so which 'classics' have you never read?

[iwastooearlytobeayummymummy]

For me it's Wuthering Heights and the Russian stuff: War and Peace and Anna Karenina
Also never read Madame Bovary, but I'm sure I've started it before now
I love Margaret Attwood but have not got round to the Hand Maids Tale yet ( but it is beside the bed)

I have just reread The Handmaid's Tale for at least the third time - I love it! I love Margaret Atwood full stop though.
I have not read much Shakespeare, despite once being an English teacher.
I have not read much Dickens either and I am clueless about a vast chunk of classic poetry.
We are only young though - we wouldn't want it all over with at once!

LOADS
But then, there just ARE loads of amazing classics. So I don't feel too bad

Hardly any Dickens for me either.

Nor Remembrance Of Things Past - I don't really believe anyone under 40 has read that.

Years ago when I had a longish commute I read quite a bit of Dickens, but couldn't imagine finding the time now. IME he needs a good 30 minute daily uninterupted session to keep up with the characters/plot

Oh, and I've never read Wind in the Willows. Don't know why - we had a copy at home, but never took it off the shelf and have never read it to DCs either.

Handmaids Tale have read many times, also some Dickens but there is so much of it (and so much else I want to read)

Haven't read Madame Bovary - started it but just got intensely irritated by her... Oh and nothing Russian either, bar a Turgenev I had to read for an OU course.

Ihave tried and failed with Madame Bovary many times - have to stop because she just drives me insane. DD1 read it aged 15 last year, so then I felt even more of a failure!

I have read enough Dickens to know I never want to read another.

I haven't read any Tolstoy.

Wuthering Heights is crap anyway.

Wind in thw Willows is beyond awful, but we had a very pretty abridged version that the DCs enjoyed for a while

Can't finish P & P - have to admit to myself, I just don't like it.

Am reading Great Expectations atm, though, and loving it.

Never done any DH Lawrence, except for the mucky bits, lol.

tons probably, including madam bovary

war and peace is ace, though. A damned good read!

I am ashamed of the books I haven;t read. i am particularly ashamed of the books i haven;t read but still wrote essays on in my English Literature finals at university..........

I really can't get on with Jane Austen, I just find it over dramatic twaddle.

naughty seeker

lol seeker I had a recurring nightmare for years about a book I didn't bother to read for my finals!
Dickens is boring crap as is James Joyce
Quite like DH Lawrence
Wuthering Heights is my favourite book. I read it approximately every 2 years. Was always disappointed by TV adaptations until Tom Hardy did Heathcliff
Have ordered the ds's an Oscar Wilde short stories which is going down quite well.

And life is just too short for "The Mill On The Floss" or whatever it is called

nah, Wuthering Heights is overwrought and overrated... IMVHO of course

Seeker and Cornsilk: you are both David Lodge, and I claim my £5!

Handmaids Tale do read,love MA.Also Alias grace.

So many classics am ignorant of..War and Peace,Anna Karenina.Most of Shakespeare tho have read the ones designated for a level etc.Have read Lawrence as used to live in his hometown and felt should.Dickens bored me to tears,forced to read great expectations,tho should prob try him again now older.Lots of stuff I should try to read.Love Jane Austen.

I haven't read any Dickens except Oliver Twist, tried a few and found them very hard going.

Enjoyed James Joyce, Madame Bovary, Wuthering Heights and Anna Karenina whilst doing English Lit A level but I wouldn't read them now, like someone said, lifes too short, not got the time.

Will save Dickens for when I'm old and got nothing to do, and hope I can still see well enough to read (of course there are always audio books)

some dickens is great, some is very hard going

love pickwick papers, bleak house, great expectations

found Our Mutual Friend unbearable and never got past page 4 or 5

Jane Austen is the greatest of all - imho. I used to be called Janeite in order to worship her further.

Thank God I'm not alone in finding Dickens hideously boring. I feel like I've come out of the closet in admitting that and for years felt so alone in my dislike but it isn't just me, is it?

I'm guilty of not reading many of the Russian classics or much of Virginia Woolf and I've never read Madame Bovary either. I'm resolving to change that last one very soon.

On the subject of classics, apparently still to this day 90% of schoolchildren are forced required to read Of Mice And Men. I had to read it for O level over 30 years ago and thought DD1 was just unlucky in having to suffer it for her GCSE course. It was only when I read that statistic that I realised that the wretched thing is inflicted on so many of today's youngsters.

Haven't read much Dickens, or Shakespeare really. Or any sort of poetry. Read all Austen, most Hardy at some point. Hated Joyce and tolerated Lawrence. And Henry Miller is well-thumbed (wink).

I can't stand Austen, Eliot and the Brontes, so not read a few of their books and skim read others.

Also loathe Dickens, but have read most of them!

It took me years to read Tolkein, but had a revelation one day when a friend told me not to bother reading the hobbit histories at the beginning of Lord of the Rings, which go on and on and on... So, I started part way through, read all of the books, then went back and read the histories!

I would like to burn anything by Jonanthan Franzen (if he counts as "Classic" yet.)

'Of Mice And Men' is a superb book though.