Try Victor Hugo...I couldn’t even put Hunchback of Notre Dame down and did not really understand it fully until the second time I read it.
i guess it is preference... i got through Hunchback the first time--but the French are so different from what i know... from Americans... some of their ways are kind of spooky to me... spooky is not really the word--i cannot put my finger on it... i loved Victor Hugo's Les Miserables... i think it is the best book ever written...
speaking of the French, i read a really good "new" book called The Paris Wife... it is about Ernest Hemingway's first marriage and their time in France as he was making his way as a writer... very good story... i did not want to read the last few pages because i knew how it would end... and i did not want that ending... :(
I couldn't put down Les Miserables because I rested it on my lap and was pinned there until I got some help. :-)
Seriously, it was on of the best books I've read. It even made me wish I understood French so I could read an untranslated version.
I’ve never read it but my daughter has several editions of Les Miserable. She’s in the middle of “abridging” a copy of it for a friend who doesn’t want to read the whole thing. She’s got copies to read, copies for notes and 4 of the five 2nd printing editions.
I guess she really likes the story.