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

But 'the classics' encompasses a massive range of different styles and plots. You can't assume they're all hard to read or that somebody who likes a bit of trash couldn't possibly also like a 'classic'. Jane Austen is very easy reading for example. James Joyce not so much. Instead of rolling your eyes, maybe you should just take the suggestion of a classic the same as you would any other book and give it a whirl.

I’d only eye-roll when people say they don’t read/have never finished a book (as my DB and old boss both said). Or maybe if they said they thought ‘50 shades of crap’ is a worthy piece of literature.

If you asked me about my favourite books I will tell you

Pride and Prejudice
Cider with Rosie
A Town Like Alice
An Inspector Calls (okay so that ones a play but it's brilliant).

I will also mention

Rivals by Jilly Cooper
The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous by Jilly Cooper
All the Harry Potter books
All the Dragon books by Cressida Cowell and The Wizards of Once

So....some classics......some kids books and some fiction.

I like a mix as do many other people.

I find most 19th century literature an effort and I have an English degree and I'm a primary teacher so reading is a massive love of mine. I much prefer modern literature and only sometimes delve into the classics. I really enjoyed Wilkie Collins The Moonstone!

JackhamMer do you do nothing other than read? I am a fast reader but I work fulltime, have 5 children and am studying also, so there is no way I could read on average a book and a half every day. How is that even possible?

I think as well some "classics" are harder to read than others.

I read WH aged almost 10. DD has read Dracula, WH aged 10/11. She also loves Woman in Black. I can't imagine for a moment she would enjoy Hardy or Austen right now.

I'm not sure whether my favourite book actually counts as a classic (To Kill a Mockingbird) but I think it does.
I haven't read it for some time, partially as a lot of the reading I do is casual 10 minute chunks, and I find TKaM needs more than that.

But if I would write a list of 100 books I think everyone should read it would be heavily weighted towards the classics.

Not keen on Wuthering heights though, which just shows that people have different tastes, not than anyone else that says it's a favourite is lying.

@MySweetAudrina

I'm a single parent and work from home.

I also read ridiculously fast. Weekends when DD is with her father I can average 10 books over 2 days. I also ensure I take a break and read in my lunch hour and read all evening!

Just because a person reads 'lowbrow' fiction it doesn't mean they don't also enjoy the classics. I love a bit of Jilly Cooper, I also love Austen, the Brontës, Hardy, Shakespeare...etc and read English at Cambridge. I utterly loved The Hunger Games and my favourite author is Terry Pratchett.

YABU to assume that just because people read one type of literature that they can't be interested in others.

10 books in 2 days?! Sweet Jesus! I think it’s good going when I have some time to myself and get through 1 book in 2 days

God just let people read what they want and shut up.

I don't read the trashy stuff mainly because I'm a quick reader and get through them too quick! Plus, they are classics for a reason - they are timeless in some ways, and can be re-read. I love Russian literature - Anna Karenina, The Master and Margarita etc, and I fell in love with Emile Zola after picking up La Bonheur des Dames (the BBC series, The Paradise is based on this) at a book sale about ten years ago - he wrote a series of books called the Rougon-Maquart cycle, that are very loosely linked, but don't have to be read in order, and I'm always trying to scout them out (not all have been translated). I have found that reading the introductory notes that are included in some books gets my head in the right place, if that makes sense?

My favourite book though, is My Family And Other Animals by Gerald Durrell - it was the first "grown-up" book I ever read - I went from Sweet Valley High and Judy Blume to that, and never looked back.

Books are like food or drink - sometimes one craves a good rare steak and a bottle of Malbec and others, chinese takeaway and San Miguel.
Regularly digging into Kafka et al doesn't mean one couldn't enjoy a light bit of Christie or Sayers or whatever bubblegum fiction one fancies. Different moods dictate different reads.

Oh dear, I'm one of those people. I read a lot of "vampire-esque" books. My favourite series include Morganville vampires and hunger games. They're my comfort books, easy reads and I like the characters, the vampires, the magic. That said they aren't my favourite books. I adore Dorian Grey (got to be my favourite), closely followed by Jamaica Inn, Wuthering Heights and... (Shock horror) Great Expectations. Also pretty near the top would probably be Of mice and men, can't explain why I just like it. Classics are classics for a reason, they are beautiful stories that have stood the test of time. My mom and nan read them, hopefully my daughter will too.
I'm 25, dress in a gothic/biker style, do a job which is not very intellectual and read a hell of a lot of vampire fiction etc, that said you would think I was lying to make myself look better because my favourites are in fact the classics.
FWIW I've never found them hard to read or boring either.

Unfortunately I'm a mum to a 1yo with a job and housework to juggle, so sorry I can't live up to your wonderful child's high standards.

My kid is of an average level is an average state school. Reading is part of their curriculum, you'll see. A book is a book as you said, we don't know what's in your list of 60 books a year

You are the one starting a bitterly judging thread, most of the posters replying don't give a hoot what you read or what you think about their library

I think you are missing that lots of people read different stuff for different reasons.
I love reading Karin Slaughter. They are gorier than I usually read but they have interesting characters and move right along storylines. I can read them without them affecting my mood or teaching me anything and that's great. Ditto I loved the Harry Potter books and books about current affairs etc.
The books I love affected me when I read them and I can still remember storylines and passsages and stuff like how old I was.
My favourite book is Pride & prejudice because I read it aged 16 and I never realised a dull old 'classic' would be funny, elegant, witty, and that I'd desperately want there to be a happy ending.

Your question 'what's your favourite book' is the problem.
Ask what's your go to book for a great read. Or what is the book that affected you the most. Or what book taught you the most. What book would you recommend for a beach read. Or what do you wish you'd read sooner. What book left you feeling sad when you finished it?

You are asking a stupid question and being irritated by the lack of depth in the answers

I read Wuthering heights when I was 16 and it is my favourite book. I look at it today and am astonisted to see it written in such a period style. When I read it, it felt like it was fresh modern language. Really odd.

I read anything and everything.

Am struggling with Hunger Games. I’m enjoying the writing, but find the concept of children killing children so uncomfortable.

I don’t know anyone who would read crap like 50 shades of grey and claim they love a classic book.

You're being a bit daft... I can see why you are now defensive, there are some really patronising responses!

But for utter bibliophiles books can be lifelong friends (Ursula Le Guin, CJ Cherryh, Robon Hobbs), casual acquaintances (any crime, thriller, zombie apocalypse book), fascinating acquaintances (Steinbeck, Wells, Austen) and people you put up with, avoid as often as possible (Cooper, the whole 50 Shades phenomenon). You read them all, love some of them, hate others.

You can eye roll as much as you like, as you can see others are eye rolling back, but it won't change the facts that for some people their favourite book list will include a classic - I include the Steinbeck anthology that is currently supporting one end of a knackered book case, Farenheit 451, Moby Dick, Lord of the Rings and Hobbit, Middlemarch and Slaughterhouse 5, just a tad eclectic but all 'classics'.

As long as you enjoy what you read, what's the issue?

Do you live near a library? I have currently gone back to a reading habit I grew when I was a kid, about 5... start at A.. read everything on the A shelf.. B... C etc. OK, I give myself permission to miss Archer and Andrews, but otherwise just read totally indiscriminately! You'd be surprised at what pleasure you get from the oddest of books!

6 months in and I haven't got to the end of the B shelf... they keep adding books I do read other books, by choice. I would guess I read 3 or 4 books a week on average, with days when I devour entire books.

I read in bed, nowhere else, unless it is a manual / How To book. I imagine everyone has their favourite reading space / time!

OP, you’re being U and an arse to judge people on the basis of your own prejudice.

As for “they are pure effort” - wtf? Do you think “the classics” are a genre, all similar in style, if you’ve tried one you’ve tried them all? Pathetic, lazy reverse snobbery.

AIBU to roll my eyes because OP can’t read classics finding them pure effort

If you have trouble picking up the sarcasm in posts, perhaps you are missing some of the funny/interesting bits in the classics as well.

Personally, I don't particularly enjoy many of the classics. However, I know lots of people who do. I was a very, very avid reader as a child (several books a day for a while), but lost some of that as I grew older. I tend to read modern literature now, but I read much less often than I used to. I also still enjoy the odd 'airplane' page-turner sort of novel, or a crime thriller or whatever now and then. As a child, I read everything from the trashiest of series novels to long-standing classics.

This sounds like reverse snobbery to me, or an inability to believe that people can get something they enjoy out of something you think is pretentious or difficult.

What is your favourite book?

Do you also disbelieve people who enjoy classical music? Or art galleries? (Personally, I very much enjoy classical music. I don't, however, see what people get from spend hours in galleries - but I do believe they enjoy it!).

at this point in my life I only read lightweight trashy books and enjoy them very much.

At other points in my life I have read more meaningful books (pre kids)

If I had to pick an all time favourite it would be from the meaningful collection as they stay with me for many years and changed how I think about things. But you would think 'she only reads thinks like shopaholic and twilight saga'

YABU. Very much so.
I'm a writer and have run writing workshops and book clubs for years. I don't recall ever meeting anyone who pretended to like a particular book just to impress us.
I have, however, met plenty of people who roll their eyes and feel the need to put down other people's preferences, and I always find that extraordinarily rude.