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Original poster

50 Classics to read before I am 50

40 replies

desiretochange · 08/02/2011 15:39

On another thread, I wrote that I want to compile a list of 50 things to do before I am 50 (in 2 years), and a poster suggested that I read 50 classics, any suggestions??

OP posts:
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bluedomino · 11/02/2011 23:36

The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende
Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
Uncle Fred in the Springtime - PG Wodehouse
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Portable Door - Tom Holt
Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel
The Liar - Stephen Fry
In the Wet - Neville Shute
The World according to Garp - John Irving
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford
The Importance of being Earnest - Oscar Wilde
The Walpole Orange - Frank Muir
100 years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Homer, Arabian Nights

Thats all I can think of for now. Brillant idea.

BikeRunSki · 11/02/2011 22:34

Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory

DownyEmerald · 11/02/2011 22:27

Anything by Anne Tyler

SugarSkyHigh · 11/02/2011 22:23

The Bell, by Iris Murdoch

GypsyMoth · 11/02/2011 22:21

of mice and men
lord of the flies
an inspector calls

can you tell i have a child doing [email protected] of the best bits of having a teen is re-reading these!!

NancyDrewHadaClue · 11/02/2011 22:20

lemmondifficult the go between - excellent choice.

NancyDrewHadaClue · 11/02/2011 22:19

Bonjour Tristesse
Great Gatsby
The Road
Handmaids Tale
Catcher in the Rye
End of the affair

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 11/02/2011 22:14

Good one! Have you had a chace to start it yet?

Original poster
desiretochange · 11/02/2011 09:30

Started my journey last night, got my hands on a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird :)

OP posts:
ElephantsAndMiasmas · 09/02/2011 13:13

A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf (bonus as this is very short)

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell

Yes to complete Sherlock Holmes. they are fab and rally easy to read.

LemonDifficult · 08/02/2011 21:51

The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

This thread has inspired me. Don't reckon I could do 50 classics in two years tho.

BelligerentGhoul · 08/02/2011 20:59

Yes to Steinbeck.

Lord Of The Flies

Sherlock Holmes stories

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Some Forster maybe

Poe's stories

BendyBob · 08/02/2011 20:47

And anything by F Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck.

franke · 08/02/2011 19:13

couple

franke · 08/02/2011 19:08

Wuthering Heights

Catcher in the Rye

Chuck in a coule of Shakespeare plays perhaps?

PureBloodMuggle · 08/02/2011 19:04

Oh darn it ThisIsANiceCage well at least it's just a library audiobook and will be out of my possession in 21 days and cost me nowt (bar the slight confusion as to how to download)

PureBloodMuggle · 08/02/2011 18:58

Oh sorry did give you any books!

Here's the Telegraph's suggestion of 100 novels everyone should read

Off this list I've read just three!!

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Alice?s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Evidently I should go for a less highbrow list Grin

ThisIsANiceCage · 08/02/2011 18:57

Yes, it's loathsome. Only you can say, Muggle.

The bloke in my bookshop says he re-reads it regularly and thinks it's a boy/girl dichotomy - men see in Pip their adolescent selves; women want to slap him.

Tale of Two Cities, however, is for me one of the finest books in the English language.

PotteringAlong · 08/02/2011 18:50

Time travellers wife

Brideshead revisited

love in a cold climate

PureBloodMuggle · 08/02/2011 18:48

I've just download 'Great Expectations' audiobook from my library. Never read Dickens before was it the wrong one to start with? (even though I'm not offically reading it!!)

maryz · 08/02/2011 18:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

stripeywoollenhat · 08/02/2011 18:35

at swim two birds

SandStorm · 08/02/2011 18:32

Rebecca

Hunchback of Notre Dame

Lorna Doone

Uncle Tom's Cabin (tissues a must)

Empire of the Sun

Madame Bovary

Anything from the Discworld series because one day it will be a classic.

ThisIsANiceCage · 08/02/2011 18:29

A Testament of Youth (Vera Brittain)
The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco)
The Antiquary, Ivanhoe, Rob Roy (Walter Scott)
Beloved (Toni Morrison)
Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)
The Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie)
Woman in White, The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins)
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (Jeanette Winterson)
North and South, Wives and Daughters (Elizabeth Gaskell)
I Claudius, Claudius the God (Robert Graves)

All of Austen.

Dickens...hmm. He wrote some right dogs, IMHO, so if you haven't tried him before and don't like the one you start with, don't be put off. I'd try:
A Tale of Two Cities
Bleak House
David Copperfield.

Batteryhuman · 08/02/2011 18:23

Have to have something by Graham Greene

Our Man in Havana or
The Power and the Glory get my vote.

Camus - L'Etranger (The Outsider)

1984

A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich