I built a small, free site for reading public-domain books (magicbookshelf.org). Today, it has three books:
1. The Brothers Karamazov
2. Crime and Punishment
3. Pride and Prejudice
You don't have to make an account and there are no ads. I just think the classics deserve a nicer home than a wall of plain text.
When I first tried reading Karamazov, it was really difficult for me to keep up with everything.
Karamazov is the book where everyone gets lost in the names. Alexey / Alyosha / Alyoshka, Dmitri / Mitya, Fyodor Pavlovitch, Smerdyakov, two different Ivanovnas. The usual fix is to keep a wiki or a character list open, but those spoil everything that happens later.
So the reader comes with a companion I call the Margin: a guide to the people, places, and ideas in each book that only ever shows what you'd know at your current point.
For example.. Alyosha's entry while you're in chapter 3 and you get who he is by chapter 3, with nothing about his later arc.
A few notes:
The translation is Constance Garnett
There's optional narration if you'd rather listen.
I make and run it on my own, so if you spot a wrong note in the Margin, a typo, or an entry that gives away too much too early, please tell me.
1. The Brothers Karamazov 2. Crime and Punishment 3. Pride and Prejudice
You don't have to make an account and there are no ads. I just think the classics deserve a nicer home than a wall of plain text.
When I first tried reading Karamazov, it was really difficult for me to keep up with everything.
Karamazov is the book where everyone gets lost in the names. Alexey / Alyosha / Alyoshka, Dmitri / Mitya, Fyodor Pavlovitch, Smerdyakov, two different Ivanovnas. The usual fix is to keep a wiki or a character list open, but those spoil everything that happens later.
So the reader comes with a companion I call the Margin: a guide to the people, places, and ideas in each book that only ever shows what you'd know at your current point.
For example.. Alyosha's entry while you're in chapter 3 and you get who he is by chapter 3, with nothing about his later arc.
A few notes:
The translation is Constance Garnett
There's optional narration if you'd rather listen.
I make and run it on my own, so if you spot a wrong note in the Margin, a typo, or an entry that gives away too much too early, please tell me.