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Original poster

I'm not as well-read as I think I should be - what books should I have read by now?

33 replies

CambridgeBlue · 22/10/2014 13:37

I consider myself fairly intelligent but when I think about it I haven't read a lot of the 'classics' (not adult ones anyway, read far too many children' classics!) apart from those I did at school. For example I am embarrassed to admit I've never read any Jane Austen.

I read all sorts from fairly low brow chic lit to historical stuff, biographies etc but I tend to choose books that I know I will enjoy rather than giving anything a bit more challenging a go.

What sort of thing would be on an 'ought to have read' list?

OP posts:
LilAnnieAmphetamine · 22/10/2014 18:39

Jane Eyre / Tess of the D'Urbervilles / Sons and Lovers / The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath / Oliver Twist are all readable and a good introduction.

I detest Austen and I consider myself pretty well read. I am an American Lit junkie too. Try anything by Willa Cather plus Catcher in the Rye or The Grapes of Wrath.

mrsdavidbowie · 22/10/2014 18:35

I've got an English degree and haven't read Jane Austen.
I prefer American literature.

LeBearPolar · 22/10/2014 18:34

Heart of Darkness has some fabulous writing in it. But it's actually 1899 so needs moving to my other list!

cuddybridge · 22/10/2014 18:30

Heart of Darkness, but damned does seem apt, give it a miss

cuddybridge · 22/10/2014 18:30

great lists but personally Id skip Heart of darned and Silas Marner, unless you are in to literary masochism

LeBearPolar · 22/10/2014 16:25

Maybe vary nineteenth and twentieth century classics, so that you can temper the heavyweight Victorian Novel with something lighter but equally literary.

Sooooooo - nineteenth century:

Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jane Eyre, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Silas Marner, The Turn of the Screw...

Twentieth and twenty-first century:
The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, The Color Purple, Lord of the Flies, The Handmaid's Tale, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, The Remains of the Day, The English Patient, Persepolis, A Passage to India, Heart of Darkness...

DuchessofMalfi · 22/10/2014 16:06

Hardy - read Tess of the d'Urbervilles. It's very readable, wonderful story. I loved it. Also The Mayor of Casterbridge.

HeeHiles · 22/10/2014 13:39

Read some Dickens! Love his stuff!