What classic book should i read, I never read a classic in my life

[Killua]

I want to read a classic book but I never read one before and need a book recommendation that will make me love classic I need a book that makes me want to annotate the book something good.

[Reshme]

give little woman a try

[Killua]

@Reshme whats it about?

[literally no one's here you moron]

Alice in Wonderland, it's one of my favorite classics

[Rebecca]

To Sir With Love
The Whipping Boy
Up the Down Staircase

[Christine]

To be honest, most classic books are rather boring.
But try Alexandre Dumas. You might enjoy "The Three Musketeers" and "The Count of Monte-Cristo".
And "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck is a must read!

[Killua]

this might sound stupid but are there any classics with mental health as topic

[Reshme]

Killua wrote: "@Reshme whats it about?"

The story follows the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—and details their passage from childhood to womanhood.

[Killua]

@Reshme It sounds interesting!!!

[han]

The Great Gatsby may be a good place to start

[sophia]

id recommend east of eden or of mice and men. john steinbeck is pretty easy to read and i loved those two books by him.

[Sheila]

One flew over the Cuckoo's nest

[Killua]

are their any classics with the topic depression or with some poetry in it since i kind of want to try annotating

[Emma]

Normally I’d recommend Jane Austen’s Emma, but for just getting into classics, I’d say The Great Gatsby and Anne of Green Gables are both really solid introductory books. Not too difficult to read, but both wonderful stories :). Happy reading, whatever you choose!

[Jessica]

Sheila wrote: "One flew over the Cuckoo's nest"

Interesting! i love the movie and I just found out this is a book? Noted.

OT: I tried reading The Lord of the Flies, but I just couldn't get into it. 😭😂
Personally, I love A Tale of Two Cities.

[Jessica]

Killua wrote: "are their any classics with the topic depression or with some poetry in it since i kind of want to try annotating"

Try Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I got depressed after reading that book. Maybe depressed is too strong of a word, but it really stuck with me for a bit there, I had to cleanse my palette after.

[Sheila]

Book is better than the movie

[Ashley (Chris's version)]

The Great Gatsby is a good book

[sarah]

To kill a mocking bird is a awesome read.

[Kaytie]

Little Women or
Persuasion. both are great stories

[Christine]

Jessica wrote: "Sheila wrote: "One flew over the Cuckoo's nest"

Interesting! i love the movie and I just found out this is a book? Noted.

OT: I tried reading The Lord of the Flies, but I just couldn't get into i..."


Neither could I get into Jane Austen nor Charles Dickens nor the Brontë sisters nor "Lord of the Flies". Contemporary novels are much more to my liking.

[Andrea]

Pride and Prejudice, or anything else by Jane Austen, if you like romantic stories. If you’re interested in mental health topics, maybe Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, though they’re more psychological. Also, The Turn of the Screw, which is a short story. The Yellow Wallpaper is about mental health, and it’s a short novella.

[Sally-Anne]

To Kill A Mockingbird - so relevant today even though it’s over 60 years old

[Shelton]

Tom Sawyer

[Killua]

@shelton this one actually seems pretty interesting!

[Sarah]

The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

And Dumas (who was an incredible author) also wrote nonfiction too like Adventures With My Pets by Alexandre Dumas

*****

The Great Gatsby is a famous book (which I read in high school) but I had found it very boring. It doesn't suit everyone. So it may not be a good choice for a first classic to read.

[Sarah]

I also had enjoyed reading Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

And

Island by Aldous Huxley

[Christine]

"Rebecca" by Daphne DuMaurier and "Frenchman's Creek" are very readable classics.

[Lizp]

Anna Karenina, Tolstoy.

[Serena]

Anne of Green Gables or Ben hur. I'm not sure if the Lord of the Rings is considered a classic but that's iconic too.

[nour]

The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde! its a gothic novella so not too long, and the writing is engaging and not to hard to understand

[Heidi_2811]

Maybe try reading something that would interest you. If you like romance, mystery, horror... It's easier to read that way. I can recommend Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

[ali]

I loved The Phantom of the Opera, and it's pretty easy to understand.

[Charlotte]

East of Eden or The Catcher in the Rye

[Elisabeth]

Hamlet/ Dracula/to kill a mocking bird/ in cold blood/great expectations......animal farm, a tale of two cities, Frankenstein. gosh!!!! there are sooooooooooooo many

[Debra]

It's hard to answer that question without knowing more about your tastes. Off the top of my head:

Advenutres of Huckleberry Finn
Beloved
Grapes of Wrath
Anna Karenina
The Things They Carried (a modern classic)
Catch-22
Anything by Jane Austen if you need something fluffy
Invisible Man
A Tale of Two Cities
Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre
The Bell Jar

[lara ୨୧]

the great gatsby!

[Debra]

Their Eyes Were Watching God

[T.]

- Sula or The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison for lyrical prose that hits you in the heart (heavy themes, check out trigger warnings)
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley for a great Gothic classic
- 1984 by George Orwell for bleak dystopian nightmares
- Cats Cradle or Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut for dark humor and cultural critique disguised as sci-fi
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker for women empowerment in the face of age, class, culture, color and race (heavy themes, check trigger warnings).
- The yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a haunting short story about domesticity, womanhood, and madness. Might be nice to start off super short!
- The Secret Garden if you'd like something lighthearted (might not really be an annotated vibe though.)
- The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran for poetry

Off the top of my head, these are what comes to mind as great starting points. I think the key to enjoying classics is read what calls to you. Don't force yourself to read a daunting classic because it's a thing. You can find all kinds of vibes in the classics that you'll click with! I hope this helps, Happy reading!

[Jacy]

to kill a mockingbird, I read it in school and its pretty good

[T.]

I just saw that your profile says you like queer books! The Color Purple is a must-read then! Here are a few other queer classics for ya:
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
And up next on my queer/Sapphic to-read list is Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, a sapphic vampire story that predate Dracula by 25 years.

[Killua]

@T.Neoma thank you so much I'm gonna check those out

[Angela]

okay so if you want something more female driven I AM IN LOVE with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. it is not only inspiring but easier to read then some of the other. Anything Edgar Allan Poe or John Steinbeck could be a good place to start because they aren't extremely long.

happy reading xoxo

[Lucy]

little women or pride and prejudice! <3 and anne of green gables!!

[Haley]

I would suggest A Separate Peace by John Knowles! I read it in high school and really enjoyed it, it's about a boy named Gene reminiscing on his time at prep school and his old roommate Phineas.

[Juan]

"La hoguera de las vanidades" no es un clásico pero es catalogable cómo tal

[Jeanette]

Wuthering Heights!

[Hollie]

Count of Monte Cristo
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
Wind in the Willows (favorite short children's story)
Aesop's Fables
Lord or the Rings
Little Women
Can give more if needed but I enjoy more modern books.... though I have read all the above when younger.

[Christine]

Hollie wrote: "Count of Monte Cristo
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
Wind in the Willows (favorite short children's story)
Aesop's Fables
Lord or the Rings
Little Women
Can give more if needed but I enjoy more mo..."


I like contemporary or novels from the 1950's to 1990's more than classics. Sloan Wilson and Patricia Highsmith are two favorites.

[Nicole]

Little Women