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Original poster

Had anyone come to a classic late in life ?

80 replies

almondflake · 26/02/2025 15:05

Has anyone come to a classic late in life and been blown away by it ?
I've reached the age of 60 and have never read or seen To Kill a Mockingbird i didn't even know the story . I've been blown away by the story and the writing , i absolutely loved Atticus and Scout , i found Atticus to be such a kind and wise man , a staunch believer in right and wrong ready to pass all he knows onto Scout and Jim .
If you've never read it I heartily recommend reading or listening to it .
I've already downloaded Go Set a Watchman onto kindle to see how Scout grows up .
Please send any recommendations for classics I may love too .

OP posts:
SmithfamilyRobinson · 26/02/2025 20:43

English Lit graduate here. When Kindles first were a thing I read and very much enjoyed
Vanity Fair
The Woman in White
The Moonstone (preferred it to TWIW)
Two other writers which surprised me were Ford Maddox Ford and Dodie Smith (she of 101 Dalmatians), I Capture the Castle.

Lovelyview · 26/02/2025 20:29

For some reason I really got into Thomas Hardy in my mid thirties when I was expecting my daughter. Not sure why the unremitting tragedy appealed but it did. I read Anna Karenina and War and Peace in my early 50s. The same daughter was trying to read War and Peace in her mid teens and got stuck towards the end. In an attempt to motivate her I bet her I could finish it before she did. Unfortunately that didn't work as she still hasn't finished it but I did. I enjoyed it a lot apart from the second epilogue which is tedious.

KIlliePieMyOhMy · 26/02/2025 20:25

I love The Great Gadsby, Wittering Heights is the only book that once finished I threw across the room. Had to read it for university. Straight in the bin.

TonTonMacoute · 26/02/2025 20:22

Devilsmommy · 26/02/2025 18:19

You should definitely try Dostoyevsky but The Great Gatsby is crap, wouldn't waste your time😁

Show quote history

I so agree with you about the Great Gatsby. I just cannot understand the big love for it, I hated it.

I'm convinced it's because it's so short!

Mydadsbirthday · 26/02/2025 19:58

I read so many of the classics in my teens and 20s (literature degree). In my 30s basically stopped reading when the DC came along.
In my 40s I've become addicted to audiobooks and have discovered all kinds of books and authors I'd never read. The one that comes to mind is PG Wodehouse! Absolutely loving Jeeves and Wooster!

YearsofYears · 26/02/2025 19:43

A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood for me at about 35. So many women read it when young but my by the time I read it I completely understood it. The Testaments was even better!

FusionChefGeoff · 26/02/2025 19:39

That's so weird, as soon as I saw your title I jumped on to say TKAMB!!! Love love loved it on holiday last year

WhatWouldHopperDo · 26/02/2025 19:07

I’m 52 and only read TKAMB a year or so ago. I also loved it.

I read Little Women last year too and also loved that. AND my absolute favourite discovery of the last couple of years has been The Great Gatsby.

I’ve never read P&P or anything of that ilk. Maybe I should?!

KIlliePieMyOhMy · 26/02/2025 19:02

Maybe Breakfast at Tiffany's as Dill Harris is based on Truman Copote

AliAtHome · 26/02/2025 18:53

Modern classic, Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, a lot darker than the Hollywood version and thought provoking.

Although from a theatre rather than book perspective I came to Shakespeare and opera later life (60s and 50s respectively). I love both and wonder why I thought them so ‘boring’ and ‘stuck up’ I never even tried them.

FionaJT · 26/02/2025 18:52

Middlemarch - I was a precocious reader as a teen, but never got on with Dickens, tried The Mill on the Floss and hated it, and avoided everything English between Austen and Hardy for the next 30 years :) Then I read Middlemarch in lockdown and I am so glad I left it for a time of life when I was ready to appreciate it, it's fantastic!

AppropriateAdult · 26/02/2025 18:44

I haven't read Go Set A Watchman, but it's not a sequel in the true sense. It was written before TKAM, and Lee's editor suggested that instead of publishing it, she should write another novel based on the childhood scenes in it - this became TKAM. GSAW was published when Lee had advanced dementia, and it's questionable whether she ever wanted it to be released.

MonOncle · 26/02/2025 18:21

I read Rebecca last year at 41. It was so good and page-turney!

Devilsmommy · 26/02/2025 18:19

Dappy777 · 26/02/2025 15:37

I am always discovering new classics, and hope to be doing so in my 80s and 90s. There are 3,000 years of literature to explore OP! Take a look at Harold Bloom’s list.

I was in my 40s before I read Pride and Prejudice and Sons and Lovers, and before I read a word of George Eliot, Daniel Defoe, John Ruskin, Walter Pater, or Oscar Wilde.

Since I turned 50, I have discovered Ford Maddox Ford and Geoffrey Hill, and have also read Madame Bovary, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Vanity Fair for the first time.

But my ignorance is limitless. I have never read one word of Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky or Kafka or Hilary Mantel or H G Wells or the Brontes or Chekhov. I have never read Tess of the D’Urbevilles or Bleak House or The Grapes of Wrath or Emma or The Great Gatsby or anything by Tom Stoppard or Pinter or Beckett or William Golding or Dante or countless others.

You should definitely try Dostoyevsky but The Great Gatsby is crap, wouldn't waste your time😁

Barbadossunset · 26/02/2025 18:10

itsmondayyy · Today 16:05
The End of the Affair was good - does it count as a classic?

I think so it’s a wonderful book. Thank you for reminding me, I’ll have a reread.

valder · 26/02/2025 18:08

almondflake · 26/02/2025 18:05

Thank you for some amazing suggestions for my reading list , i can't wait to get started 😁

Google the 100 favourite/best classic books, I found some on there that I had forgotten about. They are on the list now.

Original poster
almondflake · 26/02/2025 18:05

Thank you for some amazing suggestions for my reading list , i can't wait to get started 😁

OP posts:
TheProvincialLady · 26/02/2025 16:44

I read the Barchester Chronicles in my late 40s. I refused to read any Anthony Trollope previously because I didn’t like his name, which was clearly stupid. Now I absolutely love everything he wrote.

Tortielady · 26/02/2025 16:41

I was in my late 30s when I read James Joyce, Muriel Spark and Emile Zola and well into my 40s when I discovered Barbara Pym. I'm 60 and The Count of Monte Cristo is on my list - so is Les Miserables.

Tortielady · 26/02/2025 16:34

itsmondayyy · 26/02/2025 16:05

The End of the Affair was good - does it count as a classic?

I would say it did. I read Graham Greene for my BA - not The End Of The Affair, but England Made Me.

GrumpySparkler · 26/02/2025 16:33

I stopped reading in my teens and didn't pick it back up again until I was in my 30s, so I think all the classics I've read I've come to late in life.
Favourites have definitely been:
East of Eden
The Grapes of Wrath
Wuthering Heights
Silas Marner
Jane Eyre
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Rebecca

Original poster
almondflake · 26/02/2025 16:24

@NooNakedJacuzziness Ah thank you for the explanation 😁

OP posts:
itsmondayyy · 26/02/2025 16:05

The End of the Affair was good - does it count as a classic?

valder · 26/02/2025 16:03

Three more that come to mind

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
L'Etranger (the stranger) Albert Camus
The Count of Monte Christo - Dumas. This is a big long book, but a cracking read. It's available in abridged version on audiobook. I loved it.

NooNakedJacuzziness · 26/02/2025 15:55

@almondflake - without giving too much away- some of Atticus' views don't line up with how he's seen in TKAMB and he and Scout don't have the same close relationship.