Lives vs The Bell Jar: Which Should You Read?

Lives Plutarch · 1564 ★★★★☆ 3.9 732 pages · ≈ 13 h 33 m · Demanding

Character studies comparing statesmen and generals of pre-Christian Greece and Rome.

The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath · 1948 ★★★★☆ 4.4 272 pages · ≈ 5 h 02 m · Demanding

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.”

The Bell Jar is the only novel written by American poet Sylvia Plath. It is an intensely realistic and emotional record of a successful and talented young woman's descent into madness.