Looking for some suggestions for "Classic" reads

[Jackie]

I'm doing a 101 in 1001 list which includes reading 10 "Classics" ..but there are so many, I'm having a hard time narrowing down my choices.

Are there any classics you would recommend to someone as a must read? What about the story makes it a book you'd recommend?

I'm looking for some suggestions because a few of them are going on my Christmas Wish list.

[Tera, First Chick]

I guess it depends on what you consider a "classic". This is just my own idea of the classics but I stand by it.

I went through your books and I would suggest
Jane Austen (Emma, Pride and Prejudice)
Gone With the Wind
Wuthering Heights
To Kill a Mockingbird
Scarlet Letter
East of Eden
Anna Karenina

Jane Austen becuase once you get into the flow of the language its easy to get swept up with.
Gone With the Wind because there is a bit of Scarlet in all of us if we admit it or not.
Wuthering Heights because from your list I think it will have just the right combination of romance gone wrong with a nice darkness to it you might like.
Mockingbird because everyone should read it.
Scarlet Letter because we see even early on how the woman was the whore and the man was the hero through the eyes of society but the reality of the story paints different heros and villains.
East of Eden because I think it was an incredibly well done saga woven together better than anything ive ever read
Anna Karenina because even good girls go bad sometimes.

That's my list and my why fors.

[Terri]

My favourites are

Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Wuthering Heights
To Kill a Mockingbird

Definitely something by Jane Austen, probably Pride and Prejudice
I'm reading The Woman in White at the moment - a good read too!

[Emily]

When I think of "classic", I think of Greek plays like the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus and the Oedipus plays by Sophocles. And Shakespeare, definitely. But even though I highly recommend those, they aren't novels. Is that what you are going for mostly?

[Holli]

Here are my suggestions....

Gone With The Wind
Great Expectations
Romeo and Juliet
The Secret Garden
The Scarlet Letter

[Lisa]

Great recommendations! Also - if you like a little mystery or suspense try:
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

[Holli]

I almost said Rebecca!! That's a great one too :)

[Laura]

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier is even better than Rebecca IMHO.

and Woman in White by Wilkie Collins is a GREAT classic mystery. I bet all of his books would be great, judging by that one.

[April]

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Any of the Jane Austen books
To Kill a Mockingbird
Gone with the Wind
Vanity Fair - One of my absolute favorites
East of Eden - best book ever written IMHO.

[Aja]

Although I would recommend a lot of the books listed already, there is one missing that not only Jackie should read.

I decided a while back that I was going to read all the fiction Pulitzer Prize winners. I started with Lonesome Dove because I thought it was just a 1000 page cowboy book, and I wanted to get it over with.

I can not emphasis enough what an incredible book this is. IT IS NOT JUST A WESTERN, the storytelling is amazing and the 1000 pages flew by in a two weeks. At one point in the story, I was so amazed with the turn that plot had taken that I put down the book to call my mother. I have never had a book do this to me. I now recommend this book to everyone and have not had a negative response by anyone who read the book.

Give it a hundred pages, and I promise you will finish the book.

[Peanut]

Check out Cliffs Notes online. You can pick some books that way.

[Mary]

Oh this is great fun! I was just reading a blog from bookdwarf yesterday on 2008 reading list.....Wilkie Collins "the Lady in White" was rated "smashing" and it is!

My favorites to humbly put forth:
To Kill a Mockingbird (I love this book so much I named my dog Scout!)
Vanity Fair ( Becky Sharp is probably one of my most favorite characters of all time - such a modern feel and a book I could read again and again.
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford - considered one of the fifteen or twenty greatest novels produced in English
If you haven't read Dickens - Our Mutual Friend / Tale of Two Cities / Little Dorrit / Hard Times (these are all fantastic reads)

[Laura]

Lonesome Dove is really terrific. I read that in H.S., but I should read it again. I know I would enjoy it even more now.

Cold Mountain is another modern classic I would highly recommend.

(I didn't mention Austen and Dickens before, as others have already, and I feel they go without saying. Both equally, I couldn't even pick between them. The more I read of them - I just don't ever want to be done reading them.)

[KrisT]

The Picture of Dorian Gray is very very good. Um, others that have not been mentioned, Little Woman, Ethan Frome or House of Mirth, The Forsythe Saga, Les Miserable, Grapes of Wrath but I would start with Jane Austen...either Persuasion or P and P.

[Leslie]

Definitely anything written by Jane Austen.

others...
Anthony Trollope
Henry James
Anne Bronte
Wilkie Collins
Elizabeth Gaskell
Ann Radcliffe
William Faulkner
Geoffrey Chaucer
Charolette Bronte
Emily Bronte
Charles Dickens
Alexander Dumas
Rudyard Kipling
Iam Fleming
Agatha Christie

Also look up the BBC Big Read it will list books that are new and "old" must reads, many are classics or books for all ages!

[Jackie]

Thanks for the help, guys! I'll look into these books and see if helps me pick my 10!

[Paige]

I second Aja!!
I read Lonesome Dove because my grandmother said it was her favorite book. I was turned off by the western cowboy cover, but I tell you what.... OUTSTANDING!!
My other votes would be
Life of Pi
and
East of Eden

In all these books there are twists and turns that you wouldn't expect and you will fall in love with all the characters. There will be a couple you just can't forget even if you tried. These are the type of books that 'stay with you' for a while!
Enjoy

[Emily]

No one has mentioned Virginia Woolf, but I would recommend her as well.

[Kathy]

Yes, A Room of Ones Own by Virginia Wolf
I read that last year. It was great.

“….my own notebook rioted with the wildest scribble of contradictory jottings. It was distressing, it was bewildering, it was humiliating. Truth had run through my fingers. Every drop had escaped.” ....Virginia Woolf

[Meg]

No one has mentioned Madame Bovary. I loved that book, it is a classic and redone many times by more modern authors.

Also another modern classic is Angela's Ashes.

[Mary]

Oh I loved Angela's Ashes....

Women in Love, D. H. Lawrence is wonderful too.

and this one is a really fun one....The Robber Brides by Edith Wharton

[Daryl]

I think these would all be "modern classics" but here are some that I've loved.

The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
The Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Black Boy - Richard Wright
Anthem - Ayn Rand
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
There Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

[Hannah]

Travels with Charley - John Steinbeck (Love this story!)
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

[Katie]

The Awakening
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Sun Also Rises
Wuthering Heights
The Crucible
Black Beauty
Treasure Island
The Things They Carried

[Sonja]

The B&N classics are specifically defined as a set of books that B&N prints themselves. So they have editions of these books that are INCREDIBLY cheap - like 4-5 dollars a piece, for trade paperback books. I always bought these editions for school reading and such.

I believe the only "classic" author excluded from this set is Shakespeare, which is because of either the Folger Shakespeare collection or No Fear Shakespeare....

[Mary]

I think it's pretty neat to hear what everyone thinks is a classic and hope the thread doesn't get lost in the debate of what constitutes a classic. If we adhere to the academic meaning we couldn't talk about novels at all, we'd be talking about philosophy, theatre.... and a few fragments from Sappho.

Since we're sharing resources:
I want to share one of my favorite resources. How many of you have a "Penguin Classic" on your shelf? They have a fantastic website with teacher and book club guides. Also they have a free catalog with annotations that I use all of the time. The catalog is like a book itself and it is sometimes hard to get but keep trying on line...it's nice to have as a resource.


http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pag...

[J.]

Thank you for this site. I have added it as a bookmark and will use it in the future (as a teacher and a book lover!)

Jessica

[Jennifer W]

Nobody's mentioned The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas. I only managed to make it halfway through before I had to return it to the library, but it was an excellent read.

To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite classic. I also highly recommend Bless the Beasts and Children as a modern classic.

[Jackie]

Oy.

How do I narrow this list down? I knew the Chickies would come through for me!

Now, decisions, decisions..

Maybe I should make it 20 classics.

[Someone]

This is fabulous!
Everyone seems to have mentioned Jane Austen and I have to agree with Tera, get in at least 20 pages with the flow of the language and you will be HOOKED.
East of Eden is a must. Rebecca, is my favorite of all time and I am surprised to see it as a classic but go for it! Great Expectations is another must but if you want to wait until next Christmas read A Christmas Carol. Now, the best one that I saw list was The Awakening, that is a fabulous book.

My son is an English teacher and he teaches some unusual books like The The Things They Carried and The Secret Life of Bees. I guess those are the "new Classics" Go figure.

Happy selecting and even more fun reading Jackie!