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Original poster

So - help me with a classic novel

67 replies

happystory · 20/11/2015 23:01

I vowed I'd read a classic novel this year and I've failed miserably. And now it's near the end of November. Please recommend something to me, American, English, I don't mind but not a massive tome you could use for a doorstop!

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MiddleAgeMiddleEngland · 23/11/2015 22:07

Lots here that I'd agree with (although try as I might I cannot enjoy Austen).

I would also suggest Under the Greenwood Tree by Hardy - starts off quite Christmassy. The Trumpet Major is one of Hardy's easiest to read novels if you find some of them a bit daunting. I also love Silas Marner by George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton.

On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin is excellent, as is Shute's A Town Like Alice.

I'm the only person I know - apart from DH - who has read it, but Knut Hamsun's Growth of the Soil is in my top five books of all time.

There's some books in previous posts I haven't read so will browse and add them to my list....

lastqueenofscotland · 23/11/2015 21:00

Brideshead revisited?

mrsmortis · 23/11/2015 14:57

How about some P G Wodehouse? That should definitely be on any list of classics. And don't forget The Secret Garden, A little princess and The Railway Children.

Or some golden age murder mysteries (I'm a D L Sayers fan myself).

Farenheit 451 should probably be on the list too.

AnneEtAramis · 23/11/2015 13:57

Ivan Denisovich was brilliant. In this vein I recommend The Foundation Pit by Andrey Platanov, very witty.

I loved Tess by Hardy and The Dram Shop by Zola - I am drawn to depressing books it seems and The Dram Shop is quite long.

I also really like Dumas but his books are also very long.

00100001 · 23/11/2015 07:32

don't read Enid Blyton as an adult!!! It will ruin them stories FOREVER.

IamTheWhoreofBabylon · 21/11/2015 15:58

Agree the catcher in the Rye
1984 and the grapes of wrath

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 21/11/2015 13:42

'Three Men in a Boat' was a good suggestion. It is very short and very funny.

APlaceOnTheCouch · 21/11/2015 09:35

Vocational yy to One Hundred Years of Solitude. It's an incredible book.

Greymalkin · 21/11/2015 09:24

Can't believe no one has included Enid Blyton's The Faraway Tree stories as a classic!
I read this when I was about 8; when I realised I had almost finished the book I actually felt really sad, to the point of crying. I loved it so much I didn't want it to end!

Original poster
happystory · 21/11/2015 08:37

And lovely that so many people re read children's classics, Ballet Shoes and the Enid Blyton school stories in particular.

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Original poster
happystory · 21/11/2015 08:34

Thank you all, some great suggestions, and some I would never have considered. Will take list with me today and have a good browse!

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ThenLaterWhenItGotDark · 21/11/2015 08:24

Also, RF Delderfield (To Serve Them All My Days) Arnold Bennett (Clayhanger)

The "kitchen sink" and "angry young men" novels from the 60s.

Classics, but more approachable somehow. (to the bonnet averse like me)

I also hold my hand up to reading Cold Comfort Farm and thinking what the feck was all that about then? But I accept I have a very odd sense of humour.

southeastdweller · 21/11/2015 07:46

The Catcher in the Rye.

BikeRunSki · 21/11/2015 07:21

Does Daphne Du Maurier count as classic? I'a sugguest Rebecca.

VocationalGoat · 21/11/2015 07:12

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DuchessofMalfi · 21/11/2015 07:11

yy to Lady Chatterley. Really good novel. No bonnets, often no clothes at all :o

Forster - really enjoyed those of his novels I've read. Maurice was particularly good, so was A Room With A View.

Has anyone mentioned Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray? George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody?

VocationalGoat · 21/11/2015 07:11

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SummerHouse · 21/11/2015 07:08

I am reading to kill a mocking bird now. Its not like anything else I have read.

Roystonv · 21/11/2015 07:05

Supporting Cold Comfort Farm and a Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

ThenLaterWhenItGotDark · 21/11/2015 06:56

I am allergic to bonnetry and poor people going up chimneys and then dying of consumption but I love:

Graham Greene- The Power and the Glory (actually, most GG)
DH Lawrence- Lady Chatterley (all TV versions are ultimately Sunday evening romcoms, the book is fabulous)
EM Forster
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Thomas Hardy (the most bonnet-y on my list, but surprisingly easy to get into)

I continually attempt to get into bonnets (am yawning my way through Middlemarch (again) at the moment)

IncidentalAnarchist · 21/11/2015 06:50

Stoner is a wonderful book...

ditherydora · 21/11/2015 06:41

Edith Wharton - The House of Mirth or The Age of Innocence

Graham Greene - Our Man in Havana ( just brilliantly funny) or The Quiet American

Waugh - any, except I found Brideshead slow

Dickens - Hard Times. Shorter than a lot of the others but really resonates with our age of austerity.

claraschu · 21/11/2015 05:59

You like American fiction, so I recommend "Their eyes Were Watching God", truly great, moving, insightful, well written, unlike anything else, short, easy to read.

Also, this is obvious, but have you read Huck Finn- a wonderful book that lots of people haven't actually read.

hefzi · 21/11/2015 02:43

Another vote for Cold Comfort - it's my go-to comfort reading, and has been since I was given a copy for my 12th birthday: I didn't know all the stuff about being a take-off of books like Precious Bane, but just loved it from the first read.

I personally can't bear Jane Austen - to me, it's just better written chick lit (which I also can't bear: something about the happy endings, I think...). But if you're not in the mood for gentle humour and Something Nasty in the Woodshed, how about Dorian Gray? Or as someone said above, Ivan Denisovich? Or - off the wall a little here - Three Men in a Boat?

Baconyum · 21/11/2015 02:42

Elephantoverthehill it was actually the scene with Darcy/fireplace (so as not to give spoilers)

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