What is your favorite classic novel?

[IrishEyes]

I've been reading a lot of classic novels lately but I'm interested in reading more. I'm making a list of books to look out for when I go to the thrift store. I'm curious if anyone has any favorites that they can recommend. Some of the books that I have enjoyed include The Great Gatsby, Slaughterhouse-Five, Great Expectations and Dracula.

My to be read list includes 1984, Catch-22, Brave New World, Rebecca, Les Miserables, Of Human Bondage, Agnes Grey and The Count of Monte Cristo.

[Twoflower]

1. The Three Musketeers.

[IrishEyes]

22. I read that. It is a great book.

[Elessar Zappa]

2. Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I consider it a classic even if the book snobs don’t.

[IrishEyes]

23. It counts as a classic as far as I'm concerned.

I haven't read it but I own a copy that is on my to be read shelf.

[msongs]

3. besides the bible in any of its hundreds of different versions? nt

[LakeArenal]

4. Anything by Dickens.

Gone With The Wind.

It not a classic but a great book for me

The Shell Seekers.

[IrishEyes]

24. I read Gone with the Wind when I was younger.

I really liked it. I will check out the Shell Seekers. Thanks.

[LakeArenal]

30. Actually anything by Rosamunde Pilcher,

[LakeArenal]

39. I also like books by Belva Plain.

[Coventina]

78. Egad! I detested Gone with the Wind.

I can't believe I wasted my time finishing that ugly tome. I guess I kept thinking Scarlett would become likable.
Never happened. I still wanted to murder her by the end of the thing.

[LakeArenal]

81. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[Coventina]

83. I know. If everyone liked the same thing, it would be a boring world.

[LakeArenal]

85. 😉

[whathehell]

5. A Tale of Two Cities. n/t

[Chainfire]

9. Me too.

[Tikki]

12. Also...

Read it in 5th grade...changed me completely.


Tikki

[whathehell]

33. ..Great minds think alike!

[IrishEyes]

25. I have copy on my bookshelf that I plan to read.

Thank you for the suggestion.

[whathehell]

32. Cool!

Yes, definitely read it, and you're very welcome.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. Uncle Tom's Cabin.

I was astonished at how powerful it was. I was expecting a slog of a read, given it was published in 1852, but no. It was vital and engrossing all the way.

I think its power comes from having been written by someone who clearly hated slavery and wanted it gone, but could not imagine the end of it.


Potential plot spoiler: there's stuff in the end that reads like scenes out of the concentration camps of WWII.

[First Speaker]

45. Thank you for saying this...

...Uncle Tom's Cabin's reputation has been strongly influenced by the "Tom shows" of the late 1800s-early 1900s, which gave an absurd, explicitly racist reading of the book. This made the term "Uncle Tom" what it's become today, and is extremely unfair, because Uncle Tom is *not* an Uncle Tom. He is, if anything, something of a Christ-figure, and a man of great dignity. The novel is much more powerful than most people realize...

[wnylib]

50. Agree. Very powerful and very readable after all these years.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

70. The reason I finally got around to reading it was that

Talk of the Nation back in the 1990s had started a once a month book club, and one month Uncle Tom's Cabin was selected. So I decided I'd act like it was an English class assignment and read it, finally. I honestly expected it to be slow and boring, but it wasn't. Okay, so the first fifty pages were a bit slow, and after that I simply could not put it down.

There's a scene in it, early on, where an escaped slave has found refuge (I think with Quakers) and the mother of the house is asked to provide clothing for the child. It took a bit of searching, but here's the passage that so moved me: And oh! mother that reads this, has there never been in your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you like the opening again of a little grave? Ah! happy mother that you are, if it has not been so.

It speaks to the mid-19th century universality of losing a child, which we, more than a century and a half later, do not know. A while back I read a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, one of whose sons died in infancy. The biography noted that hers was the last generation where children routinely died young. That's another important thing we should all be aware of. For a very long time now, we expect that our children will live to grow up, and it's easy to forget and to not understand what it must have been like until relatively recently. My own mother, born in 1916, had a younger brother who died at, or shortly after, birth. While sad, it was relatively common then.

Anyway, Uncle Tom's Cabin was a powerful experience. Oh, and when they did the book club on the air, I was quick enough to call in and get to participate in the first half hour of the discussion. Hooray!

[wnylib]

71. Good going that you were able to

call in on the book club.

I read it from a "lending library/book exchange" at work. There was a bookcase in the lunch room where people could drop off their books and pick up ones from the shelf. You could return the book when finished or keep it if you wanted to. When I saw Uncle Tom's Cabin, I decided that it was time I finally got around to reading it.

It is so well written and interesting that I can see why it gained such popularity in its day and affected so many people.

While infant deaths are not so routine as in the past, they still occur often enough, mostly due to premature births today rather than to disease. My mother's brother died at 6 months old from SIDS. My mother was 2 months premature and not expected to live. Obviously, she survived, which was due to the presence of mind of her aunt who was visiting when the "miscarriage" occurred. The aunt turned on their oven, wrapped my mother in a linen napkin and placed her in a bread basket. Then she put the bread basket on the open oven door to keep my mother warm while waiting for an ambulance. At the hospital, she was placed in an incubator, which, of course was not as sophisticated in 1922 as what we have today, 100 years later. My mother lived to be 90.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

72. Your mother was born in that era when infant and childhood

deaths were almost routine. That was the time frame when Eleanor Roosevelt lost an infant son.

Yes, infant deaths still occur, but are exceedingly rare.

[GumboYaYa]

7. I love Great Expectations and the Count of Monte Crisco, two of my favorites.

You have a good list.

Some not on your list that I like: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Sound and the Fury (and every other novel by Faulkner).

[leftieNanner]

18. I'm sure it was auto correct

But The Count of Monte Crisco made me laugh.

[GumboYaYa]

58. I can't even blame autocorrect, I am just distracted this week.

My 98 year old grandmother died on Saturday. I have been focused on finding someone to watch pets and rearranging work meetings to be able to get back home for her funeral.` My mind is not working properly right now.

[Coventina]

79. One of Stephen Colbert's names for T**** was "Count of Mostly Crisco"

I totally stole that and have been using it since then.

[IrishEyes]

21. I read the Catcher in the Rye and Huckleberry Finn

I haven't read anything by William Faulkner. I added The Sound and The Fury to my list. Thank you.

[MLAA]

8. I enjoyed all the Somerset Maugham novels and short stories.

[Scrivener7]

13. Me too. Except the weird interlude in Handful of Dust of the

man who loved Dickens. It was so random.

[MLAA]

14. I don't remember that one.

[Scrivener7]

15. I'm so sorry! That was Waugh! Who I also love.

[MLAA]

19. I was about to go order it! Haha!

[SheltieLover]

10. Zorba the Greek

You might want to xpost to Fiction group.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1193

[IrishEyes]

27. Thank you. I posted in there as well.

I will check out Zorba the Greek.

[SheltieLover]

43. Yw!

Every Sunday morning, Hermetic has a "what are you reading" thread. Great group!

I hope to see you there. (The threads are all there. I frequently peruse them when looking for new authors & books.) 👍

[Scrivener7]

11. How Green Was My Valley.

Everyone thinks its about nostalgia for more innocent times. It so isn't!

[IrishEyes]

29. I added it to my list. Thank you.

I also added the film version to my films to see list. I haven't seen it yet.

[Sneederbunk]

16. Moby Dick

[ironflange]

47. Agreed

I've read it twice, it's surprisingly readable and doesn't deserve its reputation.

[The Blue Flower]

17. Martin Chuzzlewit

Or anything else by Charles Dickens.

[Tetrachloride]

20. What is the most recent year is a book allowed to be classic ?

[IrishEyes]

26. You can define it however you want.

I like to get book recommendations. I just didn't want all new books.

[Karadeniz]

28. Anything Dostoyevsky...

[zanana1]

59. I agree.

[electric_blue68]

31. I hated many of the classics from HS...

my problem was feeling stupid because the teachers would ask for things like the second, and third level meanings in X book, or fore shadowing. I had no clue.
I was miserable.

One year my sis, a cousin and I were making our first trip alone to Washington DC. Fun, right?!
Not at the start! On the train I had to crack open for HS English Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" to the sentence -
"My mother was a fish".

WTF?!!!!
(I can laugh... now)

The only one that appealed to me was Dickens
"A Tale of Two Cities".
(I need to see if I can get it as a ebook from the library)


My mom loved "How Green Was My Valley".
Her mom (Greek-American immigrant) either read "Les Miserables" in Greek, or it was the most well known book in English she ever read.

[lpbk2713]

34. Almost anything by Hemingway.

I can relax after reading something like The Old Man and the Sea.

[Lochloosa]

35. The Foundation Trilogy. Isaac Asimov

[Tetrachloride]

36. Robert Heinlein's "Citizen of the Galaxy"

One of the earliest published books of what I call post-classic. That is to say, books prior to this one are "classic", probably.

[sorcrow]

37. Good question

I just listened to The Grapes of Wrath, finally. Amazing piece of work. In between chapters that are specific to the Joads, there are great vignettes about life in those days. I highly recommend chapter seven about car salesmen.

Other favorites, Of Human Bondage. (It's not a how-to manual.), How Green Was My Valley, Point, Counterpoint (by Aldous Huxley) and many more.

Best regards,
Sorghum Crow

[tanyev]

38. Far From the Madding Crowd.

[Skittles]

40. Hawaii - James Michener

[Tikki]

44. I have read Hawaii...I remember saying I am going to finish that book...

no matter what.

I actually got into the stories and I am so glad I read it.

Tikki

[wnylib]

52. If you want to try reading a book by Michener that

takes stamina to get through the whole thing, consider The Source. I read it when I was 18. Over 1000 pages in paperback. But it was worth it, I thought. A history of Israel that, like Hawaii, begins with prehistoric times. But it alternates between past and present because the story is told through an archaeological dig. Each artifact discovered in the present starts a story about its past.

[yellowdogintexas]

64. I loved The Source. Michener books are a series of novellas

linked together by a common thread of some sort

I like that I can read a section and come back to the book later and pick up the next section without losing continuity

My second favorite is Centennial

[wnylib]

65. I liked his other books, too, but

my favorites are Hawaii and The Source.

[Skittles]

55. I read it in high school

I need to read it again!

[LudwigPastorius]

54. The Simpsons Michener gag:

[Skittles]

56. LOL

if I remember correctly, the book started with Hawaii actually forming as an island

[LudwigPastorius]

57. At least he skipped the first 4 billion years and got right to it!

[Coventina]

80. Haha! I've made the joke that all Michener's novels begin:

"As the earth began to cool....."

Fun factoid: James Michener was one of the first people to seriously collect ukiyo-e prints and to treat them as a serious art form.
His lifetime collection now resides in the Honolulu Museum of Art.

[Skittles]

84. that is cool, I love those prints

thinking back, I remember my dad really never let us watch a lot of TV but we could get as many books from the library that we could read.....it led to my lifelong habit of reading a wide variety of books

[madamesilverspurs]

89. Hawaii was the first of his books that I read.

Next was The Source. I was living in Virginia when Centennial came out, and was delighted to recognize the described terrain as the part of Colorado where I'd previously lived. I'd returned to Colorado when Chesapeake emerged, and again recognized some of the landscape. I went back to school in the 1990s at the school where Michener had studied and taught in the years prior to WWII; the library at the University of Northern Colorado is named for Michener. It was delightful to visit the room dedicated to his donated research materials for Centennial, along with original handwritten pages; his secretary/transcriber had quite the task, as he tended to scratch out and overwrite, and seemed to forget such niceties as punctuation and paragraphs. Michener remains one of the people with whom I would have loved to have a long conversation over coffee.


.

[Skittles]

91. I confess I still need to read The Source

omg coffee with him would have been wonderful.......

[MLAA]

41. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

[MadScot]

61. I'll second that. Great book

[sarge43]

42. Dune

[Elessar Zappa]

74. That's an excellent choice.

One of my personal favorites.

[First Speaker]

46. Wuthering Heights

...it is probably the only novel in English that approaches the heights of Shakesperean tragedy. Once you make the acquaintance of Heathcliff and Cathy, you will never forget them. Of course, *Gatsby* is the greatest American novel, but you're read that...maybe Ellison's *Invisible Man*?

[SoBlueInFL]

48. It's impossible for me to have a single favorite but two forever favorites are r/o

Tom Jones and Vanity Fair. Such well-fleshed out characters!

And, I can't leave out all of Jane Austen's work.

[UTUSN]

49. The Red and the Black. It was Al GORE's, too.

[blue neen]

51. I don't know if James Michener's books are considered classics yet,

but I would nominate Texas as one of the best books I ever read.

Worst classic that I read? Anna Karenina. I effing hated that book.

[wnylib]

53. I like the short stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne,

especially The Birthmark.

[RobinA]

60. Jude the Obscure

Also Dickens and most Steinbeck.

Best short story (I can't say favorite, it's a nightmare) The Lottery, with D.H. Lawrence's The Rocking Horse Winner as a close runner up.

[malthaussen]

62. Dracula but not Frankenstein? Interesting.

Of the two, I'd consider Frankenstein's theme to be more universal, which is one thing that defines "classic."

-- Mal

[catbyte]

63. A Room With A View by E.M. Forster

Loved the movie, too, btw.

[Emile]

66. The Old Man and the Sea

[kairos12]

67. "Tale of 2 Cities"

[Marthe48]

68. The Once and Future King by E.B. White

I've read several of the books you've listed on my own.

In school, read Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol
Bambi, Black Beauty and Beautiful Joe, all books which contributed to getting humane treament of animals made law. All hard to read and unforgettable.

My Friend Flicka, Thunderhead and Green Grass of Wyoming by Mary O'Hara, not just a coming of age story, not just about horses.

I loved Mary Stewart's series on King Arthur: The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills and The Last Enchantment. The 4th book, The Wicked Day, was written from Mordred's point of view.

Anything by Mary Renault: The Persian Boy is one of her best known historical novels.

I loved the Tarzan novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, lots of fun, and not what you expect.

The Tolkien novels (The Hobbit and The Ring Trilogy)

Have fun!

[surrealAmerican]

69. Gulliver's Travels

It's got everything - science fiction, political satire, adventure, ...


Also, if you like Dickens, try The Pickwick Papers. It's pure fun.

[Boomerproud]

73. Trinity by Leon Uris.

1984 and Animal Farm as well. The only required reading when I was in high school ages ago. I prefer biographies.

[area51]

75. Frank Herbert's

Dune, if that can be considered a classic.

[SKKY]

76. 1984 by Orwell...

My other two favorites are Siddhartha, and Narcissus and Goldmund by Hesse. But if I could only read one novel for the rest of my life, it would be 1984 for sure.

[3catwoman3]

77. Winds of War and...

...War and Remembrance, by Herman Wouk.

Also, Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca - chillingly compelling. I've read it dozens of times.

[madamesilverspurs]

88. On Wouk . . .

A few years back I attended a luncheon where the speaker was a former attache to our embassy in Moscow. Having just finished WoW and WaR, I wasn't at all surprised when he said reading those books was a prerequisite for his job.


.

[3catwoman3]

93. Those 2 books teach the history of WWII better than...

...any textbook ever did.

[Coventina]

82. Emma by Jane Austen is my favorite.

Pride & Prejudice is the more famous, because it's funnier, I think.
Emma is just superior. I get more out of it with every read.

[yellowdogintexas]

86. To Kill A Mockingbird.

At least for 20th Century

I also loved The Scarlet Letter, Jane Eyre and Tom Sawyer.

If classic includes highly readable, big selling books then The Godfather.

Since I now read to escape, most of my books are definitely not classics nor will they ever be!

[VGNonly]

87. Of Mice and Men

is my favorite classic. The Monkey Wrench Gang is what I'll call my favorite "pulp" novel.

[Harker]

90. Maybe Hermann Hesse's "Steppenwolf."

I started reading it at eighteen, and was deeply troubled - enough to drop it.

At thirty-six, I read it clean through, and laughed at myself.

[Mr.Bill]

92. Pretty much anything

by John Steinbeck.