any good books to study(?) English?

[sweetpumpkin]

Hello all,

I think there are many non-native speakers of English here. You guys must have tried reading English books, right? For me, the ninteenth century novels such as 'Pride and Prejudice' are extremely difficult- too much vocabulary I've never seen before. My favorite English book was 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'. It was easy to read and touching.
Romance novels seems relatively easy but I don't like the typical plot.

Well, I don't know how to say my English level. I can understand most of what you guys saying here. Low-intermediate? Hmm. What book do you recommend to me?

[prezbucky]

Check out these books for an all-around feel for English:

Classics:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- Mark Twain
The Old Man and the Sea -- Ernest Hemingway
Wuthering Heights -- Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre -- Charlotte Bronte
The Prince -- Machiavelli
Gulliver's Travels -- Jonathan Swift
Candide -- Voltaire
The Big Sleep -- Raymond Chandler
The Sound and the Fury -- William Faulkner
The Raven -- Edgar Allan Poe (a poem -- belongs in the Poetry section)

Fairly recent popular fiction:
The Stand -- Steven King
Postmortem -- Patricia Cornwell
Phantoms -- Dean Koontz
The Hunt For Red October -- Tom Clancy
Jack and Jill -- James Patterson
Outbreak -- Robin Cook
Next -- Michael Crichton
The Bancroft Strategy -- Robert Ludlum
The World According to Garp -- John Irving
River God -- Wilbur Smith
Hannibal -- Thomas Harris
Texas -- James Michener

Poetry:

Robert Frost:
The Road Not Taken
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
Mending Wall
Fire and Ice
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Tree At My Window

John Keats:
To My Brothers
When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be

William Wordsworth:
I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud

William Butler Yeats:
When You Are Old

Walt Whitman:
Leaves of Grass

William Blake:
The Tiger

Tennyson:
The Charge of the Light Brigade

Byron:
Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog

Well that's enough! hehe

[Jamie (K)]

You're right, Sweetpumpkin, the 19th-century classics are hard for ESL students to read, and they're also difficult for many native speakers.

You should try some of the more modern novels that are considered classics. The language will be easier. From that bunch, I would suggest books by John Steinbeck. His epic novel The Grapes of Wrath is a classic that every literate English speaker should know, but he also wrote some much shorter novels, such as The Pearl and The Red Pony. Another of his most important books is called Of Mice and Men. It's full of dialect, but foreigners don't seem to have any trouble understanding it.

Books by Ernest Hemingway are also easy to read.

I really like some of the authors who write about the lives of Asians in America, and how Asian immigrants get along with their American children. Two of those authors are Amy Tan and Gish Jen, but I also like books by Kim Wong Keltner, which are usually quite funny.

At this time of year the bookstores put a lot of youth literature on one table, and most of the books are considered classics but are relatively easy to read. I'll get some ideas from there later today and tell you what I find.

[sweetpumpkin]

Thank you for your attentions, you guys! Speaking of Hemingway, I've read one of his short stories- can't remember the title, though. It was written with very short sentences, and my teacher said it was his style. Okay, I'll try and keep your answers for future reference.

[jhonenglish]

Hello everybody, I'm Jhon Fredy from Colombia. What kind of books do you consider are useful to learn english quickly?

[sapi]

If you can't get the books in your country have a look at www.englishtips.org it's got loads of English books scanned and available free online.
I don't think there any books that can definitely help you learn English quickly Jhon. However, reading definitely helps increase your vocabulary quickly and the best thing is that all the words are in context which makes it easier to understand new words. Try reading a book in English that you've read in Spanish, you know the story so it makes it easier to work out what the new words mean.
Good luck