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This time, for December, it’s another runner’s up vote. These three books have been voted on in previous months, but didn’t win. They still deserve a second chance and these three are all great books.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

The most famous and possibly the most popular of Dickens's novels, A Tale of Two Cities shows a master of dramatic narrative extracting gold from the ore of history. If the bloody tableau of the French Revolution were not in itself sufficient for a dozen novels, Dickens added to it a professional resurrectionist, an authentic ogress, and an antihero as convincingly flawed as any in modern literature. Here, too, are all of Dickens's recurring themes -- imprisonment, injustice, and cataclysmic violence, resurrection and the renunciation that makes renewal possible.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh, the semi-divine ruler of Uruk, is a larger-than-life bully and abuser of his people. In order to tame the arrogant king, the gods create the wild and handsome Enkidu. But after Enkidu and Gilgamesh become fast friends, they defy the gods in a series of outsized adventures that brings Gilgamesh face to face with both loss and death itself. Hines energizes this timeless tale with vivid and electrifyingly modern images, from the goddess Ishtar cracking the sound barrier, to a battlefield nightmare of spectral snipers and exploding hand grenades, to the CAT-scan image of a dying friend. The themes of love and friendship, grief, despair, and hope had their first great expression in this story, and this dazzling new interpretation brings us into its thrall again.

Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

Richard Hannay's ennui comes to an abrupt end when a murder is committed in his flat - only a few days before the dead man had revealed to him an assassination plot which would have terrible consequences for international peace.
Fearing the police will see him as the obvious suspect, and desperate to escape the killers, Hannay goes on the run in his native Scotland. There, among the wild moors, he needs all his courage and ingenuity to stay one step ahead of his pursuers...

That's a good question. I am definitely open to suggestions as it's not my specific field (if we were talking Greek poems I'd be able to say which one is best). From my experience with epic poems, definitely steer away from prose.

If anyone has a suggestion let me know. If not, I'll do some research and get back to you on it. :)

  Thankyou, Trencia. I'm just having a very bad week.

  Hopefully, things will pick up soon. (((((((((HUG))))))))

  Thankyou!

 Segue! PDCLM! 

I expect you've been reading the wrong books. Chaucer on the other hand doesn't recommend reading at all:

For when thy labour doon al ys,
And hast mad alle thy rekenynges,
In stede of reste and newe thynges
Thou goost hom to thy hous anoon,
And, also domb as any stoon,
Thou sittest at another book
Tyl fully daswed ys thy look.

I'm feeling a bit daswed myself today.