Should I read the classics?

I think studying books can ironically destroy your love of reading as you are forced to read them and have to analyse them to death! Also, they're very of their time so a lot of the cultural references are lost on us now. There's so many great modern books around now that I really enjoy reading, I find I learn more from them than I do reading the ' classics' , especially if you've already got an English degree. You've done your time, read books for pleasure and fun, don't give yourself a hard time about it. I remember reading once that if Shakespeare was alive now, he'd be writing Eastenders! Read what you want to and fall in love with reading again, there's so many great books around right now.

Forgot to say there is no mention of large pants in P&P.

There are classics you might love, and those you'll hate. You just have to try them all out .

I can't get on with Dickens. Love films and TV adaptations of his work, but find his longwinded writing style a complete chore to read.

I admire Austen, but never fell in love with her books the way so many people do.

I absolutely LOVE lots of Shakespeare (and agree, you need to see his plays for it to really come alive). Love many of the sonnets, Hamlet, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice. His tragedies, basically. Can't fricking stand A Midsummer Nights Dream, though .

There are classics I finished and thought 'well, thats a few days of my life I'll never get back'. Tristram Shandy springs to mind. Middlemarch. Vanity Fair.

But there are others that have stayed with me forever. Wuthering Heights. Jude the Obscure. Germinal. Lots of stuff by classic American writers, especially Faulkner.

Knock yourself out and report back

Ah that makes sense now Butterfly from your Jane Austin collection may I suggest 'Pride and Prejudice'? I am sure you have read or seen 'Bridget Jone's diary'. P&P is the original.

Lass I haven't read The Master and Margarita - I will get a copy and give it a go.

I do like OMF. It had been mentioned already. TOCS hardly ever gets a mention beyond referring to the Wilde quote about Nell's death. I think that's an unfair.

Quilp, and the Brasses are monsters, 3 of the most evil characters, probably only the Squeers family and Noah Claypole outdo them.

Nell's grandfather is quite subtle - on the face of it a kind ,gentle character who loves her, yet his selfishness and weak will cause considerable damage.

It also has the lovely incidental story of The Marchioness and Dick Swiveller. I read a criticism of TOCS which described their story as possibly the only genuine love story between equals in Dickens.

Lass,, I'm with you on ATOTC but it is easy entry stuff. And a tear jerker.

And yes, in my view as a Dickens liker, BH trumps them all, up there with few other novels ( 3 Austen, Middlemarch, er that's it in English, prob). But not to include OMF, the other great poetic novel, and include TOCS instead? Shirley shome mishtake?

I think it depends why you read. Do you read purely for escapism and pleasure, or do you want to challenge yourself and broaden your mind? If its the former, then by all means stick to the kind of books you find easy and purely pleasurable, if the latter then try one of the easier ones and see how you get on. I find that my needs from books change depending on how much else I've got going on, how tired I am, etc. When my DC were very small and I was exhausted I couldn't concentrate on anything very demanding, but now I can.

But should you persevere with something you're finding dull or a chore? IMO no. Life is too short.

A Tale of Two Cities is my least favourite. It's a straight forward historical novel and the least "Dickensian".

Bleak House is a masterpiece, then I'd rate the following equally GE, Little Dorrit, The Old Curiosity Shop and DC.

Dickens, easiest after CC is a tale of two cities.

Greatest IMV are GE, DC and Bleak House, with Our Mutual Friend coming up fast. dC is far more like a normal Victorian autobiographical novel, still with caricature but also transfixing character, eg Steerforth and rosa Dartle.

Austen yes
Thackeray yes
Shakespeare yes but to SEE on stage, only way and then maybe to revisit the gems of some of the language after the event
Gaskell yes
flaubert yes
Dickens, mmm. Keep trying to like hi, his life is fascinating but I find his works a chore, full of caricatures and overlong descriptions.
Bronte no

You must have read more than that for your degree surely? Even if you did an English Language degree rather than Literature.

Easiest access to Dickens is ' A Christmas Carol'. 'Oliver Twist'is quite easy too. I loved 'Wuthering Heights'. I know it has its faults but the second part of the book really brings resolution.

George Eliot is my favourite and I like most of Austens but would avoid Northhanger Abbey.

I wouldn't lump the Brontes all together - I adore Jane Eyre but find wuthering heights horrible to read.

I would love a recommendation for the best Dickens to read, I think the only one I have finished is Great Expectations and it was hard work.

Shakespeare is best on the stage or formally studied, I personal can't read a play for fun.

Read a selection of the Shakespeare sonnets, not all of them, and see the plays. Don't read them. Globe touring did a wonderful R&j, Lenny Henry in the one about two sets of twins was magnificent, globe's hamlet was both bum numbing and great.

But surely you looked at the use of language by those people even if you thought they were poor in plot or irrelevant ( although I would say that Austen addresses done if the kéy issues facing women of all ages), just as much as eg Woolf, Faulkner, Joyce, Beckett, Dickinson , Fitzgerald or whoever? And often the characterisation manages to be both precise and deep. Again I'd quote Austen but also middlemarch.

I find it hard to understand how you have a degree in English without reading 'the Classics' unless it was an English Language degree, I read many, as 'background reading' for A'level. However my argument is not about that but about what is defined as a 'Classic'. It is now 2016. Surely anything written and good from 1940 onwards should now be considered a classic? BTW I love most Austen, Dickens and Bronte's, but like all writers and books some of it is not brilliant

Oh Trollope definitely The Barchester novels and The Pallisers.

Re Thackeray Vanity Fair is a must, Barry Lyndon no but the Kubrick film is ravishing beautiful.

I've read most of Austen and thought it a crashing bore - stifling, tiny word with the same story over and over.

Dickens on the other hand is magnificent - huge, sweeping canvases of life from the lowest of the low to the highest. Zola and Balzac and Flaubert are the same, although Zola is terribly bleak.

Fielding's Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews are warm, funny and charming as is Tobias Smollet's Humphrey Clinker.

Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is a work of genius.

I don't think you should read a book just because you feel you have to (unless it's required for work or study, of course).

Maybe revisit them once in a while to see if tastes have changed, or try different authors / periods.

Personally, I enjoy reading Austen. Dickens is a bit hit and miss with me. I have seen and enjoyed Shakespeare acted at the theatre and on TV, but reading plays in book form is never something that I've managed to get any pleasure out of.

Austen - no

Brontes - yes
Dickens - yes
Eliot - yes
Gaskell - yes
Tolstoy - yes

Trollope - possibly
Thackeray - possibly

Hardy - definitely. My very favourite author. I read all 14 novels once a year.

However, all of the above is my own opinion, and fortunately the range of literature available is so wide that you could read none of these and still be very well-read. As someone else said, life is too short to feel you 'have' to read anything. The only thing which matters is that you read books that you enjoy and get something from. Preferably in a very comfortable chair with a hot drink close at hand.

Its worth reading Macbeth - especially in the original Klingon.

I love Austen and hate Dickens but I adore Trollope, from the same period as Dickens but so much more fun.

No 'should' should influence you really. Read what you enjoy but keep an open mind to your own tastes changing and maybe dip a toe into the classics once a decade to see if you enjoy them more as you get older. I've read some books totally differently with 20 years and some DCs between readings.