For those who read the classics-recommend your fav?

[christie1]

I read many of the classics over the years but fell off (strangely around the time I had kids). I get great book recommendations here, can you give me some suggestions of classics. I have read alot of the standard ones-dickens, george elliot, thomas hardy,jane austin, the brontes but can you suggest some I should try that you just loved? It doesn't have to be victorian, just a really good read, I can feel my brain comming back again and longing for something good to read after years of mysteries and mommy lit(not knocking them, just want to go back to an old love, the classics).

I agree about Italo Svevo.

Does nobody like Virginia Woolf? I can't say I do, but I am surprised her name has not come up.

Technogeek would like to point out that italics (and all the MN emphasis] only works for a single word like Madame but not Madame Bovary.

That explains it about the italics then.

HF... if I'm very lucky I get to teach a bit of the Decameron. Always fun.

(NB I didn't mention that other chap whose name starts with a D... even though I am obsessed...!)

clerkKent, i'm a total woolfite - faves are the waves, orlando (i have 1st eds of these!) and i like the years a lot too.

but usually found reading C18th lit. these days.

ellbell, i'll add the italian ones to my 'one day' list, would love to get round to reading them!

Keep the Aspidistra Flying, is George Orwell on class, very good, and lots of relevance to the MN threads on private education.

Crime and Punishment is brilliant, has anyone mentioned it yet?

agree NN & others - pretty much any orwell does it for me!

elizabeth bowen - the house in paris.