5 Great Books from The Reader I Recommend You to Read ASAP

In the movie The Reader (2008) a young man reads a lot of books to an older woman he is involved with. Here are 5 of them I recommend you to read. Hello, and welcome to my first book post of this 2023.

“Man is a poetical animal, and delights in fiction.” – William Hazlitt

Directed by Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours) and starring Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet, The Reader is a 2008 drama movie in which a young man named Michael starts and affair with an older woman named Hanna.

Things get more interesting when the teenager Michael starts reading books to Hanna. She is fascinated and mesmerized by everything she hears. Then, one day, Hanna disappears.

The young Michael will see her again eight years later and will find out Hanna was hiding a secret.

The movie was based on a book by the same name and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including one for Best Picture.

More than ten books are read in that movie and these are the ones I have read and recommend you to read.

So, ladies and gentlemen, let’s begin:

5 The Metamorphosis (1915)
By Franz Kafka


A cover of The Metamorphosis (via: google.com)

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” – The Metamorphosis

One day a quiet office worker wakes up and realizes he has become a horrible giant insect. What is he going to do now? He’s going to miss work, they will send a doctor to his home to verify if he’s really sick or just lazy like so many of the other workers. Gregor Samsa falls into a profound state of sadness and melancholy. What has happened in his life? Why his life hasn’t turned the way he wanted? And now he has this new problem, what is he going to do now?


A man alone (via: pixabay.com)

The teenager Michael Berg reads a very short passage of this classic to Hanna in The Reader. Franz Kafka started to work on The Metamorphosis on November 17, 1912; he finished it by early December that year. As the character of Samsa, he was also having a period of sadness in his life due to a bad relationship with a woman. He was born in Prague in 1883 and had health problems during all of his life. Most if his work was published posthumously. He died in 1924. The Metamorphosis is his most significant work.

4 Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928)
By D. H. Lawrence


Lady Chatterley’s Lover as published unexpurgated by Penguin Books Ltd in 1960 (via: medium.com)

“Give homage and allegiance to a hero, and you become yourself heroic, it is the law of man.” – D.H. Lawrence

After World War I, a British aristocrat named Clifford Chatterley returns home in a wheelchair. He marries the young and beautiful Constance, who we’ll know as Connie. Between drinking tea and hunting for game life goes peacefully in the British Empire of the 1920s. But Connie feels she’s missing something, One day she meets the gamekeeper of the large Chatterley property. Connie and this man will start a torrid affair. Then Connie and her sister part for a wonderful trip to the continent. They are having a great time in Venice when, back in England, Clifford finds out about the secret romance. Connie returns to England, but her plans will not go the as she wanted.


A teenager Michael reads Lady Chatterley’s Lover to Hanna (via: google.com)

Since its publication in 1928 this book hasn’t stopped causing controversy. It was banned and submitted to different trials, including the famous one in The United States in 1960. D. H. Lawrence (1885- 1930) is one of the most relevant British authors of the 20th century; he traveled a lot, Mexico, Germany, Italy and finally established himself in France. He published about 10 novels and several short stories that are still read to this day. In The Reader, the teenager Michael reads a passage of this book to Hanna while they share a bath in a tub; and Hanna doesn’t like what she’s hearing, “it’s disgusting”, she says and that’s kind of ironic since what she’s doing with that teenager is so much worse than that book.

3 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
By Mark Twain


A book cover (via: artofmanliness.com)

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

The characters of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) are back. The rascal teenager Huck Finn lives now with his drunk and violent father, and this man never misses an opportunity to insult or beat his son. Tired of that, Huck decides one day to fake his own death and manages to escape. With the help of a runaway black slave named Jim, Huck will travel along the Mississippi river and encounter all kinds of dangers. Later, two outrageous character we’ll only know as the Duke and the King will enter in his life. The only one who can help Huck in all of his troubles is his friend Tom Sawyer, but what will happen to them?


A depiction of Huckleberry Finn (via: google.com)

Mark Twain published this enduring classic in 1885 after years of working on it. Like many masterpieces, it has been the subject of many interpretations and controversies. A boy that refuses civilization and prefers to wander around with a river and a black slave as his only friends is the force that Twain uses to satirize the United States of his time. I, personally, think it’s a good book but I have to prefer The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I love the part in The Reader when Michael reads this one to Hanna and starts imitating the voice of a black man of the 19th century as he reads the lines of the runaway Jim, and Hanna just laughs. A truly great coming of age book.

2 The Odyssey (c. 8th century BC)
By Homer


John William Waterhouse – Ulysses and the Sirens (1891) (via: victorianweb.org)

“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.” – The Odyssey

After the victory of the war of Troy, the hero Odysseus (Ulysses for the Romans) must return to his home in Ithaca. But his voyage will be set with all kinds of difficulties. Odysseus must face cyclops, sirens, a man who can transform his body in multiple forms, the temptation of the witch Circe and two giant monsters named Scylla and Charybdis. Meanwhile, in Ithaca, Penelope, his wife, and Telemachus, his son, must keep at bay the pretenders who want to take Odysseus’ kingdom.


Ralph Fiennes as Michael Berg in The Reader (2008) (via: https://ralph-n-fiennes.tumblr.com/)

It was the tyrant Pisistratus who ruled ancient Athens from 561 BC to 528 BC the one who finally ordered all of the Homeric poems to be put in writing. From those days to this 21st century the adventures of the hero Odysseus have never ceased to fascinate the world. I have read The Odyssey entirely only once, but I always go back to read my favorite passages, including book 11 where Odysseus descends to the Hades and encounters all the dead, including Tantalus, Sisyphus, Agamemnon, Achilles and Heracles. This is the first book Michael reads to Hanna in The Reader. If you haven’t read The Iliad and The Odyssey, well, what are you waiting for? It’s never too late to pick up a classic like these two, so don’t be afraid.

1 The Lady with the Dog (1899)
By Anton Chekhov


Madeleine Lemaire – Colette Dumas (19th century) (via: commons.wikimedia.org)

“It was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a lady with a little dog.” – The Lady with the Dog

One day, in a small town near the Black Sea, a blonde elegant lonely lady with a little dog is seen walking around. Nobody knows who she is. Dimitri Gurov, a 40 year old married man who works at a bank in Moscow, decides to meet her. She is the wife of a rich man, she is unhappy with her marriage and her name is Anna. Dimitri and Anna start a passionate affair which they will continue in Moscow. They decide and make plans, they cannot live without each other, but what will really happen to them?


Osip Braz – Anton Chekhov (1898) (via: commons.wikimedia.org)

Anton Chekhov was born in a little town in Russia in 1860 and went to study Medicine in Moscow; he wrote many theatre plays and short stories. He died in Germany in 1904. The Lady with the Dog is his best short story, and this one plays a pivotal role in the movie The Reader. It is one of the books that young Michael reads to Hanna and, years later, this little book will cause a major change in her.

So, what do you think about this post? Have you read any of these great books? Do you plan to red them for the first time or read them again? Let me know what you think in the comment section.

Now check this other post about books:

https://ecency.com/hive-150329/@thereadingman/3-cool-classic-novels-i

(Image at the beginning: via google.com)

Thank you for stopping by, don’t forget to upvote and please… Make literature great again!

Until next time.

Take care.

Orlando, The Reading Man.



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These are interesting recommendations... although I personally don't like the author Franz Kafka. I have come to enjoy some of his books, which might seem contradictory, but I have not read them a second time.

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Yeah, I’m not crazy about Kafka either, he’s kinda overrated, but I like his books of letters; both Letter to His Father and Letters to Milena are great.

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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an absolute classic. Dunno why I keep avoiding it, but I need to have a look asap

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Yeah, I admit The Adventures of Huck Finn is great, but I still prefer The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, try to read this one first and then go with Huck. I hope you can read the other books in the post too. Thanks for your comment.

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Thanks for sharing 🙌🏾
I saw the that of Tom Sawyer some time ago
Might be worth it

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