To ask for classic book recommendations?

[firesong]

I was just reading the thread about the poster whose dh didn't like her fancy books on display, and it got me thinking... I love reading and used to get through loads of books each month. Since having children I have really slowed down, and would like to get back in to reading again. Can you recommend some classics for me to try? I haven't read any classics, apart from the odd Thomas Hardy in school.

O, forgot, Mrs Gaskells Cranford is touching and amusing and the Mapp & Lucia novels by EF Benson are a delight. Both about the small things of everyday life. Lark Rise to Candleford, a lovely piece of writing ruined by its tv adaptation but the book is wonderful.

I'm re-reading Frost in May by Antonia White, which I am convinced is a modern classic

Great Expectations/Bleak House, Charles Dickens
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
1984, George Orwell
The Lord of the Flies, William Golding

I have truly enjoyed all of these books.

Oh, and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James and The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens!

Black beauty anna sewel
great expectations dickens
into the abbys jack london
the ragged trousered philanthropists tressell
pride and predujice
all of edgar allen poes writings
oscar wild
not a classic as such but the kenneth williams diaries are fascinating
samuel peeps diaries, he was in the centre of court during the demise of charles 1st, the plague, the great fire of london, the reformation , the return of charles 2nd a day to day writing and observation of london in the 1600s

Lots of great recommendations so far! I read lots of classics (just prefer them) and would recommend:

Pride and Prejudice or in fact anything by Jane Austen
Portrait of a Lady - Henry James (it's quite a big book so can look intimidating but it's very easy to read)
Anything by EM Forster but especially Howards End. It's very modern but honestly they're all great.
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier (I've been working through all her books this year and they're so good)
Edith Wharton's books are funny and light as well as classic.
The Great Gatsby knocks my socks off every time.

So many good ones!

I really enjoyed Lorna Doone, also the Count of Monte Cristo.

Dracula is much better than any film/TV version! And Frankenstein.
The Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy is very good and again totally different to the TV series, and better.
I'm not sure if it's a classic but London Belongs To Me by Norman Collins.

Jane Austen (esp P&P)
Dickens
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Watership Down - Richard Adams

More Modern
Brick Lane - Monica Ali
Buddha of Suburbia - Hanif Kureishi
Wild Swans - Jung Chang

@vampirethriller I was saying the other day that Dracula has the capacity to be made into a fairly good film or series of properly based on the book. Bram Stoker's Dracula is actually horrific, it makes me cringe it's so bad

An MN thread and nothing to disagree with. All excellent and many that had slipped my mind that I look foward to reading again,.

A room with a view by EM Forster is one of my favourite books. And if you want a book set in Africa I would recommend Cry, the beloved country by Alan Paton.

Do Cider With Rosie and The Go-Between count as classics? I love them both.

Would also add my voice to those recommending Wuthering Heights, Rebecca (and Jamaica Inn) and any Jane Austen.

This thread has inspired me to go to the book shelf and pick up Thomas Hardy, it's been years since we spent some time together

Oh oh oh and I know they're not classics BUT I think they might be someday - The Kingsbridge Novels by Ken Follett are absolutely outstanding. Lovely huge books which just sort of plod along but then you finish and you're devastated it's over.

Norman Collins vampire! Havent thought of him for years. Off to Amazon

If anyone's feeling really dedicated, goodreads has a list of 518 suggested classics at www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/classic-must-reads - they're listed 50 to a page.

Don't know if it counts but Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence is excellent (and free on kindle)

I recently read The Grapes Of Wrath, it was brilliant and I am still thinking about it weeks later.

firesong a group of us on MN are doing a Bleak House readalong this year and next, reading the chapters in the time frame they were published. It’s a different way of reading a book but I'm quite enjoying it. There are monthly videos by a very clever young women from YouTube who explain what is what. You would be very welcome to join

Other classics I have really enjoyed recently are:
North and South
Oedipus Rex and Antigone by Sophocles
Dracula
Tenant of Wildfell Hall
and my absolute outstanding favourite of this year Vanity Fair. So good I'm about to reread it all over again.

O Vanity Fair! A favourite, who can fail to love wicked Becky? Really looking forward to tv adaptation coming up shortly

Gwen Raverat's Period Piece - perhaps more of a minor classic, is a lovely light, chucklesome read.

It's been reprinted by Puffin, but I think was originally aimed at a 'family' market - Alison Uttley's A Country Child is also lovely. If you like Larkrise, and want more writing about growing up in the countryside, it's definitely one to go for.

Second Vanity Fair and Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Would add Villette and the Heart of the Matter.

Thanks concrete,, I've not heard of Gwen Raverat before. Have ordered.

Yes to Cider with Rosie, surely that does count as a classic, I’m getting a warm fuzzy feeling just thinking of it!

Rebecca AND/OR Jamaica Inn - Daphne du Maurier, anything of hers actually. Rebecca had me up all hours reading frantically.

I think Jane Eyre is a really good starting point, Tenant of Wildefield Hall too. Anything by a Bronte sister, you can’t go wrong!

Little Women, Little House on The Prairie, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men. I remember taking Of Mice and Men home from school and racing through it and having so much to say about it, then when I got back into the class everyone was saying what a pile of shit it was and how they didn’t get it at all because you know it was just soooo stupid, followed by me being all 14 and just going “yeah, it was shit!”. I would stand up for that book now.

Anything by Alexander Dumas, but especially the Clount of Monte Christo, I’ve red it a few times and still find it thrilling and intriguing.

Lord of the Flies is incredible, there’s no other book like it, although I was reminded of it a bit when I read the, ahem, non-classic The Beach.

Vanity Fair I’m going to read again when I get back from holiday, everyone keeps mentioning it, and rightly so. OP maybe make it your first, it’s so easy to fly through and is just fascinatingly readable. Now I’m getting Jane Austen guilt, maybe Emma or Persuasion are good starters too.

Dracula - another one that I love for all of the darkness and mood, you get pulled right in as it’s just so...... ooh I’ve just thought of another one I loved, The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sherlock Holmes). Bleak House is my favourite Dickens I think, but at Christmas I try to re-read A Christmas Carol as I love it so much but it feels wrong at any other time of year. I usually keep it in with the Christmas decorations so it comes out mid-December and I’m then in the mood for cold Christmassy vibes.

I could talk about classics all day, and new ones keep popping up. What about 1984, Animal Farm, The Catcher in the Rye. I’m on holiday and am missing my books now, the Kindle isn’t quite the same.

Jamaica Inn and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier ... not strictly classics perhaps, but they're both thumping good reads