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Recommend classics / traditional books please

36 replies

DawnChoral · 27/08/2023 17:09

I‘m enjoying books again, and often follow up on recommendations from here, which are mainly contemporary. Can you help educate me on where to start with non-contemporary books?

I’ve read very few classic, traditional older books, and would like to do so this academic year. Anything from … Shakespeare perhaps … to 20th century must-reads. Where should I start?

preferences (not obligatory):
uplifting (at least, not depressing)
female authors (Austen? Brontë? Elliot?)
female characters
adventure, action, rural, outdoor, women with agency
Likely to be mostly fiction, but could be non-fiction.

I’ll listen to them as audiobooks (I walk a lot for health reasons) so bonus points for good audio editions. I mostly use the library apps, or free on Audible, but do have some Audible credits.

Thank you so much!

OP posts:
CurlewKate · 27/08/2023 17:58

I second Vanity Fair. I personally love Trollope-worth a try.

CurlewKate · 27/08/2023 17:55

I'd start with Jane Austen.

highlandcoo · 27/08/2023 17:51

And of course Jane Austen, most definitely. P&P, S&S, Emma and Persuasion are my favourites.

highlandcoo · 27/08/2023 17:49

South Riding by Winifred Holtby is the first novel I thought of regarding women with agency. TV adaptation with Anna Maxwell Martin is very well done too.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. And Cranford.

I love Middlemarch; it's quite a marathon though.

YY to Vanity Fair and Trollope is excellent too. I worked my way through the Barchester Chronicles in lockdown. The first volume isn't the best, but as a whole they're great.

BaruFisher · 27/08/2023 17:45

@NigelTheCrab Glad to hear Grapes of Wrath is a good one- I have it on my tbr! Also have Sweet Thursday (the follow up to Cannery Row) is on my list. I find him full of heart. Love the books.

NigelTheCrab · 27/08/2023 17:42

@BaruFisher John Steinbeck is just great isn’t he. I read East of Eden about 18 months ago and I still think about the characters. It would make a great TV series.
I also finished Grapes of Wrath last week. So good!

Xiaoxiong · 27/08/2023 17:41

Barchester Towers
David Copperfield (and then go on to read demon copperhead)

Any dickens narrated by Miriam margolyes is amazing, she does all the voices! I also look out for Martin Jarvis narrations.

LaMadameCholet · 27/08/2023 17:41

Vanity Fair by William Thackeray. Becky Sharp has more agency than you could shake many sticks at. For a 19th Century novel it’s very readable.

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe - 18th Century and hilarious

RitzyMcFitzy · 27/08/2023 17:36

preferences (not obligatory):
uplifting (at least, not depressing)
female authors (Austen? Brontë? Elliot?)
female characters
adventure, action, rural, outdoor, women with agency
Likely to be mostly fiction, but could be non-fiction.
_
First one I thought of based on these preferences though it obv doesn't meet them all is The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. It's got lots of action and adventure and features one of the best female characters ever. It's a very exciting read.

BaruFisher · 27/08/2023 17:35

I’ve been trying to get back into the classics a bit this year and have really enjoyed the following

  • Long but fast-paced adventures- The Count of Monte Christo, The Woman in White and The Iliad
  • Loads of modern classics- some of these are short too so nice to put in between the big tomes- The great Gatsby, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Dubliners, The Metamorphosis (weird but thought provoking and funny at times), A Room with. View, The Bell Jar, The Remains of the Day (not sure if this is old enough to count as a classic)
  • I’ve also found 3 favourite new authors whose full works I’ve now added to my tbr- Virginia Woolf (A Room of One’s Own, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse), John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, currently reading East of Eden) and Edith Wharton (Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence)
NigelTheCrab · 27/08/2023 17:28

BBC Sounds have a great selection of audiobooks for free. And lots of classics. I’ve listened to:
Wuthering Heights
Frankenstein
Silas Marner
Kidnapped
War of the Worlds
The case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

There are lots of others on there too.
I’m currently listening to The Railway Children for all the nostalgia feels.