How to get into reading classics and literary fiction?

[BunchofPocus]

I do like to read but mostly I read young adults books, chick lit and other genre type books usually with a strong (cheesy) romance element. Nothing wrong with any of that but I am now in my 30's and I just want to read better books!

I have a friend who has always had more literary tastes and has read a lot of classics and I also find her to be wise and insightful which she says comes from reading so much. I saw this https://www.newschool.edu/pressroom/pressreleases/2013/CastanoKidd.htm
which would seem to back up her sense that reading books has helped in this sense.

I asked her how to get into more literary fiction and classics especially, she recommended books like Dracula and Frankenstein as good entry points for classics but I just couldn't get into either of them, they were both such a hard slog even though I know both stories are good. For literary fiction she recommended an entry point list including works by Angela Carter, Kazuo Ishiguro, Banana Yoshimoto and Ottessa Moshfegh but again after trying quite a few I just can't get into them, my friends description of them sounds great but when I try to read them I just get bored.

I feel a bit defeated because I really wanted to elevate my reading and to feel like I was actually learning something while being entertained but perhaps I'm just not smart enough?

Try the classics for a younger audience so you get used to the language etc

little women series
what Katy did series
ballet shoes
secret garden
5 children and IT
Chronicles of narnia

Then you might get an idea

Agree with other genres of books too

I like

richard osman for fun crime
diana gabaldon for accessible history etc

sorry my capitals aren’t working on my phone!!

Read to kill a mockingbird it's just the best book in the universe. I also recommend Judith Kerr's trilogy starting with when Hitler stole pink rabbit. And Good Night Mr Tom. You will not be able to put them down. I've just ordered Mark Twain's books. I'm reading Apeirogon by Colum McCann ATM. I just read the Greatest Gift about gratitude and survival in Siberia during the war. Myself and my daughter are on the last book of the Chronicles of Narnia. I love anything by Louis de Berniere. Read what you want to read I'm excited for you. Reading is life 💕

I definitely wouldn't start with the classics - they are hard work. Would the Richard and Judy book club books be a progression for you? I tend to find that they're good quality fiction and it sounds like they're closer to literary fiction than what you usually read.

You could also try reading the shortlist for prizes like The Women's Prize for Fiction or the Costa (may not be costa any more) - it gives you a bit of direction.

I think it's a really good idea to try to broaden and deepen your reading. I hope you find some books you enjoy!

I read loads, a mix of the ‘most acclaimed’ literature and lighter books like you described enjoying but I hated the books your friend recommended! It really is better to read what you enjoy but perhaps as we dislike the same books you may like some I like.
There are some really good retellings of mythology which may give you a good balance of story and depth.
Pat Barker- Silence of the girls, Women of Troy.
Jennifer Saint- Elktra, Ariadne.
Madeline Miller - Circe
The best book (for me) I have read in ages is ‘10 minutes and 38 seconds in this strange world’ by Elif Shafak
Hope you enjoy your journey over next few years!

I like literary fiction and struggle with the classics. I am also too busy to rwad as much as I used to and I want to. So I set my self a 12 books a year challenge. One classic in amongst it, one non fiction.

I have recently got into poetry too.

You can't jump from chick lit to dense classics imo. They're so different and often difficult to read that you get frustrated and bored and give up.

Just start reading some other stuff, there are some fab suggestions on this thread but for me, I'd start with something like Fingersmith. Rip roaring read. If you enjoy it try other books by Sarah Waters. Amazon (I know, I know) are interesting for suggesting other books that you may enjoy if you search for a book you've just read and enjoyed.

I also really rate Ann Patchett. Easy to read, great stories, fab characters. The Dutch House, Bel Canto (Although this is a bit mad!) and the Magicians Wife are great ones.

I also love the suggestion of Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea. A really interesting way to read the classic story!

Fwiw, I hated Cold Comfort Farm, Frankenstein, Anna Karenina and some of the other proper classics listed here. And that's OK. Literature is subjective.

You'll start off reading some stuff and hating it, I'm sure, but I am no longer afraid of putting a book down and saying nope not for me and moving onto the next one. But I do try and use the Netflix rule. (3 episodes is the acid test for me, so 3 chapters ish!).

It's so much fun finding new books. Do you have a local bookshop? You'll find the staff super helpful in recommending you stuff. But eve. If you don't want to talk to them, they'll have fab displays and possibly a little shelf-mounted synopsis that may help you to decide.

Have fun with it!

But you did not read these books at school?
that’s where the love of classic starts. They are boring at the beginning but then you just get to love them. As you talk about them at school. I remember my French teacher in secondary getting us to read Camus in French. One chapter a week. The whole class took it as the most boring chore, by the end we all loved it. I see this as a very big hole of the education system really, it is shocking. Classic reading is mandatory in so many countries, is it not in the uk?
good for you to want to start reading them, but it will be hard, till when you just start loving them. It would require some work though, finish the book, read the commentaries and ideally discuss it with someone else. A book club could help!

You'll start off reading some stuff and hating it, I'm sure, but I am no longer afraid of putting a book down and saying nope not for me and moving onto the next one. But I do try and use the Netflix rule. (3 episodes is the acid test for me, so 3 chapters ish!).

@AlwaysFreezing same here! I always feel disappointed if I ‘fail to finish’ but one of my friends from Book Club is an English teacher and she suggests the three-chapter rule to her pupils, and this makes me feel a bit better. There are so many books out there, it’s a shame to waste time ploughing through something you’re not enjoying

Reading classic books doesn't make you wise, it just means you've read classic books (which any one that can read can accomplish) and if you were that way inclined you could drop it into conversation to make yourself sound important and/or like a bit of a twat.

Just keep reading the books you like. Life is too short to read stuff that isn't that interesting

Every author I read in school (Germany, not UK) ended up being one I wouldn't read voluntarily ever again.

We did a mix of German classical authors, mid-20th century and also 1984 (in German translation).

The idea of taking apart a novel and wondering/discussing what the author thought about his, that's soul destroying for me. That's also a reason I will never ever join a book club.

I love books, read a lot but school definitely didn't push me on the enjoyment of classics.

Try Pat Barker, she’s accessible whilst writing utterly amazing novels. Literary and readable, which is a great place to start.

Her most famous are the Regeneration trilogy about WW1 and a psychiatrist treating shell shocked soldiers to send them back to the front.

Her most recent book The Silence Of The Girls and sequel Women Of Troy is the Trojan war from the perspective of the captured women. It’s just wonderful, everyone I know who read it loved it.

Pride and Prejudice
Emma
Rebecca
The Go-Between
Brighton Rock
The Woman in Black
The Turn of the Screw
Of Mice and Men
The Secret Garden
Cider with Rosie (Literary Autobiography)
Enduring Love -McEwan (don’t start with Atonement)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (yes, it’s Christie, but it’s on the A level syllabus)

As I said upthread I’m a Literature graduate and I just wanted to add I love LOVE the Adrian Mole books by Sue Townsend x

A thousand times this!
A Fatal Inversion, The House of Stairs, A Dark Adapted Eye,all completely marvellous.

I've added a lot to my reading list from this thread, thanks OP. Hope you haven't been scared off 😊

Oh yes, Adrian Mole! And the Discworld books. Start with Mort, or Wyrd Sisters.

Maybe unpopular opinion but try more modern classics.
The American greats are more relatable and easier going but still have the themes and breadth of literary classics.

You might find that the style and story telling between American modern and English classics is easier to bridge than going straight in.
Also find the shorter ones. Jekyll and Hyde is a very short story really.
Skim read, don't try to understand every single word but more follow the meaning of conversation and prose
Get the cliff notes. Read online summary and debates.

Reading for readings sake is really good.
But if you're trying to get something out of it you need to find a critical element.
Enjoy!

A few years ago I searched online for top 100 classic books to read before you die. I read one per month, BUT if I'm not enjoying them, I don't carry on just for the sake of it. Some of the books have been wonderful, some are terribly dated both in writing style and ideals, and I couldn't get past that. But it is fun.

Did someone mention this or was it elsewhere but has anyone read Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden, I loved the TV adaptation of that a few years ago. Is it readable?

I think saying her wisdom was down to reading so much was just my friend batting my compliment away but she really is wise and insightful to unnerving degree (she is probably just very brainy) and there are those studies I posted about that do suggest that reading "literary" fiction improves "theory of mind" I don't think its twattish to want some of that, it sounds very useful!

You don't even need to start with adult classics, if you like YA try some children's classics, ballet shoes by noel streatfield, Anne of green gables, the secret garden, the northern lights trilogy

Yes, it’s brilliant. Might be a good place for you to start, actually.

I love all her Indian-set novels, but In This House of Brede, set in an English Benedictine convent, is also great, though I’ve never reread it because of one scene so horrible it’s seared eternally on my brain.

I agree with you Op.
Some people may read books (or claim to) just to brag.

But for me, the power of books is they can give you an insight into very different worlds and ways of thinking. Increasing (hopefully) empathy or at least an understanding of what might be behind why people do the things they do

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I agree with a lot of the books mentioned here. I don't think you need to go straight from chick-lit to the heavier classics. There's an awful lot of good stuff inbetween to help you scale that ladder.

Daphne du Maurier, Jean Plaidy and Philippa Gregory, James A Michener, To Kill a Mockingbird, Madeline Miller, Agatha Christie, Lucky Jim, Graham Greene, Stella Gibbons, Pat Barker, I Capture the Castle. Among that lot there's sure to be something you love.

Just utterly fabulous aren’t they. Such a clever mind. The psychopathy is enthralling and so easy to read. I’ve read most of them many times over x

Some of that does sound rather dense and I was an English Lit student too.

If you’re still looking for recommendations I’d try Zadie Smith, Michael Cunningham, Sebastian Faulks, Lily King, Muriel Spark and my first ever favourite novel Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. I think that could be described as a classic now.

There’s a vast difference between Frankenstein/David Copperfield and something like Red, White and Royal Blue (if that’s the type of book you were referring to enjoying previously!)

A more enjoyable progression might be to read people like David Nicholls, Fredrik Backman, Rachel Joyce, Celeste Ng first.