This is among the regular threads I enjoy most. The last book I read was Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot.

If you've never read anything by Dostoevsky, it's a great place to start. It's also a novel that would suit anyone interested in staying humble during a bull market, which was part of my reason for picking it up again after a few decades. If you've read perhaps his most famous work, The Brothers Karamazov, the protagonist resembles Alyosha more than any of his other characters.

The Idiot, Prince Myshkin, is the last of his aristocratic line, penniless when we meet him on his way back from an unsuccessful attempt to cure his epilepsy in Switzerland. He's naive and childish in the most charming way possible. He describes himself as an invalid unsuited to marriage, but has soon proposed to two women: one an angel and the other a demon, each unforgettable in her own way.

I was lucky to find an old Dent hardback from around a century ago, and this time I read it very slowly over the course of a month, every page a pleasure.