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 people say their favourite book is To Kill a Mockingbird, I assume they haven't read a book since they were at school

Nice to know

Fwiw i did read tkamb at school. I love it because it turned me from a clever child who would read anything, but only ever for the story/information, and could never see the point of english classes and analysing books, into one who saw the merit in history and politics and discussion.

I was in a shit comp, with a shit teacher in a shit class, sat at the back reading it by myself while the class fannied around reading it out loud. It was the first book that really made me think.

I don’t care what people read. It doesn’t make me form an opinion. I read enid blyton in my late teens (after I’d read tkamb!) because i’d never come across them before. I got some stick from some people, but who cares. I do find some people do like to offer an opinion- take the piss if you’re reading lowbrow pulp fiction, or want to engage in discussion if you’re reading something “intellectual”. Like i said, for me book discussion generally ends with “is it good?” If yes i might look out for a copy.

I hate being asked what my favourite book is. I don’t have a favourite anything. [...] To me, it’s a very childish question.

It's often just a conversation starter . It's not that different from 'what are you reading at the moment?' or 'what kind of books are you into?'. All it signals is 'let's talk about books for a while, if you're interested'.

Nobody's asking you to sign an affidavit stating this is your one and only favourite forevermore.

Hardy can be very slow to start but once he gets going he really gets going. The woodlanders was probably the best book I read last year. The plot line is something you could find in a chit lit but the writing is incredible. It is subtle but also sublime. Some sentences as so perfect it's like reading my own thoughts. He builds a perfectly complete imagine in your mind of the scene and then drops in a sentence at the end that captures its essence perfectly. It's difficult to say whether his writing is so clever and consistent that it influences the way that you think or whether he just has some innate ability to perfectly communicate an idea through imagery, characterisation, setting etc. before then verbalising it. Either way there is something quite masterful about his writing. He makes the works of most other writers seem contrived.

Thanks for coming back OP!

I have noticed that pp say that other people pretend to read classics to make themselves seem clever, but no-one has said that that's what THEY do!

I still think this is a perception due to people's own insecurities and that most just genuinely like/love the classic book they mention. Anyway, there seems to be little incentive to sound clever since people can attract ridicule this way.

I think people are more likely to conceal that they like hard/classic books so there are likely to be more classics lovers out there than admit it, precisely to avoid all the eyerollers!

I've always read for pleasure. I studied English too, but not sure I'd be seen as well read. The most pretentious person I've met was the girl in the first week of my lit degree. When asked to name favourite books, we all named novels. When the lecturer said that this somewhat confirmed her theory that the novel is the de facto form of literature, this girl immediately, loudly "recanted" and named Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. I'm sure she had read and loved it, but if she'd loved it that much, she'd have said it first anyway. I also read nothing but trash for a few months when I finished my degree; I wanted books with nothing to analyse, easy language and no historical context to consider. My brain needed the break!

Now, I read whatever I fancy; crime, histories, biographies, some fluff, modern classics, old classics, the occasional thriller. I'm currently in the middle of the Cadfael mysteries and will read The Godfather next, followed by a huge biography of Guy Burgess. I reread lots, too. Rereads are a form of comfort food and I love delving deeper into these worlds through revisiting. Everyone had different tastes and can find merit in a particular genre. Le Guin, Pratchett, Tolkien, Lewis and most fantasy/magic leave me cold. Friends adore them. They wouldn't necessarily pick up books that I enjoy. I love A Dance To The Music Of Time, John Le Carre spy novels, Christopher Isherwood and was hooked by Alone in Berlin and now want to read more Fallada. I also like Daphne Du Maurier, H E Bates, Collette stories and Kurkov - he makes me laugh. Two books I had to work to enjoy but now adore are Maurice and Out of Africa- I haven't been offended when friends have put them down.

I also love trashy Lauren Weisberger novels, the glorious camp of Valley of the Dolls, enjoy getting lost in Jilly Cooper and Kathy Reichs books, still reread Harry Potter and proudly display the Flambards novels, the Chalet School, Mallory Towers, The Phantom Tollbooth, Alice in Wonderland, Little Women and When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit plus sequels on my bookshelves.

I got very fed up, as an English student, when people seemed to narrow "literature" down to Shakespeare, Dickens and Austen. These were the names that came up when I told people I was an English student. I loved some Shakespeare and enjoy studying the language, Dickens- I have a couple I will reread, ones I tolerate and ones I dutifully plodded through and Austen leaves me cold. I've never finished a JA and avoided modules that included her novels. Plenty of classmates adored the above and avoided modules I wanted to do. I studied and loved Hardy, Trollope, the Brontes and Thackeray and Medieval Lit. I liked translating Chaucer. I still enjoy a lot of American Classics and modern classics that I read as a teenager. I respected the choices my classmates made, they respected mine and we all bonded over which Hogwarts house we'd be in, anyway.

You see EggsonHeads it’s Hardy’s writing that I find so irritating! So it goes to show how differently we experience these things

rosewhitetips

I knew that Lit entailed analysing books (obviously!) and I did enjoy it. But afterwards I personally found it a huge relief just to be able to pick up whatever book I fancied (including classics) without worrying I had to read/analyse this or that for a class or essay.

I have friends and relatives who are Lit academics who haven't read Anne Tyler/Kate Atkinson etc because they feel their spare time reading has to be related to their studies. I think they are missing out!

Just my opinion.

DSHathaway

I also read nothing but trash for a few months when I finished my degree; I wanted books with nothing to analyse, easy language and no historical context to consider. My brain needed the break!

Ditto!

My favourite books are Moll Flanders (which is a classic) and Good Omens (which should be). I also loved the Great Gatsby, everything I've read by Alexander Dumas, everything I've read by Bernard Cornwell, and the book Sue Townsend wrote about the Queen. I don't care if people want to judge me based on what I read, and if anyone did, it would say more about them than me.

I read at least a book a week and read all sorts of genres, but my favourite book has always been Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I did it for English Lit GCSE and loved it ever since and read it at least once a year. I dont give a toss if you think its 'unreasonable' that a classic is a favourite book.

OP - this thread reminds me of Flann O'Brien's Buchhandung service:

www.english.txstate.edu/cohen_p/irish/O'Brien.html

I'll giv it another go GETTING I'm intrigued by the Maxwell reference! :)

holasoydora I think my entire graduating class was pretty much the same!

People should join us for the monthly reading group. It's North and South this month, to be read by 25th I think. Fatherland is the book for February. It's over in the 'What we're reading' section linked to by a previous poster slightly up thread.

Thanks endehor. I'm in.

Thanks for the invitation, endehors. Unfortunately, I read much too slowly to join in monthly reading groups. I've been on Normal Collins's London Belongs to Me since the end of December and will probably just about manage to finish by the end of January.

@HerSymphonyAndSong Thank you, I'll check it out!

Oops, I forget the time difference when I'm engrossed in reading

Another vote for Good Omens being a classic

I'm a massive Tolkien fan (as in I've read the 12 books of the History of Middle Earth and would happily read more rough drafts and versions of stories with minor revisions), but don't generally read that much fantasy (Ursula le Guin is the other fantasy author I like, and J G Ballard crosses over into fantasy on occasion and I love his books) and like a range of books, from classics (Anna Karenina, Wuthering Heights, The Count of Monte Cristo), to magic realism (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), the occasional bit of Nordic Noir, what gets called 'literary fiction' and what ever else takes my fancy really.

I was always encouraged to read widely!

I have never read anything as good as Wuthering Heights. I don’t suppose I ever will.

My fav book ever is Wild Swans.

I’m just placemarking so I can go through MNetters lists of brilliant books at my leisure

Yes you are being unreasonable. A classic has become a classic because it has been a favourite of many. I know, I'll say my favourite book is some weird crap that no one knows about or likes so that I seem 'different' and so intelligent...

I read my fair share of crappy books, and some of them I thoroughly enjoy at the time.

I would never describe them as 'favourites' as I haven't re-read them, and they didn't stick in my mind.

That takes a special sort of book. Not necessarily a classic, but that's often why many people's favourites are classics (old or new) - because they're so well-written that they haunt you for a while after, and you happily re-read them.

Sure, some people will say their favourite book is a classic to try to impress, but that doesn't mean all people saying it do it for that reason. I feel pretty sure that the ones saying it to impress are in the minority.

Obviously the OP doesn't enjoy classics enough to rate any of them as a favourite, so (a bit weirdly IMO), can't imagine anyone else doing so either.

Supposedly, good books are supposed to stretch your imagination!

My favourite book is a classic. YABVU

I hate Jane Austen. I'm convinced that there are many Jane Austen fans who base their strong views on TV adaptations. My favourites are early twentieth century crime fiction, but I don't suggest I read classics to people. I think there's a difference between someone using that word and saying how much they love a particular book, which just happens to have been classed as a classic.

My favourite book is one that took a lot of effort for me to read actually. It was difficult to get into and I had to read it slowly and think. But it had more reward than other books I've read!