written with something of a patriotic bent in mind, every single word was, wherever possible chosen according to 'English' etymology. Instead as 'questioned' they 'asked' and so on. Frankly, I've read the Bible as NIV, KJB, Douay-Rheims, Latin Vulgate and some Old English elegaic poetic adaptations amongst others, and if you ignore the Old English stuff I'd go for the KJB every time. It is genuinely beautiful and a work of art as far as accurate translation according to its bias goes. I have honestly read the KJB for fun at times.
It's probably the single most important book as far as influencing the English language goes. Not author. Not by popularity. But single most influential as far as linguistics goes.

William Shakespeare. You knew he'd be on the list. There's a reason he's been held up as the epitome of English language. Some of it has to do with everyone else liking him and saying he's great so people feel the need to jump on the bandwagon in order to avoid ridicule. Most of it has to do with him genuinely being a good poet and playwright. Sure, some of his stuff's formulaic and repetitive (read one comedy, read them all) and exaggerated ("Titus Andronicus" was written in his, as one comedian put it, Quentin Tarantino stage), but few, if anyone, could turn a phrase like Willy. He's meant to be performed, not read, so find a good production of one of his works and enjoy English from one of the masters. Unless you read him as though you are putting on a stage production in your head, you will miss a lot of his genius. Reading and enjoying Shakespeare is perfectly possible, but he really does work best in performance.

Well yeah. Shakespeare: single most famous and influential author in English. Most of his stuff (the comedies are fairly dated in that humour and comedy themes change the most as society changes) is universal - Hamlet in Swahili anyone? - and fairly wonderfully written. Probably the most quoted author in English too.
I quite like Titus though if you read it as a deliberate exaggeration and parody of the revenge tragedy plot/play (if I've lost you, think Hamlet, The Duchess of Malfi, The Revenger's Tragedy . . . ummm. Schlocky B-movie horror/thriller stuff - read this finely crafted link and add things like necrophilia, werewolves, magic and stuff.), but we're getting off course.
Definitely try and see one of the performances. Live if it all possible, but if not, see a film. Read along with a book so you can see what was cut, elaborated upon and so on.
- Olivier's Henry V is considered a classic, but I prefer Branagh's version for sentimental reasons.
- Branagh's Hamlet performs the entire thing virtually uncut (it's nearly four hours long) and is something of a baroque, almost farcical masterpiece at times (it really let's you see how hammy and ridiculous the play can be at times). However, it is around four hours long, and there's a reason most versions of Hamlet are edited.
- The recent(ish) Hamlet starring Patrick Stewart and David Tennant means you can watch a fairly minimalistic Hamlet with more emphasis on the internal struggle of characters in around two hours. And you can watch the Doctor attempt to murder Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
- in 2012 the BBC put on a production of history plays (aka, ones dealing with historic matters) and called it the Hollow Crown series, set to continue tentatively in 2016. The first cycle covers Richard II, Henry IV I and II (as one film) and Henry V. Tom Hiddlestone plays Prince Henry/Henry V. The second cycle will do Henry VI I, Henry VI II[/I] and III as one film and Richard III. Benedict Cumberbatch is Richard III. Given it's the BBC doing Shakespeare you can guarantee kickass actors and direction
- Along those lines I'd suggest Ian McKellan's Richard III where it sets the events of the play in 1930s Britain and plays 'Nazi-esque' with the setting. Bombastic, at times ridiculous, and you can really admire Richard III for the slimy, manipulative git that he is.
- I don't like Romeo and Juliet as a play or film, but if you do a Shakespeare module I can pretty munch damn near guarantee you'll cover this play. So watch Shakespeare in Love.
- Tragedies? The best King Lear I've ever seen was a Russian one filmed in black and white in the 1970s (I think). Google tells me it's direction by Grigori Kozinstev and it's falt out gorgeous in cinematography and bleakness. The play is about the collapse of a kingdom, and my God do you really feel the doom in this film. If you can see it, get it and read along with it.
- Comedies? Eh . . . I have a spot of a soft spot for All's Well That Ends Well, but I saw a production of it by a local uni dramatics group that played up the more problematic parts of the play. Info-dump time, some of Shakespeare's plays are called 'problem plays' because they don't really fit into the 'usual' groups of tragedy, history, comedy and romance (which, itself, was only added later, they were originally under 'comedy' too). And All's Well mixes both comedy and tragedy. Textually it's also problematic for reasons I won't get into, but let's just say that mixing fairy tale logic with cynicism/realism makes for a messy conclusion.
- A Midsummer Night's Dream is another soft spot of mine because of Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies. Would I recommend the play solely on its own merits? It's gorgeously written, but the sub-plots are at times tedious and overlong, and it's really a comedy of errors where simple communication would solve everything. Do not bring even an ounce of logic to reading this play.
- Problem plays/Romances? The Tempest. Flat out. Of all Shakespeare's mature/later plays this is my favourite, perhaps stereotypically so, but hey, it's a classic for a reason. Ignore the subplots, and Miranda and whatever her love interest is called, this play is about Prospero, Ariel and maybe a touch of Caliban. Again, the writing is gorgeous, and it has some of the most quotable Shakespeare in it.
- As for his non-dramatic stuff, read The Phoenix and the Turtle(dove). It's about the death o

Joseph Conrad. He was Polish and English was not his native tongue (it was his third language), and not acquired until his twenties. He still is famous for being one of the better writers in English. "Heart of Darkness" is his most famous work and rather short (and quite good). Similarly, Vladimir Nabokov is famous (in the Anglophone countries at least) as a writer in English despite being originally and additionally a writer in and of Russian. "Lolita" is probably his most famous English work, that or the aforementioned "Pale Fire". Reading these two is an interesting experience because they bring some decidedly non-English sensibilities (or at least rarely-found-in-English sensibilities) to the major canon of English.

Heart of Darkness I personally found overrated, but the atmosphere claws off the book and into your brain and you feel claustrophobic and almost breathless. It's very faint in my memory, but A Child of the Jago by Arthur Morris was similarly suffocating.
That said, Heart is maybe a hundred and fifty pages and if you can handle the atmosphere you could finish it in a couple of hours, though perhaps at the cost of some of the richness of the narrative.
Lolita I mostly found dull, but searingly uncomfortable and distressing at times as well.

John Milton is a famous poet, especially for "Paradise Lost". It may be a bit hard to get into, especially if you aren't too comfortable with English (but your posts around here suggest you are pretty good, so it shouldn't be an issue)

If you can get hold of an annotated version, the Penguin Classics one is the one I have, it's well worth the read as some of the descriptions of genuinely awesome. As in 'inspiring awe'. Of note are the descriptions of Heaven, Hell, earth and the Chaos inbetween (Earth is described as being a pendulum hanging on a chain down from Heaven in something that was eerie when I first read it) and it has many neat little quotes - "darkness visible" - and stuff. This is the guy who accidentally made Satan sympathetic. This is the poem where I read about Jesus rushing out in his four-faced chariot to personally do battle in the Rebellion against Heaven and it was all kinds of awesome.
But read an annotated version. If only for the historical context and references.

Edmund Spencer's "The Faerie Queen" is highly allegorical so understanding it might take some effort and research. It's also one of the more famous works in English and interesting enough.

Annotated version. I think the one suggested for uni when I studied it was the Longman Annotated English Poets edition. It is not a nice size. It's wider than it is tall and it will stick out over the edge of any standard bookshelf, but it's got plenty of notes and glosses to help explain things.
It might be a bit much at first, but if you can find annotated extracts online it could be worth checking out.

Geoffrey Chaucer held the place of Shakespeare before S came along. He was immensely popular in his lifetime and later, especially for "The Canterbury Tales". You'll probably want to find a translation as 14th century English can be hard to read without some practice or a grounding in Old English (which I assume you don't have). Anyway, Chaucer is pretty good, if a bit stuffy at times. You might want to read excerpts. The CT's General Prologue and the Miller's Tale are the juiciest and funniest bits and the ones most referenced in English. (Don't bother trying to find a copy of Chaucer's original works because there are dozens of extant MSS of his various texts and trying to find the original version is a big, complicated and possibly futile endeavor. Putting together an edition of his stuff is a ton of effort and often comes down to whatever the editor prefers in any given case).

Oi! It's in perfectly understandable fourteenth-century English. If I could read it will only a small glossary at the age of fourteen so can others. But yes, annotations definitely. The definitive edition of everything Chaucer is the Riverside (literally, everything, including notes on which MSS variant they use for the piece and why), but have the link to the TEAMS Middle English Text Series Online and read Chaucer, Gower, Piers Plowman and more right there.

Beowulf is generally considered to be the beginning of English Literature (TM) (never mind that there were things written in English before this). Even if you have a basic understanding of Old English you'll probably want a translation because it can be difficult to understand. My supervisor at uni joked that you can make two grammars of OE - one based on Beowulf and one based on everything else. It's a fascinating piece of work and lots of fun. It was also one of Tolkien's great loves and the subject of one of his most important contributions to the study of English. However, its Englishness is quite removed from modern life so it will probably not qualify for the "this is what English is all about" criterion.

General agreement is that it was orally composed between the fifth and seventh centuries AD, and written some time between the 8th and 11th centuries. It's generally considered to be the first great poetic work in English. And that's the reason your supervisor joked about there being two grammars in OE. There effectively are: there's one for prose and later poems, and one for earlier poems, of which Beowulf is usually the longest, most well known and definitely the most quoted.
As for it being one of Tolkien's great love, Tolkein delivered an essay "Beowulf: the Monster and the Critics" which quite literally was the essay that opened up Old English and other forms of English to study as literature and not just as philology and linguistics.
It does contain universal themes, but I would agree that it's quite removed in both style (Old English kennings - a metaphor in a single word that can be quite tricky to unravel) and age from 'Englishness'. That said, Seamus Heaney's poetic translation takes many liberties, but is often seen as one of the more accessible translations as a poem of the work.

Of less famous but possibly more fun to read stuff, I can suggest Edgar Allen Poe. In many ways he was one of the pillars of modern fantasy fiction, being a major influence on Lovecraft. His poems are generally more interesting and accessible to the casual reader than poets held in higher esteem by the literati, and his stories are good too.

Another claustrophobic writer. I've not much a lot of his work, but I've thoroughly enjoyed most of it.

My Textbook Suggestions
Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (Lyle Campbell) - this is a handy little (basic) grammar for the major changes in English from around 900 - 2000 or so, and is just an introduction to the language side of things as opposed to the literary side of things.
Introducing Sociolinguistics - I forget the authors, but this was a pretty bring orange book that covers a lot about how society manipulates and uses language.
Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet
- you can currently find it on Google Books and helps if there's a spoken module (as in 'analysing spoken English'.

Now for Literary Stuff

- For a fairly good introduction and overview to Old and Middle English you want Elaine Treharne's Old and Middle English c. 890 to 1450: An Introduction; the Old English comes with a facing page translation. I think. Definitely the original and a translation at any rate. This is pretty much the go to book for most university giving a brief look over a wide range of genres, styles and authors and time. Try The Dream of the Rood.

- Aelfric's Lives of the Saints are amazing, but very hard to get hold of without a university library. Written in Old English prose they're actually quite easy to read, just have a good dictionary nearby.

- Hands down my favourite Old English poems are Genesis B and Exodus from The Junius Manuscript. You can buy Exodus from the Exeter University Press (I think), ed. Peter Lucas. NOT IN TRANSLATION. By this only if you're willing to read/translate Old English.

- The Riverside Chaucer. Just Google it. It's around 1500 double columned pages of literally everything we can positively attribute to Chaucer. Read the Prologue of Canterbury as well as The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, The Miller's Tale and the usual popular suspects. I also recommend The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame and his really short poems.

- I love Gower's Confessio Amantis and his Mirour de l'Omme, but that second one's written (mostly or entirely) in Anglo-Norman is is really, really hard to get hold of. As in, my university had one copy. In a special storage area away from the university that had to be ordered in. The Confessio at least is online on the TEAMs website and excellently annotated. Byt hard going if you're only a casual reader. Shame too as I think that parts of it are better than Canterbury or Piers Plowman

- The Gawain Poet's work: Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl in particular. Written in an obscure dialect of Middle English, the first poem can definitely be found in translation. By Tolkein and others.

- The Duchess of Malfi by Webster. This play is hilarious. It's a slightly more obscure (though becoming more popular) Jacobean revenge tragedy and it is nuts. To say anything would spoil the surprise, but it's hands down my favourite Jacobean play (though I can't recall exactly when all Shakespeare's were published, so my favourite of his might also be Jacobean) and it is just madcap. Take it tongue-in-cheek and enjoy how ludicrously over the top it is.

- George Eliot. Middlemarch, Silas Marner, The Mill on the FLoss. Everything by her. She's better than Dickens, less boring, the characters are more interesting and she arguably created the work that defines Victorian Britain - Middlemarch. And read the notes. Penguin Classics.

- Dickens - Hard TImes and Bleak House are hilarious is you buy an annotated version (Penguin Classics) and read the notes. Hell, Bleak House is hilarious full stop and my favourite of his works.

- I am reluctantly compelled to add D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers if only so you can then laugh your way through Cold COmfort Farm (Stella Gibbons) which parodies romanticised, doom-laden accounts of rural life, notably those by D. H. Lawrence, the Bronte sisters and Mary Webb. Don't bother picking up Lawrence at all otherwise, most horrible, dull, excruciating thing I ever had to read my way through, and I had to for coursework.

- Oh yes, read Wuthering Heights for the stifling atmosphere and atmosphere dripping off the pages. Jane Eyre's pretty good too.
Oh! Villete by . . . um. Read Villette. That's another good one for the atmosphere and the isolation of a young woman working abroad (oh, why is that in my mind? ).

- Dracula and Frankenstein are good if you want to get a grip on the two novels that arguably founded the horror genre.

- Anything by Terry Pratchett. Modern classics.

I honestly could go on, but it's really late, and this is a Wall-O'-Text^TM as it is. Hope it helps.

[Jon_Dahl]

After a slow start, this is turning out to be a great thread.

[Peelee]

Honestly, if you read CurlyKitGirl's post in it's entirety, I think you can forego any of the other books. Great googly moogly that's one helluva post!

[Zrak]

Yeah, don't read James Joyce's most famous works. There are those who've read it (as far as I know no one has ever really read FInnegan's Wake all the way through from start to finish) and loved it/them; but for most people, including the everyday reader and the vast majority of English-as-A-Second-Language Learners, you want to avoid them like the plague.

Uh, a lot of people have read Finnegan's Wake all the way through from start to finish. Unless you mean that you don't know people who've done so in one sitting, I'm honestly confused at how you could possibly think this.

[Knaight]

A lot of the suggestions have been solid, but there's a distinct pre-1900's and even pre-1800's bias. To round that out with plays, I suggest investigating Arthur Miller and Tom Stoppard. The Crucible and Arcadia are probably the best to start with, but both have a fair amount of work.

[Zrak]

Which is especially odd since the relatively recent genres of "historiographic metafiction" and "metahistorical romance" are probably your best shot at getting an encapsulating cross-time portrait of the English language and literature, given the emphasis on both modern formal experimentation and verisimilar imitation of historical styles and vernaculars. Thomas Pynchon's historical novels are probably your best bet for emphasizing the contrast, while E. L. Doctorow is a little less out there than Pynchon's historical period. Barth's Sot-Weed Factor isn't bad for this, either, or Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman. John Gardner's October Light is a reversal, in that it's written in a distinctly old-fashioned style of prose and, instead, features an imitation of contemporary fiction styles, although it's much more transparently a mockery than the imitations of historiographic metafiction.

Gardner's Grendel, a retelling of Beowulf, is a less straightforward and more extreme, but perhaps more balanced, cross-section of prose styles; the style of the epic on which it is based is juxtaposed with Grendel's more modern and laconically down-to-earth interior monologue and a few dialogue patterns taken from intervening historical periods, such as a Whitehead-quoting Dragon. It's also a short, engaging book with wonderfully allusive prose that manages to be extremely motif-dense without impeding readability in the slightest.

[Xuc Xac]

First off, I feel the need to ask if you are trying to learn English or American. The two are very similar, but over the past couple of hundred years the Americans have taken the English language and done some...interesting things to it.

You mean "maintain it"? Since the founding of the American colonies, it has been the British dialects of English which have changed more drastically. The American dialects are far more conservative. It's fairly easy to find long lists of word pairs that show the differences between American and British English. If you look up the etymology and date of first use for those words, the British word is almost always more recent (usually from the mid 1800s or later).

[kgato503]

You mean "maintain it"? Since the founding of the American colonies, it has been the British dialects of English which have changed more drastically. The American dialects are far more conservative. It's fairly easy to find long lists of word pairs that show the differences between American and British English. If you look up the etymology and date of first use for those words, the British word is almost always more recent (usually from the mid 1800s or later).

Something tells me that there is evidence for both sides. By the sounds of it you do agree that the two differ (which was my big point). I had always been told/heard that the Americans had been the ones deviating from the norm, rather than the other way around. However, I don't have a lot of evidence on hand to support my side of things. The fact of the matter really is that two groups that used to share the same language will, given enough time and isolation from each other, develop separate languages. Language evolves over time, and can be seen in the small scale (the "cool" words and slang of a particular era) and the large scale (French, Spanish, and Latin all being related languages, but very different).

Now, back to the OP. I think, to narrow down what you may want to read, we all need a few more detail as to what you are looking for (lets face it, we can suggest books until we are all blue in the face fingers, but you only have a month left until your course starts). Do you want to focus on modern English? Or are you still interested in some of the older classics that use language not used much in every day discussions, such as the works of Shakespeare? There are good points to both. Do localized dialects matter? Does your professor put a particular emphasis on one dialect of English? If that last one is the case, you might consider focusing on that particular dialect, so as to not confuse yourself come test taking time. While some might not think it makes much of a difference, professors can be very picky when it comes to grading exams, projects, and papers. Take for instance the two following sentences: "I closed the boot, and shut the bonnet." "I closed the trunk, and shut the hood." They are both saying the same thing (closing the storage compartment of a car and closing the engine compartment of a car, respectively), but might not both be acceptable to the same professor.

Also, once you decide what to read, please tell us and let us know how it went! Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get the song "Why Can't the English?" from My Fair Lady out of my head .

[Zrak]

Something tells me that there is evidence for both sides. By the sounds of it you do agree that the two differ (which was my big point). I had always been told/heard that the Americans had been the ones deviating from the norm, rather than the other way around.

There is no norm from which to deviate. They're just different, the same way American English from 150 years ago is differs from modern American English and American English from the deep South differs from American English from New England.

[Jon_Dahl]

Now, back to the OP. I think, to narrow down what you may want to read, we all need a few more detail as to what you are looking for (lets face it, we can suggest books until we are all blue in the face fingers, but you only have a month left until your course starts). Do you want to focus on modern English? Or are you still interested in some of the older classics that use language not used much in every day discussions, such as the works of Shakespeare? There are good points to both. Do localized dialects matter? Does your professor put a particular emphasis on one dialect of English? If that last one is the case, you might consider focusing on that particular dialect, so as to not confuse yourself come test taking time. While some might not think it makes much of a difference, professors can be very picky when it comes to grading exams, projects, and papers. Take for instance the two following sentences: "I closed the boot, and shut the bonnet." "I closed the trunk, and shut the hood." They are both saying the same thing (closing the storage compartment of a car and closing the engine compartment of a car, respectively), but might not both be acceptable to the same professor.

A lot of great, great suggestion in this thread, but at the moment I'm considering this on:

Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet
- you can currently find it on Google Books and helps if there's a spoken module (as in 'analysing spoken English'.

But to answer your question... I really don't have an answer. I guess I just need to know everything about everything. After a year or so I WILL be able to answer your question, but at the moment I'm shooting in the dark.

[FinnLassie]

The thing is, you'll get loads of suggested, good material when you start your studies. Your uni has an excellent staff in the English department and is fully capable of bringing you all this. There's no need to know everything about all when you begin your studies, eh?

Though, nothing's stopping you from doing a bit of research beforehand, but honestly. Don't take too much stress on learning stuff beforehand - uni will get you going.

[Jon_Dahl]

The thing is, you'll get loads of suggested, good material when you start your studies. Your uni has an excellent staff in the English department and is fully capable of bringing you all this. There's no need to know everything about all when you begin your studies, eh?

Though, nothing's stopping you from doing a bit of research beforehand, but honestly. Don't take too much stress on learning stuff beforehand - uni will get you going.

Thanks, but still, I'd like to use this month of doing nothing usefully.

[kgato503]

Thanks, but still, I'd like to use this month of doing nothing usefully.

Have you considered asking your professor what they would recommend? Often professors are happy to suggest reading material to further their students education. Some even supply recommended reading lists. They can also help you avoid some of the less useful books.

[Jon_Dahl]

kgato503, I tried that but the professors don't reply. I contacted one of tutors a month ago and he recommended Hamlet. I just finished up reading it. Troublesome to read that one, but fascinating in a sort of way. Is it bad if I found it awfully campy?

[CurlyKitGirl]

It's late, I have minimal internet left and may not get more until Monday. Let's address this now:

The IPA Handbook I recommended is literally just IPA charts and a pronunciation guide for multiple languages. If you need to write things /in ðə aIpiː eɪ/ ('in the IPA (British English pronunciation)) down as they are said. You can probably find it on Google Books and just reference the three or four pages for the ENglish IPA. If memory serves me well, it uses the American English pronunciation.

kgato503, I tried that but the professors don't reply. I contacted one of tutors a month ago and he recommended Hamlet. I just finished up reading it. Troublesome to read that one, but fascinating in a sort of way. Is it bad if I found it awfully campy?

Nope. It is campy. It's a revenge tragedy where emotions run high, logic is flawed and weird and strange things happen. You want to see how campy it can get? Go find Kanneth Branagh's Hamlet and just see how campy a performance it can get. Hamlet may be a tragedy, but even the greatest tragedies have to have moments of catharsis (a sudden release of emotions) to prevent the tension becoming too taut and . . . tense.
Personally Hamlet's probably my least favourite tragedy, really, really try King Lear, especially if you can get hold of that Russian film somehow.
If not, well I have a soft spot for Macbeth because it was the first Shakespeare play I read back when I was twelve, and then I read Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett shortly afterwards.

Anyway, for better/more helpful suggestions for your course, perhaps some information on what options/modules/topics you'll be studying. As I mentioned/was evident from my list of recommendations I specialised in medieval literature and generally stuff pre-1600. If your course is about Modern English, Spoken English, English Language and Linguistics then you might want other book than the ones suggested.
See, what I and most others have done is give general books that are considered 'of the canon'/'classics' in English. Frankly, I know that most people won't have read them, or will have tried and failed. We don't want you forcing yourself through something or reading something that might not have any relevance to your course (you are asking specifically because you're starting uni soon after all), so just a bit more detail could help.
If nothing else I could find some nice textbooks for you!

[Jon_Dahl]

I'm reading that IPA Handbook and although it's fairly simple, there's a lot to remember. It's like discovering that the alphabet has a hundred letters all of a sudden. I guess I will just read that to have a general idea of everything. I think reading that book is like reading through a recipe book. If you're not cooking anything at the moment, what are you going to do with all that information? Well, you can just browse it through to understand cooking :)

Great to hear that my instincts weren't wrong about Hamlet. I guess I have some hope after all. The beginning was interesting, but most of the book was just crazy dialogue and couldn't find anything really meaningful from all that except awkward English. That was fascinating, nevertheless, and I guess the professors want us to dig deep into that dialogue. My favourite part of the book was the one where Hamlet spoke with his mother and suddenly killed that courtier (?). That was the biggest surprise in that book (well, play, actually) and it worked for me.
I think that if Heath Ledger's Joker were a deep down a good person, he'd be Hamlet.

@CurlyKitGirl
What if I asked you to recommend me a book which would be a good textbook OR a fine example of English (of any era) and would be available virtually in any library, what would you say? I'm asking this because I could visit the local library and read it, without buying it or reading it from the screen. There are already such recommendation in this thread, but so far I've been taken with your expertize.

[Zrak]

I think you could really only call Hamlet-on-paper "camp" in a much looser usage of camp than I am accustomed to. While it has the theatricality and arguably even the artifice that are cornerstones of camp, I don't know I could see my way to ascribing it any of the others, like frivolity, shocking excess, or naïve pretension. An adaptation of Hamlet could easily go into camp territory, but the play itself is just self-consciously theatrical. At most, I'd call it proto-camp. Seeing a relation to camp, however, does make sense, given that a prominent theme in Hamlet is the way attempts to beautify or find beauty in reality are often also attempts to conceal or obfuscate that reality.

It is a problem if you couldn't find anything meaningful in the dialogue. Even if you don't really like Hamlet, which is a totally respectable position, you should be able to figure out what was being said and implied in the dialogue. It's an old play, so there's a lot of people just saying pretty much exactly what they think, but it's important that you can tell what that is. Similarly, from a formal perspective, there are aspects like figuring out the point of a dialogue in a more structural sense; Act II, Scene 1 has a dialogue that isn't really to advance the plot, but provides some characterization for Polonius as a comic figure with a controlling nature, shows that time has elapsed, and introduces the audience to the ubiquity of espionage throughout the play.

[Jon_Dahl]

Thank you for the perspective, Zrak. I guess that's the sort of analysis that will be expected from me someday. I already returned the book back to the library so without it (Collins Classics, the 2011 edition) I can't really comment.