To ask what your favourite classic novel is?

[SpectacleLectacle]

I have a plan to read some classics this summer I’ve never got round to... what’s your absolute favourite classic novel? And why?

I guess I’m thinking mainly of those that would be in the ‘Classics’ (in terms of fiction rather than the subject!) section of a bookshop but feel free to diverge from that

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell.

L'Assommoir by Emile Zola.

I love Rebecca, I've re-read it so many times. So many things I love about it.

Anything by Orwell (and agree with a PP that it's scary how many parallels there are between 1984 and real world 2020)
Anything by Wyndham
A Brave New World
Dracula
Great Expectations

There are lots I've tried and failed to get on with:
Wuthering Heights (just can't engage with it at all)
Anything by Thomas Hardy (hate his writing style, hate his characters)
Bleak House (didn't finish it, found it dreary)

Moby Dick
Frankenstein
Paradise Lost

I read Jane Eyre aged twelve and fell in love with Mr. Rochester. Nabokov's Lolita had not been written then - a wonderfully written style on an awful subject.. (She was a "one" wasn't she?) Cold Comfort Farm is my absolute favourite though. The only funny classic novel ever written. (something narsty in the woodshed!!).......

Wuthering Heights
Great Expectations
Emma
Rebecca

Lots of great stuff mentioned above... I recently read Dracula and didn’t love it as much as some on here; the first half and last quarter were great, but then there’s a turgid splodge in between, mostly taken up with ranting on about how lovely and clever Mina is. I did love Renfield the fly-eating madman though!

Anyway, I love:
Notre Dame de Paris
Great Expectations
David Copperfield
Emma
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
Three Men in a Boat
Pickwick Papers
Villete
The Moonstone
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Mayor of Casterbridge
Rebecca
Jamaica Inn.

Not sure if it counts, but also love The Little Prince, which is my favourite book ever.

Cold Comfort Farm is my absolute favourite though. The only funny classic novel ever written

You’ve clearly not read many classics, then!

Not RTFT but Wuthering Heights. Only book to make me proper blub.

Cold Comfort Farm

To Kill A Mockingbird and Pride and Prejudice are definitely high on my list, I love Great Expectations too. Does Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy count? I think it should.

Two years ago I read Howard’s End and it literally changed my life (I moved to another country because of it), so it’s my current favourite. Just wonderful. The film with Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins is brilliant too.

Lord of the Flies

Diary of a Nobody. It's not a classic in the sense of being a heavyweight literary novel but it is hilarious, arch, satirical and affectionate and manages to transcend time/place

Black Beauty when I was about 9. It's so sad...

Two years ago I read Howard’s End and it literally changed my life (I moved to another country because of it)

Now that’s the sort of recommendation that works for me! I’ve added it to my list. Had read other Forster works but not that one.

Diary of a Nobody is great fun.
George Grossmith worked extensively with Gilbert and Sullivan and created many of the key roles.

Oh, I forgot Barbara Pym!

Crampton Hodnet is my favourite. Set in pre WW2 north Oxford, it’s almost as much a period piece now as Jane Austen.

Very funny - she gently takes the piss out of both academia and the clergy.

Also highly recommend Some Tame Gazelle, and Excellent Women by BP.

The Woman in White
The Moonstone
Rebecca
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Jane Eyre
Brideshead Revisited

Ooh yes, Howard's End and Persuasion also.

I really enjoyed Jane Eyre and Little Women.

The Picture of Dorian Gray
Persuasion & Emma (anything by Austen really)
Far From The Madding Crowd
North and South

A Tale of Two Cities

So interesting seeing everyone’s taste.
I love Northanger Abbey and all Austen except Emma. Can’t stand Emma herself, and cannot tolerate a book full of her!
I have read two Barbara Pym books and I just don’t get the love. Really not my taste at all.

Someone mentioned My Family and Other Animals though. One of my all time favourite books. I read it to Dd recently and had a job to get through some bits I was laughing so much!

I have also discovered that some of my favourite children’s authors wrote books for adults.
I am now working my way through Noel Streatfeild, Dodie Smith and L.M. Montgomery. I loved Ballet Shoes as a child. Still love it, but Saplings works better for me as an adult.

Someone mentioned Rebecca West. I went off and googled and have read nothing by her. I looked for the trilogy mentioned (These Dark Nights) but can’t find it. Is it the one labelled on Amazon as The Saga of the Century, starting with The Fountain Overflows?

Jane eyre
Wuthering heights
Pride and prejudice
Moll Flanders

I'm currently listening to Jane eyre, narrated by Thandie Newton, on audible. It's just as wonderful as reading it, and I've read it about a zillion times!

I think I'll re read Moll Flanders next.

They're like comfort food to me.

The Picture of Dorian Grey
1984
Rebecca
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Anne of Green Gables
Little Women

A few people have mentioned it, but I want to echo Brave New World. Read it in conjunction with 1984, with the introduction from Margaret Atwood.

And The Master and Margarita.

I wonder how many of these were read for O Level/ GCSE and became favourites.

The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins - the first detective story.
Pride and Prejudice, of course.
And definitely Vanity Fair, Becky is WONDERFUL.