LF: Must reads

[Ann]

I'm snorting classics I haven't read. I'd like recommendations for classics or books that have influenced writings. A writing must read, any genre.

[Random]

First, what do you consider classic books?

Before the 1900s? Before 2000s?

Also... Snorting classics? :P Is that like snorting cocaine?

[Ann]

Classic as in "OMG how have you not read that?" it can be from any year really.

Yes, I blend them into a fine powder and sniff them into my brain :p

[[deleted user]]

Fantastic gothic classics:
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley.
Dracula, by Bram Stoker.
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by R. L. Stevenson.
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by James Hogg.

In a different genre, still gothic but a bit historical:
Beloved, by Toni Morrison.
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad.

[Ann]

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by James Hog. - that I've not read yet. *Adds to list*

Have you read Exterminate all the Brutes? It's by a Swedish man who follows on from Joseph Conrad. Exceptional stuff.

[[deleted user]]

Thanks, I'll add it to my long long long long list :P

[Ann]

It's only teeny though :p

[Brian]

Hyperion - Dan Simmons
Ilium- Dan Simmons
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
I'm a huge Michael Crichton fan, so Jurassic Park, Sphere, Prey, Timeline, Disclosure, and Rising Sun.
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - Stephen King
Wool - Hugh Howey

[Kamil]

@Bisky, I hope you've read "the night angel's trilogy" by brent weeks, the "warlords saga" by bernard cornwell, "left hand of darkness" by ursula leguinn , "the iron druid chronicles". I hope you had the pleasure to stroll thgrough the drenai saga

[G.G.]

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo (1831)

[Carl]

The Round House -- Erdich
Dune
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Dispossessed --Le Guin
Childhood's End
A River Runs Through It
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

[David]

This thread is like name dropping. Love it! Try Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen.

[Carl]

Lots of great suggestions.

[Ron]

Anything by Dickens, and Sir Richard Burton's THE ARABIAN NIGHTS is actually a really good and not too difficult read.

[Jade]

Gone With the Wind. Let us not neglect the American South while we're writing this list!

[Carl]

The Color Purple

[Ron]

L. Frank Baum's stuff is pretty stellar too.
The Aunt Jane's Nieces books written under the pen name Edith Van Dyne are really fun reads

[Nicole]

Here's some of my fav classics, if you haven't read them we can't be friends anymore… :p (most you can find online)

-A Rose for Emily, Faulkner (everyone has read this one, you'd have to be not from this planet not to. But in case you haven't…it is right up your alley. You'll love it :))

-Good Country People, Fannery O'Connor (this story made me laugh so hard I cried for ages…even though it really wasn't meant to make me laugh…I'm just a terrible person lol)

-Hills Like White Elephants, Hemingway (the epitome of classic)

-The Lady With The Dog, Chekhov <3 (any short by him really)

-The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlette Gilman

-Babylon Revisited, Fitzgerald

-The Horse Dealer's Daughter, D.H. Lawrence (*very*…'dramatic')

-A&P, John Updike

-Oedipus Rex, Sophecles (Granted, this is a play not a short story or book, but it's certainly a classic!)

-Lord of the Flies, William Golding

-Animal Farm, George Orwell

-Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge <3

-Kubla Khan, Coleridge <3

-Christabel, Coleridge <3

-The Lady of Shalott, Tennyson

[Brian]

Before I Go To Sleep - SJ Watson - I think they are turning this one into a movie. I saw part of a preview for it recently.

[Denise]

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

[[deleted user]]

American Classics by James Fenimore Cooper, starting with The Last of the Mohicans.