What great books are actually worth reading?

[Viou]

Just that, so many “great” books are dull and esoteric.

But which did you actually enjoy?

I personally loved Love In The Time of Cholera and Anna Karenina

You?

I want to read more

Lolita is uncomfortable as all hell but brilliant.

The Unbearable Lightning of Being and Crime and Punishment have stayed with me.

Pretty much anything Murakami.

And yes, Orwell should be required reading.

Oh, late to post but I agree with others and added one or two others. These are all unputdownable!!

War and Peace
Anna Karena
Pride and Prejudice
East of Eden
Amongst Women
1984

I see a couple of people have already mentioned East of Eden - John Steinbeck is one of my absolute favourites and I would recommend the Grapes of Wrath as well in terms of “great”/weighty novels, but I’d start with Of Mice and Men if you want to check him out.

I love all the Anne books and her short stories. Not overkeen on the so called classics. But I like Jane Austen. Keep meaning to try Dickens. Read a couple at school. Didn't like much. I must put some of the books suggested here on my must read some time list

George Orwells novels are good, particularly 1984 and Animal Farm, but I really enjoyed Down and Out in London and Paris, describing his early life working in Parisienne restaurant kitchens, then coming back to live with the poorest in society in London.
I also enjoy Thomas Hardy books. Tess if the D'Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd and Jude the Obscure all set in one of my favourite parts of the UK.

You’re kidding, really??

Frankenstein blathers on endlessly, that arctic section, oh no! yet another murder and Victor is mad with grief yet again…

The bones of the story are fantastic. The whole book is a mad, bloated mess.

I had honestly thought it was a book that people who hadn’t actually read it “liked” and those who had, didn’t like it.

However, I never really get the gothic sensibility (I’m Austen and Eliot over Brontës) so I guess I’m not the target audience.

Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

I really didn't enjoy 1984. Thought the women were one dimensional and just didn't feel close to any of the characters. Brave New World, otoh, I thought was interested.
Love Frankenstein and anything by Thomas Hardy. Dracula is also great.

@Viviennemary - Dickens is worth giving another go. I hated Great Expectations in school and found it so funny and engaging in adulthood I could hardly believe it was the same book.

The Iliad and the Odyssey.

All of human desires, foibles, pains, joys, cruelties and kindnesses are contained therein.

They will change your life.

Read The Odyssey first as it's easier to get into than the Iliad.

Use the new Emily Wilson translations.

Little women - I love it, and any TV/film adaptation

Bleak House, Dickens
The Gree Mile, Stephen King
A Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony Powell
The Quincunx, Charles Palliser

Agree with this. Loved War and Peace so much more than Anna Karenina. I didn’t need a read along. Would find that distracting.

John Steinbeck is fantastic.
Rebecca, or Daphne du Maurier generally.
I love John Wyndham. Midwich Cuckoos, The Day Of The Triffids.

I think you’re a bit rude for you to assert that I don’t understand the definition of esoteric.

I personally did find Moby Dick, Infinite Jest, The Brothers Karamazov (I could go on) really inaccessible for multiple reasons. Or just dull.

The Plague is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I’ve read the original
French version as well as the translation, and his use of the language is absolutely stunning.

War and Peace. Yes it'll take a while but you won't want it to end. The characters and plots are glorious.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Frankenstein (blew me away!)
A room with a view
Lady Chatterly's Lover (not all sex at all!)
The Count of Monte Cristo (you won't want it to end)
Shogun (so so good)
Vanity Fair
Anything by Steinbeck, but it's all morose
Anything by F Scot Fitzgerald
Trollope is very funny

I used to try and read classics because you should but these ones are honestly brilliant

I agree. Hated it in school, loved it as an adult.

Will never understand what people like about A Tale of Two Cities though, dull as dishwater that one.

Omg yes - Northanger Abbey is probably the most underrated Austen novel. SO funny!!

Personal favourites - Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Persausion, Tess of the D'Urbevilles, 1984

I have never been able to finish a Dickens book, although I enjoy TV adaptations. I don't know why.

The Kraken Wakes, and all his short stories, especially Consider Her Ways which is about a future where men have died out because of a disease and women reproduce asexually but only daughters.

I hated Middlemarch even though it's considered one of the best novels ever written. Great Expectations would be my favourite. Also, the Cairo Trilogy.

Opinions all my own - feel free to disagree!!

Steinbeck - East of Eden is brilliant, The Grapes of Wrath is even better - if you struggle with it, the chapters alternate between the story of the Joads and broader more philosophic/political so if you just want the narrative it is possible to halve the length of the book!
Flaubert - Madame Bovary is very readable, but unfortunately my copy is in a very small font so I found it difficult.
George Eliot - particularly Silas Marner
I liked Gaskell's North and South, but shockingly can't get on with Dickens (Three failed attempts at Great Expectations!)
Bram Stoker - Dracula is genuinely scary
D.H. Lawrence - Lady Chatterley's Lover is dull, and mostly about religion
EM Forster - A Passage to India and A Room with a View are very readable
Jane Austin - Emma is my favourite
Thomas Hardy - Read The Mayor of Casterbridge because I had to, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles because I wanted to then didn't feel any desire to read more.

More modern

Catch 22 - cannot get past page 52
Wild Swans was compelling, but back in the 90s I was the only person I knew who got through it!
Wolf Hall - took effort to get into Mantell's style but was worth it
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell took two goes because its long and complicated and you need to read it consistently - don't put it down and expect to pick it up a month later - but I loved it.

God I love the unbearable lightness of being. It's beautiful and heartbreaking.