10 classics that I should read

Bastard out of Carolina - Dorothy Alison
I know why the caged bird sings - Maya A
Bluest eyes - Toni Morrison

I watched a brilliant film called The Go Between. It must be from this book...

I don't have much time for the man, but I do value his opinions. Or rather I trust him. And I trust him because he made a point of judging great literature in as objective a manner as possible. George Orwell recalled a critic in his youth who was a notorious reactionary. Yet this man gave a glowing review to a book by a socialist. Even though he detested the author's politics, he judged his novel purely on its literary merits. Critics today have abandoned that sacred duty.

I can't put into words the contempt I feel for many modern critics and academics. They are grovelling at the feet of the woke bullies. I even saw an idiotic book in Waterstones called How to De-colonise Your Bookshelves (in other words, chuck your Dickens and Austen in the bin and read what we've decided is now acceptable). You can bet the authors of that book have no real interest in literature at all. Writers increasingly win awards, or get their books published, not because they're talented but because they tick the right boxes.

I don't know where you got the idea that he excludes female writers! He wrote some wonderful pieces on George Eliot, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, the Brontes, etc.

I don't think the canon should be expanded just for the sake of it. Books should be admitted solely for their depth, beauty, profundity and originality, not in the name of 'diversity and inclusion'. The canon is all we've got. It's precious. It's the best that has been thought and expressed by the human race. We ought to be ruthlessly honest about who gains admission.

Also might not be old enough to be considered a classic but 'The catcher in the Rye'by JD Salinger is a really great book.

The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favourite books of all time. Also a Crime and Punishment and Jane Eyre.

I think it may be too recent to meet your definition of a classic as Ken Kesey only died about twenty years ago, but I also loved One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Diary of a Provincial Lady

The Go Between

Bloom was a man drunk on his own verbiage, with reductively macho ideas of the canon (and a long history of shagging his female students). I’d be very wary of taking his opinions of what constitutes a ‘classic’ as some kind of Holy Writ.

What is threatened by expanding the canon to include a wider range of texts? Dubliners isn’t going to be neglected because I’m also reading/teaching a now-forgotten sensation novelist whose work was dominating the US and UK bestseller lists.

Oh, I’d forgotten Rebecca, @Pebbles16. I’m going to have to take Macbeth off my list and replace it with Rebecca!

@CadyEastman

Thanks. I'll look up Arnold Bennett.

Gissing's 'New Grub Street' is fantastic!

Echoing many above;

1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
2. Cannery Row by Steinbeck
3. Great expectations by Dickens
4. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
5. The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas

Modern classics

1. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
2. Love in the time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
3. Possession by AS Byatt
4. A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini,

Thanks for the recommendation. I've read some Arnold Bennett who was a contemporary and friend of Dickens but not read any by this author.

Just my personal favourites (without repeating authors):

1. Rebecca
2. The Great Gatsby
3. A Tale of Two Cities
4. A Streetcar Named Desire
5. Sons and Lovers
6. Wuthering Heights
7. Les Liaisons Dangereuses
8. Anna Karenina
9. Les Miserables
10. Of Mice and Men

All Quiet on the Western Front

Other books that made a large impression on me but am not sure if they count as classics:

Primo Levi - If This is a Man
Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried
A.S.Byatt - Possession
Martin Amis - London Fields
Anonymous - Lila Says
Michael Frayn - A Landing on the Sun
Sapphire - Push
Mikhail Sholokhov - And Quiet Flows the Don

Love in a cold climate and the pursuit of love
Hard to improve on Pride and Prejudice
Room with a view
DH offers Great Expectations - I prefer David Copperfield
The quiet American

Naked Lunch
Sorry I keep remembering and then having to check the spelling! @StrangeNew
I loved the Corner that held us and I’ve never met anyone who’s read it.
Would also like to suggest Beryl Bainbridge,
and I capture the castle, which I think is by Dodie Smith.

The picture of Dorian Gray

Silas Marner

The Colour Purple

Huckleberry Finn

I think all of my nominations have already been mentioned, but:

Grapes of Wrath
Jane Eyre
Wuthering Heights
1984
Pride and Prejudice
Frankenstein
Dracula
Romeo & Juliet
Macbeth
To Kill a Mockingbird

More recent and probably doesn’t qualify as a classic by the definitions offered on the thread but I’d recommend The Secret History to anyone and everyone.

The Glass Bead Game

I loved The Waves. The title sums it up so well; it feels wave like and poetic.

If you like covers, Vintage have a Virgina Woolf series which I love the look of. Shallow, but they look pretty on my bookshelf.

The bridge of San Luis Rey

The Age of Innocence
Dracula
Frankenstein
1984
The Bell Jar
Brave New World
Beloved
Metamorphosis
The Secret Garden
Little Women

The Garden Party

Le Grand Meaulnes
A hero of our time