Traffic by Ruskin I reread quite a lot. For background, it's a lecture he gave when invited to speak, as the eminent architectural critic of the day, to dignitaries on the opening of a new exchange building. Was expected to talk about the architecture, but he talked about capitalism instead
> You shall have thousands of gold pieces; - thousands of thousands - millions - mountains of gold: where will you keep them?
More technical, but I constantly use Ruskin's Modern Painters as art reference. Each volume has detailed chapelters on natural forms (trees, mountains, etc). The attempts at geometric drawings of the structures of cloud patterns are particularly beautiful imo. He's a phenomenal writer, anyway.
Mentioned by others elsewhere in the comments, but Candide and The Count of Monte Cristo are possibly my two favourite books. The first one feels incredibly modern, which is quite impressive given that it's basically the first European novel. Second one I've always thought is like an exceptionally good airport novel (and the sci-fi version is also one of my favourite books, and one of the best sci-fi novels ever written). Very difficult to put down.
Also, anything by Swift, Hazlitt, Twain I can read and reread endlessly. I read a lot of opder stuff, but I've noticed I'm often quite quick to discard it if it doesn't scan as contemporary writing -- those three I find in particular have quite modern styles
> You shall have thousands of gold pieces; - thousands of thousands - millions - mountains of gold: where will you keep them?
More technical, but I constantly use Ruskin's Modern Painters as art reference. Each volume has detailed chapelters on natural forms (trees, mountains, etc). The attempts at geometric drawings of the structures of cloud patterns are particularly beautiful imo. He's a phenomenal writer, anyway.
Mentioned by others elsewhere in the comments, but Candide and The Count of Monte Cristo are possibly my two favourite books. The first one feels incredibly modern, which is quite impressive given that it's basically the first European novel. Second one I've always thought is like an exceptionally good airport novel (and the sci-fi version is also one of my favourite books, and one of the best sci-fi novels ever written). Very difficult to put down.
Also, anything by Swift, Hazlitt, Twain I can read and reread endlessly. I read a lot of opder stuff, but I've noticed I'm often quite quick to discard it if it doesn't scan as contemporary writing -- those three I find in particular have quite modern styles