I feel like my I’ve missed out on some great literature. Which “Classic” books do you recommend reading?
I feel like my I’ve missed out on some great literature. Which “Classic” books do you recommend reading?
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If you count them in your definition of classic:
– 1984
– Brave New World
– Fahrenheit 451
– Slaughterhouse 5
I’ve not read Brave New World, but love the others!
Brave New World is terrific!
I will need to add this to my list. I like the company it keeps ?
Loved the first 3 , classic dystopians ? but think I missed the something with slaughterhouse, I might have to reread it.
@Sean Kurt Vonnegut has a great conversational writing style and an absurd version of Science fiction, which is what i most liked about SH5
@Jef I think I will reread it, think some of it must have went over me head ?
@Sean sometimes an author’s voice may just not speak to you.
Rebecca, The Count of Monte Cristo, and hear me out on this one…Gone With the Wind. It’s not a melodrama like the movie. It’s a beautifully written historical fiction, and one of my favorite books.
Gone With the Wind is truly amazing. It’s in my top 3 favorites.
I actually love GWTW and own an original printing. Love the film too. Rhett Butler is a great character.
I love the movie too! The book is so wildly different, but they’re both incredible in their own way.
Rebecca for sure.
I read Jude the Obscure recently and it fast became a favourite
Day in the life of ivan denisovich and Picture of Dorian Gray
Picture of Dorian Gray, O. me. O. my. ?
Anna Karenina, Grapes of Wrath, Thorn Birds are some of my favorites
I’ve been meaning to read Anna Karenina!
@Fyodor is a great writer.
John Steinbeck is a great writer
Anton Checkkv is a great writer
Great Expectations, and The Pickwick Papers, both by Charles Dickens and are both incredibly good.
I tried Pickwick Papers, but i couldn’t relate. It seemed more like character studies than a story.
I struggled to begin with due to the fact I read great expectations first, which I think is better. It is kind of like character studies and little stories. I would urge a second chance for it, but understand it’s not for everyone
Yes. Great expectations!
It’s quite possibly my favourite book.
Animal farm
– The picture of Dorian Gray
– 1984
– Wuthering Heights
– Alice in Wonderland
– Edgar Allan Poe’s books
– Fahrenheit 451
– Ubik (not a “classic” classic but, please, read it)
Thanks for recommending Ubik. Never heard of it. Alice in Wonderland and Thigh the Looking Glass are great.
The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald . The Sun Also Rises–the effect of WWI on the Lost Generation. Look Homeward, Angel–Wolfe influenced many writers. The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck. Poe. Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn.
Huckleberry Finn used to be teenage fave of mine!! I’d love to read it again 🙂
The Turn of the Screw and As I Lay Dying.
Maya Angelou’s memoirs.
The Scarlet Letter
Anything by Fitgerald
Yes to all of these, especially Turn of the Screw
The only classic ive read is Jane Austin? Oh and some Shakespeare stuff in high school. Not my style so don’t remember the names
anything by Charles Dickens; Vanity Fair, The Moonstone, Count of Monte Christo, Rebecca, Pride & Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre, Far From The Madding Crowd, Mayor of Casterbridge, Jude the Obscure. So many wonderful books.
Great Expectations
Pride and prejudice
Love that book so much!!!
Alice in Wonderland will always be my jiggity jam! But in truth I LOVE To Kill A Mockingbird!
To kill a mockingbird
Jane eyre
Anything by Jane Austen.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.
The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlett Letter and Pride and Prejudice. A few years back I decided to make it s point to read some classics that I either never read or read in high school and didn’t appreciate. I still have a few on my list to read, but these have been my favorite so far.
Fahrenheit 451
It’s been years and I should re-read it, too. The Good Earth
The Outsiders
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Giver
Number the Stars
The Great Good Thing
Chronicles Of Narnia
Wuthering Heights, anything by Shakespeare, The Sun Also Rises, anything by Jane Austen
Can’t go wrong with Shakespeare? any particular favourites?
King Lear, Romeo & Juliet (of course), Hamlet, Othello
Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre
A tale of two cities, the count of monte Cristo, Pride and prejudice, Rebecca, Jane Eyre. So many good ones but those are a few of my favs.
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas @Hardy
Wuthering Heights
David Copperfield
1984, Jane Eyre, The Old Man and the Sea, The Beautiful and the Damned, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, The Pearl, Of Mice and Men, Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Wuthering Heights.
Nice list , read and loved the majority of those, who wrote the beautiful and the damned ? Will get it added Tbr list
Sean Gallagher F Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) which is another great classic
@Jamie oh yeah , think this is on my tbr list, I’m sure I added it after gatsby and tender is the night , thanks ? ps love gatsby
Jane Eyre and To Kill a Mockingbird are two of my favourites
Just finishing To Kill a Mockingbird right now. Good book.
Virginia @Woolf
Steinbeck and Dickens!!
The Pearl and Ishmael
The Secret Garden
Jane Eyre
Wuthering Heights
Anything Jane Austen
Anne of Green Gables
Moby Dick!
Did you feel there was a lot of sexual repression in that book?
No, I felt like Ish and Q fell in love, I enjoyed the affection they expressed
Did you read it @Diana? I hate to spoil it. When Ish checks into the Inn, and is told the only place to sleep is in bed with a cannibal? It felt lightly written, like any romcom
Yeah I read it. I guess I felt confused about Ishmael & Q’s relationship because it seemed platonic but it also seemed like Ishmael was in love. I don’t think back then they could just say it.. so there was a lot of question around that for me. ?
I guess it is better described as sexual tension… vs repression
I agree. I thought the same thing.
They do seem in love, I guess its a sign of the time it was written in, but, I truly thought it was sweet.
Great expectations. Rebecca. Sherlock Holmes. Dracula. To kill a mockingbird. ???
The Picture Of Dorian Gray.
Fahrenheit 451
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery & The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux.
Also, for what it’s worth, I’m going to throw it out there that I just don’t like Dickens!
Oooops I’m in the same boat as Jef…….. I’m 62 not sure I have enough time to read all these suggestions……. come to reading a bit late …. lol
Better late than never!
Best get started then … hmmm
Audio books
Moby Dick–seriously, and look at all the metaphors and symbols and history of the day.
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. Beautifuly written.
Slaughterhouse 5—as an antiwar nove by a man who was deeply disturbed by what he sawl, not an absurd comedy.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest–as a treatise against the establishment that wants to make us all the same. Even more relevant now than when it was written in the 60s.
Kurt Vonnegut is a great writer. Mother Night is another war related book by him that I loved.
Rebbecca
Animal farm
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Loved it!
Dracula, by Bram Stoker
Anne of Green Gables
To Kill a Mockingbird
Of Mice and Men
This is probably the greatest book I read in school. I’ve seen the play and even tried writing a musical version of it.
To Kill a Mockingbird is an amazing book. I am a big Jane Eyre fan and managed to convince my husband to read it a few years ago and he really loved it Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier is an bloody masterpiece! And dark. I think Rebecca is the up to date Jane Eyre really.
Rebecca is one of my favourite classics too
@Rebecca – interesting comment about Rebecca being he up to date Jane Eyre. I used to teach a small unit on this at GCSE in English Lit. Just love these books x
I agree Rebecca ….and My Cousin Rachel? Jamaica INN. Love Daphne Du Maurier
Me too, Rebecca is her best but they are all great
My all-time favourite is Mockingbird. I have just listened to it on Audible, and read by Sissy Spacek. Absolutely unforgettable
The odyssey, jane Eyre, the picture of Dorian Gray, Frankenstein
So more modern classics I really loved is slaughter house 5 and beloved.
Dorian gray and Frankenstein are both excellent
I’ve been working my way through them the last couple of years. A few of my favourites are:
1984 by Orwell
Frankenstein by Shelley
Of mice and men by Steinbeck
All quiet on the western front by Remarque
Crime and punishment by Dostoyevsky
Rebecca by Maurier
The trial by Kafka
The great gatsby by Fitzgerald
Gulliver’s travels by swift
Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury
A passage to India by Forster
Pretty much all of Shakespeare and Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books ( especially the hound of the Baskervilles)
And I will stop
I read Hound of the Baskervilles a few months ago and thought it was perfection! I’ve always avoided Sherlock in literature and yet I think I found a favourite book!
The Trial by Kavka! Wow!
That takes me back.
@Lesley metamorphosis by him is good too
I haven’t read that, Sean.
More to read….
@Lesley its a good book short though can’t be more than 150 pages
Notre Dame de Paris (Hunchback of Notre Dame
by Victor Hugo
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
My favorites: Anna Karinina, Great Expectations and Count of Monte Cristo.
Dracula and The Picture of Dorian Gray. X
Les liaisons dangereuses,Choderlos de laclos (i don’t know if it’s been translated in English nor the name but the movie Cruel Intentions was inspired by this book)
Dom Juan, Molière
A midsummer night’s dream, Shakespeare
The little prince, Antoine de St-Exupery.
I obviously love the Bronte sisters, but I need more classics too, especially English ones, as I did my classical books education mainly in French, with French authors.
I wish I had read Gone with the Wind earlier. I read it last summer and it was incredible. I have it in my head that I won’t like the classics and so I have read very few. LoL
I second every book mentioned here.
Withering Heights or little women or pride and prejudice or my fave – the magus!
Wuthering Heights also had a music video based on it, by Kate Bush
My cousin Rachel
The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Read this for the first time last week, it was so good ?
Anna Karinina
Sherlock Holmes … a personal favorite.
Jack London, too…
A Tale of Two Cities
Quo Vadis
The Stranger by @Albert
My friend has been insisting for years that I read this. It’s his favorite book. I really ought to!
What is it about?
Candide by Voltaire
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I know why the caged Bird sings by @Maya
Native son by Richard Wright
Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Charles Dickens work
William Shakespeare
Homer The Iliad, and The Odyssey.
Apology by Plato (a must read)
Canterbury tales has always been my favorite. Also 1984 and Fahrenheit 451
Whan that Aprille with his shoure sote, the droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote … (had to memorize it in HS English and STILL remember it 25 years later ??) I remember it was kinda … risqué, if not downright raunchy too. ?
You can find most of the early Greek plays, and philosophers online for free.
I will always recommend “brave new world”.
East of Eden
Most books by Charles Dickens, the Bronte Sisters and novels by Trollope! Hoping you enjoy them- good luck!! xxx
The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn by Marky Mark Twain
The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer by the same dude.
All the rest I though of seem to be here.
Maybe some Herbert George Wells War Of The Worlds for good measure
Rebecca and The Great Gatsby
There are lots of these books online, for free, audio versions, at http://libravox.org/
Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote.
My faves are Great Expectations, David Copperfield, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Oh and Wuthering Heights of course!
Jane ayre
Did anyone say Vanity Fair yet? Awesome book!
Pride and Prejudice
Read all of @Jane.
All of them. Get going. It’s never too late and you’re in for a treat!
Frankenstein – soooooo much better than any film or adaptation. Great book.
A tree grows in Brooklyn. To Kill a Mockingbird. So many.
Rebecca or Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Need to read it
I love Of Human Bondage. I’ll need to check this out!
There is so much stuff for you to read. I ENVY you.
Most definitely Moby Dick and Black Beauty. I must’ve read them both 10+ times!
I always thought of Black Beauty as the kids movie. It’s a good book?
For me it’s wonderful. I recommend it as something to pass time more than anything else. (I may be slightly addicted to horses.) But I feel if you look deep enough there are many messages scattered throughout.
Wow! I’ve never heard of anyone actually reading Moby Dick…..you are very cool. But I don’t think I could bear the whole whale killing descriptions.
I took a whole class on Melville in college! I read Moby Dick but didn’t love it, it’s all very symbolic. I much preferred his lesser known works like Typee and The Confidence Man.
i second moby dick.
War and Peace
Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina
Stoner by John Williams
I love Dickens ( especially Oliver Twist, Great Expectations and Little Dorrit).
Anything by the Brontes.
Crime and Punishment by Dovtevesky had me glued to the book!
George Orwell’s books are intriguing! Fantastic! 1984 and Animal Farm are a must read!
Emile Zola’s novels are amazing too. “Madam Bovary” especially .
Daniel Defoe books – love love love! “Moll Flanders” esp.
I really love Thomas Hardy’s work and I had read every novel and even visited where he lived and did “the Hardy Tour”. Alas, when I went to do my english literature degree in the early 90s he had fallen “out of vogue” as a writer so I couldn’t study him.
Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”.
Mary Angelous. Beautiful writing.
Alice Walker “The Colour Purple” ; also “Oranges are not the Only Fruit” by Jeanette Winterson.
Yikes! Sorry, I’ve gone on too long and haven’t even started.
It’s interesting to see how you interpret a book and how other people interpret a book. Germaine Greer is a blast. Her interpretation of books are really really witty and entertaining. Even if you don’t agree with her, it will help you see book from different viewpoints than your own. This makes reading a lot more interesting.
Little women