Could you recommend some classic literature to help me get back into reading classics?

85 replies

SweetSakura · 02/04/2023 21:30

I seem to have swung from reading almost nothing but classics as a teen (because my parents house was stuffed full of them) to now reading nothing but contemporary literature.

I'd like to mix it up a bit but can't decide where to start!

I've read pretty much all Jane Austen/Brontes/Dickens/George Eliot/Thomas Hardy I think, although I guess it was a long time ago and I could re read them!

OP posts:

ScrollingLeaves · 02/04/2023 21:49

Anna Karenina
War and Peace
Brideshead Revisited
Tom Jones is unputdownable
Moll Flanders
Old Goriot

Medenagan · 02/04/2023 21:48

I re-read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Jane Eyre recently, having first read them 20 odd years ago, and loved them. Otherwise, maybe Henry James, Balzac or Tolstoy, or go a bit further back with Virgil and Homer - Odyssey particularly is very readable.

anythinginapinch · 02/04/2023 21:45

Easy. Trollope

BarbaraVineFan · 02/04/2023 21:42

I'm currently reading Howard's End and finding it very interesting. Also would recommend some slightly less well known authors like Elizabeth Gaskell. Or you could go for older classics like Fielding or Defoe? Or Vanity Fair is an excellent read.

notanicepersonapparently · 02/04/2023 21:42

The Count of Monte Cristo is surprisingly gripping.

Ellmau · 02/04/2023 21:41

Anthony Trollope
Elizabeth Gaskell

123ZYX · 02/04/2023 21:39

Findyourneutralspace · 02/04/2023 21:38

Tom Jones
Frankenstein
Dracula

I agree with Dracula (haven't read the others) but I found the first bit (until Whitby) dragged a bit. Definitely read it, but be prepared to keep going - completely worth it

Sauvignonblanket · 02/04/2023 21:39

Madame Bovary?

123ZYX · 02/04/2023 21:38

Jules Verne? I found Round the world in 80 days an easy, interesting read

Findyourneutralspace · 02/04/2023 21:38

Tom Jones
Frankenstein
Dracula

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