Hello everyone,
I'm new to Reddit, so I don't really know how to use the communities yet. I hope I haven’t broken any rules!
I’m a student in Sweden, and I have a very important assignment from my Swedish teacher: I need to read a book and discuss it. The theme for this whole semester is “the way” both in religious and non-religious contexts. We’ve read a few texts that explore this, such as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Einstein’s The World as I See It, Stefan Stenudd’s commentary on the Tao Te Ching, and classics like Inferno and Purgatorio.
I would love to hear if anyone has recommendations for books that represent sin, lust, greed, or even explore morality and ideals in any way. So far, I’ve been reading works like Lolita, Faust, Bloodchild, Confessions of a Mask, and Tess of the D’Urbervilles. My teacher really appreciates unusual or underground books or even classics, the older the better. Personally, I’d like to find some more contemporary works too.
The more suggestions, the merrier!
by Interesting-Reach561
3 Comments
For classics maybe Crime and Punishment or Paradise Lost.
For more modern books I’d recommend The Stranger, East of Eden, or The Kite Runner.
Have you read Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, or The Dispossessed? They’re very different from each other, but both have quite interesting themes around morality, identity and duty. The Left Hand of Darkness in particular might be interesting to read after learning about Taoism, and The Dispossesed would be interesting to thing about through the lens of Christianity and Jesus’ teaching.
For fiction, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde explores sin and decadence
For non-fiction, The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff is a friendly introduction to Taoism