Not Enough Time for Literature?
One of the things I like to make time for is reading the great works of literature. At the moment I am reading Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Dostoevski's The Idiot. How do I find the time? Well, I use a service called Daily Lit, which sends me a brief passage from a book every day (max. 3 books) by email. The passages are just the right length to get read, rather than left "for later". If at any stage you get so caught up in the book that you don't want to wait for the next day's passage, you can get it sent to you immediately.
It's very convenient, and is an entirely free service. It's just the way to catch up with all those works of "great literature" you always meant to get round to reading sometime.
A useful tip: It's a good idea when reading a Russian novel to keep a running list of the characters. Otherwise you are likely to get confused by the Russian habit of calling people by their first name and patronymic. In The Idiot for example the character General Epanchin is usually referred to as Ivan Fedorovitch, his wife as Elizabetha Prokofievna, and their youngest daughter as Aglaya Ivanovna.
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