Best Classic Books of All Time

Lounge
21

I’ve been awake with one of my dogs since 3am - how on earth did I forget to add every book James Herriot wrote - All Things Wise and Wonderful, All Creatures Great and Small…there are so many wonderful books all about people and animals.

Having said that I also remembered This is my Story by Elenoar Roosevelt.

22

Only 5 :think:

  1. Little Women (have read this so many times growing up and still reach for it on a cold snowy night)
  2. Jane Eyre
  3. Wuthering Heights
    4.Great Expectations
  4. The Secret Garden (it’s also a child book but I used to love it when I was growing up)
23

Oh, how could I forget Little Women and Alice in Wonderland (and Through the Looking Glass)! Love those!!
And I also love all the Harry Potter books, although I wouldn’t classify them as “classics” just yet…

24

Here’s my list! I put 5 “English classics”, 5 “French classics” and 5 classics originally written in other languages. I know, I’m cheating a little. :teehee:

American/British/English Canadian:

  • To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
  • The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Mordecai Richler)
  • Mrs Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
  • The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
  • The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)

French:

  • The Plague (Albert Camus)
  • Nausea (J.P. Sartre)
  • Germinal (Emile Zola)
  • The Flowers of Evil (Baudelaire - poetry)
  • Froth on the Daydream (Boris Vian)

Other:

  • Crime and Punishment (F. Dostoevsky)
  • A Hundred years of solitude (G. Garcia Marquez)
  • The Unbearable Lightness of Being (M. Kundera)
  • The Trial (F. Kafka)
  • 100 Love Sonnets (Pablo Neruda - poetry)
25

I concur! :thumbsup:

Also, Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

26

Wow – only five??? :slight_smile:

  1. Pride & Prejudice
  2. Jane Eyre
  3. 1984
  4. Gone with the Wind
  5. The Thirteenth Tale – this one is newer too, but if you like Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice etc I think you’ll like this one too.
27

ok - 5 classics

The Stranger - Albert Camus
Catcher in the Rye - Salinger
Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
East of Eden - Steinbeck
The Jungle - Sinclair

(I can go on on but I’ll stop)

5 “modern” classics (at least in my opinion)

A Man in Full - Tom Wolfe
Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe (very pertinent to today’s events)
The River Why - David James Duncan
Youth in Revolt - C.D. Payne
1776 - David McCullough (Non fiction)

28

Hmmm…only five. :teehee: Ok, here goes.

  1. Pride and Prejudice
  2. Gone With The Wind
  3. Wuthering Heights
  4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (If anyone can find me sheet music for Annie Laurie, I’ll be your best friend forever. :teehee: )
  5. Rebecca

These are just some of the ones that I’ve read over and over and over again. If I were allowed to choose more than 5, I’d include all Anne of Green Gables, all Emily of New Moon, Jane Eyre, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and The Great Gatsby. Oh, and all Harry Potter, but particulary nos. 3 and 7. Yes, I know, they’re not classics, but they will be someday. hehe.

Thanks for this thread. I’ve seen quite a few classics on here that I’ve always wanted to read but haven’t yet, so I’ll have to get on that. :aww:

29

Words and music! Such a pretty song…
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/scottish-folk-music/000367.HTM

30

That was the reason I started this post! LOL!

By the way, nobody said anything about only 5! List all you want! Let’s keep this going!
A HUGE Thank You to all who have participated so far!

TOYOTA H ENGINE

31

I love all of Jane Austen’s stories - P&P is my fave but I did enjoy them all. I have read Wuthering Heights and its good but just isn’t on my top five. Catcher in the Rye is good - only problem I had with that was I had to sit an exam on it but I’ve had similar problems with Shakespeare and I still enjoy his work (well everything except As You Like It cos I got a D on that exam twice!) Edgar Allen Poe writes amazing horror if you haven’t tried it.

If you haven’t noticed I trawl the classics section at Waterstones on a fairly regular basis. Most of them I can get for £2 as Wordsworth or Penguin classics so it just fuels the book addiction.

Currently on my reading list are Middlemarch, Bleak House and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Anyone read them? Would you recommend them?

32

The Republic - Plato

Animal Farm - George Orwell

The Odyssey - Homer

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea - Jules Verne

A Wrinkle In Time - Madeleine L’Engle

33

Oh man! I forgot Animal Farm and A Wrinkle in Time! See its just impossible to list :roflhard: There’s also Uncle Tom’s Cabin - GREAT BOOK!

I was a Philosophy major in college so I can list a bunch of philosphy related books too.

34

my favorites are:

Hawaii by James Michener
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (writes in the style of Charles Dickens…think he was a contemporary of Dickens)
So Big - Edna Ferber
Captains and the Kings - Taylor Caldwell