To roll my eyes when someone says their favourite book is a classic

[Eyeroller100]

I'm an avid reader and I'm always looking for new books to read so I often ask people what their favourite books are. AIBU to roll my eyes every time someone mentions one of the classics.

I know people do love them and they may well be their faves, but I am quite skeptical as if they are saying it to make themselves sound better.

I've tried reading a lot of classics and I just can't get into them at all! They are pure effort

When I was at primary school, there weren't that many books around, so a lot of my reading was re-reading. Then in adulthood I got into the habit of reading a book then going on to the next one. More recently, I've start re-reading a book as soon as i finish it; the first time I read quickly, because I'm following the plot and want to see what happens to everyone, so when I read for the second time I pick up on all the details.

I'm also learning another language, and reading translations of English books (I know it's not as good as reading books that were written in the language I'm learning, but it's a good way to pick up some of the idioms, by cross-checking with the English version), and that slows me down immensely and makes me savour the details.

• Kate Atkinson writes future classics, IMO.• I like her books too. But if you tend to skip ahead in your reading to see what's going to happen to the character you're with at the moment (I hate suspense; if someone's going to come to a sticky end, I want to know in advance) don't try "Life after Life" - I got very muddled!

I very much doubt whether many children at all are terribly interested in those books but the hype at the time of each release convinced them to be avid “readers” of the books and to acquire them.

Poppycock.

OP - I wonder whether you also roll your eyes at people who say they like classical music/opera/ballet, or jazz, or European cinema, or abstract art...

I loved Life After Life, but my MIL, who read it alongside me during a loooooong family holiday felt much the same as you.

Life After Life is defo confusing for a skip forward checker! (I do this too. I can't cope with the merest hint of impending death).

I loved Life After Life, but my MIL, who read it alongside me during a loooooong family holiday felt much the same as you. Oh, I loved it, but got muddled. Once I knew what was going to happen in all manifestations, I read it again in an orderly fashion and got everything straight. -I may have made notes-

holasoydora

PS I did Lit at Uni too. I was never more relieved than the day I no longer had to analyse books!

Really? What exactly did you think the study of English Literature entailed?

My all time favourite book is Huckleberry Finn. I read it as a young child and probably read it twice a year now for the love of it. I am also on my third copy as I have worn 2 others out.

If you loved Life After Life, try 4321. It features varied endings on a boy's life, I loved it and rather embarrassingly found myself crying at quite a few passages.

It's really more an ode to literature more than anything else, which becomes more obvious as the boy becomes a teenager and then a man.

Fellow Trollope enthusiast here, Skiiltan! Few people mention reading TWWLN. The only part I don't read with enthusiasm in his books are the hunting chapters. The Bertrams is another I don't often ever hear people mention reading.

“I would much rather pick up eg Helen Dunmore, Anne Tyler, Meg Wollitzer, Curtis Sittenfeld, Kate Atkinson, Marian Keyes than read a classic”

Equally I am sure many of those who have enjoyed some classics love these authors too (I am one of them!)

I tend not to believe people because it sounds like the classics are the only books people have heard of. Plus the plots are so well known it is perfectly reasonable to assume they know about them even without reading them.

I didn't get on with The Way We live Now. Felix annoyed me so much I stopped reading and then had to google the plot. (Also a book club set).

I've never done well with Dickens either.

Talking of modern classics.... Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are dead has to be surely. (Mind you,I only came to that in the first place because of the Tim Roth and Gary Oldman movie. God I loved that... and Gary Oldman [drool])

Anne Tyler has to be considered a modern classic by anyone's standards though surely.

I love Anne Tyler, but find her female characters much more readable than her male ones. I’m probably the only Anne Tyler fan ho doesn’t love ‘The Accidental Tourist’.

OP, the classics are classics because they’re good. Austen isn’t all period costumes and simpering maidens, it’s satire and very funny. Lolita is probably some of the best writing I’ve come across.

I can’t do Dickens either, though. I’m not masturbate with you

Oh god - not sure where masturbate came from!!

Was going to say that I’m not averse to a hard read but Dickens doesn’t work for me. In a non sexual sense

I read plenty of trash (mostly in the form of fanfic) but love classic novels. I tend to have several books on the go at once, so I'm currently in the middle of a Sherlock fanfic, Lincoln in the Bardo, The House on the Dvina, a Georgette Heyer book, and How to Talk so Teens will Listen and Listen so Teens will Talk.

And my favourite books is Jane Eyre. The first time I read it, I read it for the romance and found it a bit disappointing. The second time I read it, it was the gothic bits that stood out. The next time I read it was after reading The Wide Sargasso Sea, and it was like a different book all over again. And then I didn't read for years, until a friend read it for the first time and raved about how how wonderful it was. And that time when I read it I was absolutely blown away by all sorts of things I'd never notice before, and found it by far the best book I'd read in a decade.

Yabvu

A you don't know if they're telling the truth or not

B people have different tastes inc the same person at different times - my favourites include p&p, wuthering heights, Oliver Twist, great gatsby, a Christmas carol, Orwell and Steinbeck AND Rachel's holiday (and the rest of the Walsh books), Sue grafton alphabet books, Virginia Andrews, Stieg Larsson, biographies (especially by comedians) and Freya north.

I'm an English grad and was shocked how little some other students liked reading - weird choice of degree. I usually have 2/3 books on the go at a time as well as articles, poetry and short stories.

I've discovered new authors thanks to the rise in self publishing and love trying different styles and genres.

To the pp who hates Hardy - I agree - as a novelist but his poetry is fab!

Just because you don't like classics (what do you mean by classics anyway? There's lots of debate on this anyway) doesn't mean they aren't very popular and very readable for many (especially for those who have seen adaptations and therefore have a fair idea of the narrative before reading).

Many of those books now considered classics were at the time of publishing much derided and seen as low rent (ironically). As a pp said - much of Dickens work was published as part works, working much as a soap does today (lots of daft but fun cliffhangers and twists). Certainly books written by women were not held in high regard. Equally there are books and authors from those times that were fêted and have now been all but forgotten!

As for "pretentious" you may want to check your own inverse snobbery!

What are your favourites? Which classics have you tried? If it's things like Chaucer, Ulysses, even finnegans wake or Tristram shandy you may have a point, but p&p is basically a romance and a Christmas carol beloved by children the world over!

Strawberriesaregood - we studied Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle as examples of great editing, very little extraneous writing in their books. Body in the library studied as an example of containing most elements of the genre in one work.

Getshitdone - I also have a soft spot for original fairy tells especially lesser known ones. We also read Angela carter's the bloody chamber which was interesting.

"once you've watched Breaking Bad, can you actually watch Scandal?" This kinda proves the point actually - I love scandal, can't stand bb.

Wow! Your post at 1059 is disgusting!! At 4 I was reading Enid blyton by 6 I was reading Dickens (and enjoying!)

"Crime thrillers and rom com type books are fun but don't stay with you." - again - speak for yourself - I'm not sure many Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle fans would agree!

I too see nothing wrong with reading children's fiction. I still love Enid blyton, little women, Joan Aiken, dd got me reading the divergent series too. It's fun - nothing wrong with fun!

Op your attitude to this makes you seem narrow-minded, rigid and judgmental.

"It is fine. But why do you think people reading classics aren't reading them for escapism?" Exactly! My life bears no relation to Austen or bronte sisters or even Dickens. But it's also not wrong to read to get you thinking - frankly I think 1984 should be compulsory at the moment! Instead it's getting banned in places

"I enjoy reading for escapism, too, but I have the opposite problem: lazy, badly-written, predictable books make me 'think too much'. I can't get immersed or involved if I'm constantly noticing cliched moments, unconvincing dialogue, and huge plot-holes, or trying to remember where I've heard all this before." Yes! I get distracted when I'm thinking "well that's clearly a plagiarism of X" or "oh for the love of God THAT cliche again really?" Just spoils the pleasure.

"OP - I wonder whether you also roll your eyes at people who say they like classical music/opera/ballet, or jazz, or European cinema, or abstract art..." I suspect they do.

museum trust me I've read most at least a few times, determined to like him. I can appreciate his skill and understand why others love him, but I just don't.

Jane Eyre and Nicholas Nickleby were mentioned in the foreword of the copy of Tom Browns school days I read, and that led me to explore the adult classic section at the library, with Jane Eyre being my first. Maybe I still haven't forgiven Dickens for my disappointment that NN wasn't equally as mesmerising.

Modern Classic has to be Good Omens. Just because it's a cult classic doesn't mean it can't be a true classic!

I feel incredibly sorry for people who allow publisher's marketing groupings and their own insecurities about how they present themselves to the world to prevent them from reading books they'd enjoy. Children's and YA books have a range of content, intellectual pitch and themes, same as adult books - and in fact children's books often deal with the fundamentals in life in a way that adult literature doesn't.

Read, read widely, read whatever you like, read with your own pleasure in mind, but don't block yourself off to wonderful experiences because it's not pitched at you. And if you haven't read His Dark Materials yet then you've missed a great and magnificent classic that's both high brow in its themes - the nature of consciousness, what makes humans human - and utterly accessible.

C S Lewis, who was an Oxford fellow and a chair at Cambridge, if we're showing off intellectual credentials, said it best:

"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

Not reading children's books because they're not really a favourite thing or you don't like fantasy or school tales or whatever is fine. Looking down on other people because you don't understand it is not.

I didn't get on with The Way We live Now. Felix annoyed me so much I stopped reading and then had to google the plot. (Also a book club set).
He's dreadful isn't he. Though I wonder if Mrs Carbury (can't recall her name) was based on Trollope's mother, Fanny. The BBC adaptation was very good.

If you’re an avid reader then the classics shouldn’t be “pure effort” and I don’t understand how you “can’t get into them at all” if you are a big reader. Doesn’t make sense. And you roll your eyes at people who like classics? Eye roll right back at ya.

Classics are classics for good reason. Of course most people consider a particular classic as a favorite. Shouldn’t have to explain why that is surely.

I feel like those who enjoy the classics "think too much" when it comes to reading."

Then you feel wrong. Classics do not have to be thinky books. You read what you like, let others read what they like and knock off assuming that your "feelings" have any relationship to others' reality.