Can ya’ll recommend a good classic to read without having to have a college degree?
Hello good people. Can ya’ll recommend a good classic to read without having to have a college degree? Thanks
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East of Eden – Steinbeck
Have you read Fahrenheit 451?
No thanks Greta ?
Really? I loved it
I would also include The Illustrated Man if you’re leaning towards Bradbury!
To Kill A Mockingbird
Bless Me, Ultima – Anaya
Confederacy of Dunces – Toole
I second the motion for Confederacy of Dunces. ?
Third!
There is no college degree check on Amazon.
I’m reading the Silence Dogood letters right now and have to keep google translate ready and active for all of the Latin myself.
One of Mark Twain’s!!!!
Brothers Karamazov
Little Prince
Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
100 years of solitude
Catch 22 is also a good one
Animal Farm!
Two Years Before The Mast
Kurt Vonnegut. I really like Cat’s Cradle.
I read it for a college class and didn’t understand it. 🙂
Grapes of Wrath
I second this!
If you read this as a kid read it again – it is a whole different and very profound story when read as an adult: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/378.The_Phantom_Tollbooth?from_search=true
I felt the same way about Peter Pan. What a profound commentary on the role of children in society. As well as a romping good story.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17143.Go_Tell_It_on_the_Mountain?from_search=true
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. One of my top 5 of all time!
I liked catcher in the rye. I appreciate his hatred toward the phonies.
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote. Not sure it qualifies as a classic, but it’s a great read.
Read Of Mice and Men!! The Great Gatsby! These two are great!!
I would say all of those already mentioned and I’ll add to that 1984, any Charles Dickens. My fav is Great Expectations.
Oh Miss Havisham, also one of my favorites.
Animal Farm
I have to add The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. My top 2!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/70401.On_the_Road?ac=1&from_search=true
https://www.amazon.com/One-Flew-Over-Cuckoos-Nest/dp/0451163966/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509582598&sr=1-1&keywords=one+flew+over+the+cuckoo%27s+nest
I think The Outsiders is a classic.
An American Tragedy
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7442.The_Electric_Kool_Aid_Acid_Test?ac=1&from_search=true
But does this fall under the “classic” category?
@Jo Yes. Has been in print without pause for 49 years. Is on multiple “Best Books” lists including the ALA, the NAS and Publishers Weekly and the NEH
A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole..
One of my faves
The Winter of Our Discontent. Steinbeck.
Anything Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men, the Old Man and the Sea, the Scarlet Letter, the Alchemist
I just recently reread Old Man and the Sea…hadn’t read it since Jr. HS. So good and a very quick read!
Heart of darkness, by Joseph Conrad.
Excellent choice! OP: If you liked “Apocalypse Now” I think you’d really enjoy this book.
I love Ethan Frome, Wuthering Heights, Fail Safe, On the Beach.
Frankenstein or Lord of the Flies
Great thread! I’m writing stuff down I’ve completely forgotten.
cannery row is good fun
Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray
A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Jude The Obscure, Bulfinch’s Mythology.
Modern classic To Kill A Mockingbird
Great Expectations.
Anything by Charles Dickens, The Scarlet Letter, Gone with the Wind……..
I take my daughter’s advice – if I am reading something that I feel is too difficult for me to comprehend, just keep reading for 50 pages or so. Sometimes, you sort of fall into the flow of the language. If it happens, start over so that you can grasp what you might have missed the first time around. If it still doesn’t make sense, put it aside, there are a billion other books.
As for my recommendations – no matter the question, I always recommend To Kill a Mockingbird. It is fairly modern, so you will totally understand the language. The Great Gatsby. Anything by Twain. Anything by Steinbeck and Hemmingway.
Austen is a step up in language density, but if you peg away at it, it will start coming together. These 1800’s writers use such loooooooooooooooong sentences that I find that I lose the train of thought.
I find Dickens almost impossible to comprehend, and I have loads of college degrees, lol.
I really loved The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck. Excellent book and no degree needed ! haha
Treasure Island by Stevenson. Call of the Wild by London. Heart of Darkness by Conrad.
The Three Musketeers. I laugh out loud every time. And the dialogue and action scenes are pretty awesome.
Little Women, Oliver Twist, Black Beauty, Anne of Green Gables, Treasure Island, Lord of the Flies, The Three Musketeers, Catcher in the Rye, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, anything by Steinbeck, Of mice and men, War and Peace, The Red Badge of Courage, The Scarlet Letter, The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Flowers for Algernon, The Thornbirds, Rebecca
Sherlock Holmes!!
I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable a read Hunchback of Notre Dame was.
Candide by Voltaire
Steinbeck books,,
The Good Earth
Moby Dick, Great Expectations, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Lord of the Flies
An English classic that I enjoy and have probably re-read more than any other is “Three men in a boat: (to say nothing of the dog)” by Jerome K. Jerome. I’ve probably given away a couple dozen copies of this to various friends (and strangers) since stumbling upon it a few years ago. It’s worth seeking out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Men_in_a_Boat
Holy Tomato, this is one of the funniest thing in English! I love this. We listened to this on audio, and my teenaged daughter was laughing so hard that her legs literally gave way and she fell to the floor. It is really great!
@Rosemary are you referring to Three Men In a Boat? Just your comment makes me wanna read what ever book you’re talking about ?
Yes, three men in a boat by Jerome k Jerome. Silly, slapstickish, not to everyone’s taste but we loved it.
@Rosemary just ordered it with my John Green Box Set. ?
I need a good laugh. Thanks for the recommendation guys!
Every time I go to the doctor’s office I laugh to myself about his trip to the doctor, and the resulting prescription. Hahaha
@Rosemary hummm ? I’m intrigued. Can’t wait to read it!
I’ve never heard of this book. Now I need to find it. Do you know if it’s on Project Gutenberg?
Kim Niemants Guyer Not sure about Project Gutenberg, but I’m sure it’s in public domain.
James Hesketh I found it on Project Gutenberg, too! Yay! And the sequel 🙂
I read Oliver Twist when I was 11. I read David Copperfield at 41 and found it quite enjoyable.
Jane Austen – Pride and Predjudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion.
Jack London and John Steinbeck
Ernest Hemingway. Try Old Man and the Sea.
Nathanial Hawthorne’s short stories; Aesop’s Fables; O. Henry; Mark Twain; The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.
The Great Gatsby.
John Steinbeck, Raymond Chandler
Robert Louis Stevenson
Catcher in the Rye, Slaughterhouse V by Kurt Vonnegut,
Tarzan
Catch 22
The Great Gatsby, 1984, Brave New World.
The King Arthur and Knights of the Round Table stories — numerous versions by various authors
Maybe one of the books by Mark Twain or Charles Dickens?
Reading Alice in Wonderland now, as well as some poems by Edgar Allan Poe..
The Three Musketeers. I had trouble getting into it. Sorry, I don’t recall how many chapters, but once the plot took off it was an excellent read.
Any Steinbeck will do
No classics require having a college degree! Pick a topic you like and dive in. Frankenstein is a fun one.
I agree, loved Frankie.
try the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde
A Woman in White
Love this book!
A Tale of Two Cities
I loved the count of monte cristo
Of Mice and Men
Any Thomas Hardy books…
A Separate Peace by J Knowles
And of course.. Of Mice and Men!!
Hard to pick just one. You cannot go wrong with any of them.
Lonesome Dove. Very accessible and you won’t be able to put it down.
I consider it a classic 🙂
So do I!! And yes, it is unputdownable
One of my favorite books.
It’s great!!
What is it about?
Texas Rangers in the West but it’s more a story of the lifelong unexpected friendship between two men.
Pretty much any of them. I read a ton of classics in high school. Most books provide a richer experience if you read about the time period or author first but that really just adds layers of understanding.
Anything by JOhn Steinbeck, Willa Cather, Pearl Buck…
Mark Twain books are good.
Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Count of Monte Christo, Jane Austen anything, and I think The Secret History by Donna Tartt should be considered a classic ?
Anything byJohn Steinbeck .
Anna Karenina
To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee.
On The Road? Lots of fun.
I consider Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five to be a classic… and one of my all-time favorite books!
Washington Square by Henry James, probably his most accessible novel. It has been made into a movie at least twice. The one to watch is “The Heiress,” with Olivia de Havilland, Ralph Richardson, and Montgomery Clift.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, a modern classic.
Short stories and plays of Chekhov.
I would avoid anything translated from another language. Avoid avoid Dickens, Jane Austen or Emily Dickenson.
How about some Jane Austen ?
Diary of a You g Girl by Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Grapes of Wrath, Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, 1984, Of Mice & Men, anything by Washington Irving, The Color Purple, The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,
A Separate Peace
Catcher of the rye
I’m reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula right now and I’m enjoying it.
you might want to talk with a librarian to determine your actual reading level (are these available on-line?) and ask him/her for some recommendations…”not having a college degree” is kind of vague…
To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hobbit, Anne of Green Gables, A Wrinkle in Time, The Secret Garden, The Old Man and the Sea.
The Monk by Matthew Lewis is melodramatic fun. Andre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers for your swashbuckling adventure. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë has a great lead character. All are very accessible and entertaining.
Any?
The catcher in the rye , amazing book that must be read with an open mind