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17 books
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7 voters
Classical Books
Showing 1-50 of 9,712
The Odyssey (Paperback)
by (shelved 442 times as classical)
avg rating 3.84 — 1,213,724 ratings — published -800
The Iliad (Hardcover)
by (shelved 348 times as classical)
avg rating 3.93 — 519,165 ratings — published -800
Pride and Prejudice (Hardcover)
by (shelved 280 times as classical)
avg rating 4.30 — 4,887,015 ratings — published 1813
The Aeneid (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 253 times as classical)
avg rating 3.88 — 145,437 ratings — published -19
The Great Gatsby (Paperback)
by (shelved 201 times as classical)
avg rating 3.93 — 6,003,971 ratings — published 1925
Metamorphoses (Paperback)
by (shelved 198 times as classical)
avg rating 4.10 — 79,303 ratings — published 8
To Kill a Mockingbird (Paperback)
by (shelved 189 times as classical)
avg rating 4.26 — 6,977,255 ratings — published 1960
Jane Eyre (Paperback)
by (shelved 188 times as classical)
avg rating 4.16 — 2,358,963 ratings — published 1847
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Paperback)
by (shelved 169 times as classical)
avg rating 4.13 — 1,926,442 ratings — published 1890
Wuthering Heights (Paperback)
by (shelved 162 times as classical)
avg rating 3.90 — 2,210,336 ratings — published 1847
1984 (Paperback)
by (shelved 159 times as classical)
avg rating 4.20 — 5,581,394 ratings — published 1948
Romeo and Juliet (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 153 times as classical)
avg rating 3.74 — 2,849,527 ratings — published 1590
The Republic (Paperback)
by (shelved 146 times as classical)
avg rating 3.97 — 228,791 ratings — published -400
Animal Farm (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 139 times as classical)
avg rating 4.02 — 4,650,943 ratings — published 1945
Oedipus Rex (The Theban Plays, #1)
by (shelved 134 times as classical)
avg rating 3.73 — 240,064 ratings — published -429
Frankenstein: The 1818 Text (Paperback)
by (shelved 130 times as classical)
avg rating 3.91 — 1,939,668 ratings — published 1818
Crime and Punishment (Paperback)
by (shelved 127 times as classical)
avg rating 4.29 — 1,110,046 ratings — published 1866
Little Women (Little Women, #1)
by (shelved 126 times as classical)
avg rating 4.17 — 2,493,748 ratings — published 1868
Sense and Sensibility (Paperback)
by (shelved 126 times as classical)
avg rating 4.09 — 1,311,958 ratings — published 1811
Antigone (Theban Plays, #3)
by (shelved 123 times as classical)
avg rating 3.69 — 179,806 ratings — published -441
Meditations (Hardcover)
by (shelved 118 times as classical)
avg rating 4.28 — 361,820 ratings — published 180
The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides (Paperback)
by (shelved 115 times as classical)
avg rating 4.02 — 47,549 ratings — published -458
The Catcher in the Rye (Paperback)
by (shelved 115 times as classical)
avg rating 3.80 — 3,940,104 ratings — published 1951
Dracula (Paperback)
by (shelved 115 times as classical)
avg rating 4.02 — 1,502,575 ratings — published 1897
The Count of Monte Cristo (Paperback)
by (shelved 110 times as classical)
avg rating 4.33 — 1,044,023 ratings — published 1844
The Histories (Paperback)
by (shelved 108 times as classical)
avg rating 4.01 — 56,262 ratings — published -430
Hamlet (Paperback)
by (shelved 104 times as classical)
avg rating 4.03 — 1,068,103 ratings — published 1601
Emma (Paperback)
by (shelved 101 times as classical)
avg rating 4.05 — 999,053 ratings — published 1815
Lord of the Flies (Paperback)
by (shelved 99 times as classical)
avg rating 3.70 — 3,243,149 ratings — published 1954
Medea (Paperback)
by (shelved 98 times as classical)
avg rating 3.96 — 88,851 ratings — published -431
Of Mice and Men (Paperback)
by (shelved 98 times as classical)
avg rating 3.90 — 2,879,330 ratings — published 1937
Anna Karenina (Paperback)
by (shelved 97 times as classical)
avg rating 4.11 — 945,576 ratings — published 1878
Fahrenheit 451 (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 97 times as classical)
avg rating 3.97 — 2,897,075 ratings — published 1953
A Tale of Two Cities (Paperback)
by (shelved 97 times as classical)
avg rating 3.88 — 1,021,090 ratings — published 1859
The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone (Paperback)
by (shelved 96 times as classical)
avg rating 4.00 — 71,374 ratings — published -450
Macbeth (Paperback)
by (shelved 96 times as classical)
avg rating 3.89 — 1,035,186 ratings — published 1623
Lysistrata (Paperback)
by (shelved 94 times as classical)
avg rating 3.86 — 54,077 ratings — published -423
The Epic of Gilgamesh (Paperback)
by (shelved 94 times as classical)
avg rating 3.76 — 120,945 ratings — published -1200
History of the Peloponnesian War (Paperback)
by (shelved 91 times as classical)
avg rating 3.95 — 40,965 ratings — published -411
Les Misérables (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 82 times as classical)
avg rating 4.21 — 851,107 ratings — published 1862
The Symposium (Paperback)
by (shelved 82 times as classical)
avg rating 4.09 — 92,180 ratings — published -380
The Metamorphosis (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 80 times as classical)
avg rating 3.91 — 1,472,945 ratings — published 1915
Inferno (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 79 times as classical)
avg rating 4.03 — 208,973 ratings — published 1321
The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso (Hardcover)
by (shelved 78 times as classical)
avg rating 4.09 — 175,240 ratings — published 1320
Brave New World (Paperback)
by (shelved 77 times as classical)
avg rating 3.98 — 2,106,931 ratings — published 1932
The Old Man and the Sea (Hardcover)
by (shelved 77 times as classical)
avg rating 3.81 — 1,335,930 ratings — published 1952
Great Expectations (Paperback)
by (shelved 77 times as classical)
avg rating 3.80 — 882,404 ratings — published 1861
Persuasion (Paperback)
by (shelved 73 times as classical)
avg rating 4.15 — 790,311 ratings — published 1817
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Adventures of Tom and Huck, #2)
by (shelved 72 times as classical)
avg rating 3.83 — 1,344,790 ratings — published 1885
The Little Prince (Hardcover)
by (shelved 71 times as classical)
avg rating 4.33 — 2,527,276 ratings — published 1943
“Rufus didn’t pay any attention to the voice back then. At that time, he attributed the voice to his lack of confidence, causing him to doubt the durability of his friendship with Melissa. But as the years passed, the voice became louder in his head, and it seemed to be someone else’s. It didn’t sound like Rufus did when he spoke. And it didn’t think like he thought. The most crucial difference between Rufus and the voice was that it didn’t tell the truth because the truth was that only good things had happened to him since he’d met Melissa.”
― One More Life to Live
― One More Life to Live
“Let me posit 2 other divisions. The 1st is somewhat nebulous & entails some generalizations. I state that Shakespeare- despite claims for his universality- was a very limited thinker- at least thematically; although similar themes would often be twisted anew with metaphor & image. But compared to the aforementioned other sonneteers Shakespeare demonstrates a near tunnel vision in range of themes (let’s put aside the question of his own Shakespearean sonnet form). Even worse, he seemed to be obsessed with running said themes into the ground. In the sonnets there are only a handful of broad themes- with only occasional overlap. They are: beauty, sleep/dreams, love/friendship, despair/ parting, art/the Muse, &, of course, death. The riposte: But isn’t all Art about these things? Well, yes & no. Yes, in a broad sense, but no in the sense that Modern Poetry’s superiority to Classical or non-Modern [a term I prefer to pre-Modern because any number of poets today still write this type of poetry & it seems silly to label these contemporaries pre-anything!] poetry is its very multi-layered approach to these themes & relegating them to sub-themes at service to portraits of people, events, & moments. This is all dramatic technique centuries ahead of Shakespeare & while his best sonnets survive this his worst are telltale in their failure’s being tied to their time.”
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