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Must Read Classics
My favorite books are the classics. I'm always searching for "new" classics to read, ones I've not heard of or have overlooked. Let me know which ones you love!
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A book’s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book.
101 |
The Canterbury Tales
by
3.52 avg rating — 235,538 ratings
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102 |
The Call of the Wild, White Fang and Other Stories
by
4.05 avg rating — 22,711 ratings
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103 |
Their Eyes Were Watching God
by
3.99 avg rating — 380,197 ratings
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104 |
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales
by
4.17 avg rating — 74,675 ratings
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105 |
Bleak House
by
4.02 avg rating — 112,857 ratings
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106 |
The Awakening
by
3.69 avg rating — 223,863 ratings
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107 |
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz, #1)
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 502,284 ratings
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108 |
Oliver Twist
by
3.88 avg rating — 421,898 ratings
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109 |
American Psycho
by
3.80 avg rating — 352,610 ratings
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110 |
Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh, #1)
by
4.38 avg rating — 391,064 ratings
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111 |
David Copperfield
by
4.04 avg rating — 254,910 ratings
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112 |
Gulliver’s Travels
by
3.59 avg rating — 295,370 ratings
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113 |
The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories: The Great Short Works of Franz Kafka
by
4.09 avg rating — 20,684 ratings
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114 |
Alice in Wonderland
by
Jane Carruth (Adapted By)
4.03 avg rating — 396,130 ratings
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115 |
The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales
by
4.23 avg rating — 219,788 ratings
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116 |
The Call of the Wild
by
3.91 avg rating — 464,153 ratings
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117 |
The Jungle Books
by
4.01 avg rating — 88,796 ratings
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118 |
North and South
by
4.15 avg rating — 180,684 ratings
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119 |
Trainspotting (Mark Renton, #2)
by
4.11 avg rating — 175,868 ratings
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120 |
Candide
by
3.76 avg rating — 296,589 ratings
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121 |
Requiem for a Dream
by
4.11 avg rating — 63,508 ratings
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122 |
The Time Machine
by
3.89 avg rating — 556,278 ratings
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123 |
Fight Club
by
Chuck Palahniuk (Goodreads Author)
4.18 avg rating — 632,899 ratings
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124 |
Journey to the Center of the Earth
by
3.85 avg rating — 220,457 ratings
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125 |
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by
3.83 avg rating — 647,578 ratings
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126 |
Green Eggs and Ham
by
4.31 avg rating — 834,874 ratings
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127 |
The Zombie Room
by
3.91 avg rating — 38,318 ratings
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128 |
The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)
by
4.58 avg rating — 1,014,670 ratings
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128 |
Lunar Park
by
3.65 avg rating — 30,478 ratings
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130 |
Oedipus Rex (The Theban Plays, #1)
by
3.72 avg rating — 233,406 ratings
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131 |
The Wasp Factory
by
3.75 avg rating — 105,794 ratings
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132 |
Factotum
by
3.92 avg rating — 74,847 ratings
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133 |
Mrs. Dalloway
by
3.78 avg rating — 346,582 ratings
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134 |
A Wrinkle in Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, #1)
by
3.97 avg rating — 1,268,293 ratings
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135 |
The Moonstone
by
3.91 avg rating — 97,751 ratings
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136 |
Invisible Monsters
by
Chuck Palahniuk (Goodreads Author)
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 150,024 ratings
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137 |
Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1)
by
3.74 avg rating — 405,698 ratings
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138 |
Skagboys (Mark Renton, #1)
by
4.06 avg rating — 17,573 ratings
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139 |
Black Beauty
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 295,208 ratings
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140 |
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #3)
by
4.30 avg rating — 322,050 ratings
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141 |
Beowulf
by
3.50 avg rating — 340,247 ratings
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142 |
The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sherlock Holmes, #5)
by
4.14 avg rating — 379,510 ratings
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143 |
In Cold Blood
by
4.09 avg rating — 715,507 ratings
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144 |
The Alchemist
by
Paulo Coelho (Goodreads Author)
3.92 avg rating — 3,468,884 ratings
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145 |
The Jungle
by
3.78 avg rating — 152,985 ratings
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146 |
Antigone (The Theban Plays, #3)
by
3.68 avg rating — 171,930 ratings
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147 |
Vanity Fair
by
3.81 avg rating — 132,353 ratings
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148 |
A Little Princess
by
4.23 avg rating — 321,614 ratings
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149 |
Little House in the Big Woods (Little House, #1)
by
4.21 avg rating — 283,004 ratings
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150 |
The Trial
by
3.94 avg rating — 381,474 ratings
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151 |
Othello
by
3.89 avg rating — 430,316 ratings
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152 |
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
by
4.02 avg rating — 214,812 ratings
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153 |
Robinson Crusoe
by
3.68 avg rating — 326,954 ratings
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154 |
Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot, #10)
by
4.20 avg rating — 710,597 ratings
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155 |
Jude the Obscure
by
3.83 avg rating — 75,166 ratings
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156 |
Around the World in Eighty Days
by
3.95 avg rating — 277,277 ratings
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157 |
The Handmaid's Tale
by
Margaret Atwood (Goodreads Author)
4.15 avg rating — 2,351,478 ratings
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158 |
The Phantom of the Opera
by
3.96 avg rating — 269,913 ratings
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159 |
Leaves of Grass
by
4.11 avg rating — 115,252 ratings
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160 |
The Age of Innocence
by
3.97 avg rating — 191,728 ratings
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161 |
The Chosen (Reuven Malther, #1)
by
4.07 avg rating — 96,575 ratings
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162 |
Middlemarch
by
4.03 avg rating — 176,276 ratings
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162 |
The Color Purple
by
4.28 avg rating — 741,711 ratings
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164 |
Walden & Civil Disobedience
by
3.94 avg rating — 38,740 ratings
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165 |
Ulysses
by
3.77 avg rating — 139,124 ratings
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166 |
Middlemarch/Silas Marner/Amos Barton
by
3.98 avg rating — 800 ratings
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167 |
The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2)
by
4.50 avg rating — 1,095,622 ratings
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168 |
A Room with a View
by
3.89 avg rating — 198,917 ratings
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169 |
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
by
3.98 avg rating — 123,134 ratings
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170 |
Julius Caesar
by
3.71 avg rating — 216,396 ratings
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171 |
Where the Wild Things Are
by
4.25 avg rating — 1,047,265 ratings
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172 |
Paradise Lost
by
3.85 avg rating — 179,080 ratings
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173 |
The Idiot
by
4.21 avg rating — 210,530 ratings
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174 |
Man's Search for Meaning
by
4.37 avg rating — 844,373 ratings
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175 |
And Then There Were None
by
4.28 avg rating — 1,563,291 ratings
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176 |
The Martian Chronicles
by
4.16 avg rating — 281,440 ratings
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177 |
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
by
4.13 avg rating — 132,712 ratings
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178 |
The Aeneid
by
3.87 avg rating — 140,865 ratings
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179 |
The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-5)
by
4.07 avg rating — 116,856 ratings
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180 |
Invisible Man
by
3.92 avg rating — 199,680 ratings
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181 |
The Plague
by
4.02 avg rating — 304,392 ratings
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182 |
The Arabian Nights
by
4.03 avg rating — 80,651 ratings
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183 |
My Ántonia
by
3.84 avg rating — 145,654 ratings
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184 |
A Separate Peace
by
3.60 avg rating — 230,268 ratings
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185 |
The Fountainhead
by
3.89 avg rating — 334,940 ratings
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186 |
The Art of War
by
3.95 avg rating — 556,380 ratings
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187 |
Inferno
by
4.03 avg rating — 202,128 ratings
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188 |
The Giving Tree
by
4.38 avg rating — 1,216,897 ratings
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189 |
A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1)
by
4.13 avg rating — 485,749 ratings
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190 |
King Lear
by
3.91 avg rating — 233,960 ratings
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191 |
A Streetcar Named Desire
by
3.98 avg rating — 330,531 ratings
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192 |
Far From the Madding Crowd
by
3.97 avg rating — 163,897 ratings
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193 |
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
by
4.04 avg rating — 536,561 ratings
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194 |
The Taming of the Shrew
by
3.74 avg rating — 178,997 ratings
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195 |
The Master and Margarita
by
4.28 avg rating — 406,815 ratings
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196 |
Steppenwolf
by
4.13 avg rating — 209,237 ratings
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197 |
The Poisonwood Bible
by
4.11 avg rating — 784,144 ratings
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198 |
Ivanhoe
by
3.76 avg rating — 98,299 ratings
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199 |
The Book Thief
by
Markus Zusak (Goodreads Author)
4.39 avg rating — 2,822,646 ratings
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200 |
Cry, the Beloved Country
by
3.93 avg rating — 78,862 ratings
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Tags:
classic, literary-fiction
1729 likes · Like
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.
Jenny
1699 books
75 friends
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Kathryn
575 books
128 friends
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Brooke
128 books
20 friends
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Antoine
949 books
177 friends
177 friends
Susanna - Censored by GoodReads
3384 books
853 friends
853 friends
Erin
563 books
65 friends
65 friends
Mary
1150 books
28 friends
28 friends
Jill
1716 books
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More voters…
Comments Showing 1-50 of 73 (73 new)
message 1:
by
Silvana
(new)
Sep 04, 2008 07:03PM

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flag

there are three wuthering heights - i voted for 'em all

Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita"
Nikolai Gogol's "Dead Souls"
The team of Pevear and Volokhonsky is my current favorite for Russian to English translation whenever I can find them. They do very well capturing the "flavor" and sensibilities of the original Russian.

Emily, I love these books. Some strange ones slipped in this list but I really like them on the whole.
Some of these are not classics yet.

Anne wrote: "Great list! I'm a lover of classics myself, and if you haven't read them already, I highly recommend "La dame aux camelias" by Alexandre Dumas fils and "Manon Lescaut" by L'Abbe Prevost. They are ..."
Anne, I just downloaded Manon Lescaut from Project Gutenberg. I could not find Dumas' La Dame aux Camelias. Thank you for the suggestions. I will find it somewhere else.
Anne, I just downloaded Manon Lescaut from Project Gutenberg. I could not find Dumas' La Dame aux Camelias. Thank you for the suggestions. I will find it somewhere else.

They are the different formats of the same book on here twice.... Can it be fixed?



I know that it has been a while but I agree with your decision to keep Harry Potter. It may not be a classic now, exactly, but I believe that one day it will be.

Classics are just phenomenal! They are basis of books today and a reason why I keep reading!

It is impossible I have finally got somenone who loves La dame aux camelias, this story is one of the best love stories EVER>

How does #181 Isn't It Pretty To Think So? qualify for this list?


Isn't It Pretty To Think So?

Great idea - building a library to pass on to future generations. Thanks for the idea!
The Godfather is a classic? I liked it but a classic?
I read the book and the part about the horse was much too graphic. I would not call it a classic yet but I am not sure how that is determined.
Is there a list for classic movies? (will search)
thanks
Is there a list for classic movies? (will search)
thanks


The Fault In Our Stars
The Book Thief
The Five People You Meet In Heaven
Dear John
Sense & Sensibility by Joanna Trollope (this is a YA modernization of the classic Austen novel)
Code Name Verity
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff... And It's All Small Stuff
Looking For Alaska
I Know This Much Is True
Angela's Ashes
Many of these books are good, but it's too soon to say whether they'll become classics for future readers.

Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis is a great cycle of poetry.
The Illustrated Man by the late Ray Bradbury is excellent as are ANY OF HIS WRITINGS!
Other good reads:
The Devil's Storybook by Natalie Babbitt
Hawaii by James Mitchener
Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell
A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul


Although Baroness Orczy should be credited for creating the disguised-hero-alter-ego oeuvre, I don't think that she had any talent!


Hi Bruce, I retired from "corporate America" recently but am doing lots of different things now. I too am catching up on my reading. I think this list is a pretty good place to start. I've read seven of the top ten and Jane Eyre is next!


Bruce, I read Jane Eyre. Worst book I've ever read. IF you dare read it, don't say I didn't warn you.

The Harry Potter series is in there at least three times, still.
From the 1046 I have 956 non-duplicated books.
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