What are the best public domain books you've read?

My fiancée absolutely loves the Count of Monte Cristo. I have not yet read it.

I like Lovecraft's stories.

I absolutely adore Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

As an aside, I tried so hard to read Crime and Punishment(twice), but I don't think I ever finished it. Or if I did I can't remember the ending. Maybe I had a bad translation, or maybe I have a short attention span, I don't know...

(Sorry for the edit, I hit send before I was done typing)

I'm throwing in The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, which I really enjoyed, and The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin, which is a really interesting travel journal. Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne is also great. And since you like Dostoevsky, maybe try Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev?

People always praise Frankenstein, but I thought it was poorly written and frankly nonsensical. Shelley's The Last Man is better, but a bit dull.

I recently finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It's a good start if you want to get into Agatha Christie novels.

Frankenstein really is a fantastic read. Anything by Ray Bradbury, I read the short story "The Pedestrian" in school and it had a strong impression on me.

Dostoevsky is amazing. I'm not sure I could have followed his writing over audiobook, though. Tolstoy is an obvious add if you like Russian lit.

I haven't read any of it in a while, but I loved anything by Jules Verne when I was a kid. Frankenstein is arguably one of the first science fiction books, but Verne really made it a genre.

Not to be too much of a "the book is better than the movie"-person, but Les Miserables is really good and has a lot deeper meaning than the play or movie based on the play. The Count of Monte Cristo is also worth a read.

The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Most people are aware of her children’s books like A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, but she wrote dozens of other books and short stories for adults. The Shuttle is probably one of my absolute favorite books, and I re-read at least once a year.

"Starting forth" the best book to learn about forth or programming in general

Ive had a good time with anything by Mark Twain. His satire and comedy is great. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/53 Try not to get the amazon re-releases. They removed a lot of the language of the time, which (in my opinion) changes the books meaning slightly.