Classics virgin. Help please!

[Posey]

Am an avid reader, read some stuff thats actually quite a challenge so not just a chick-lit reader (though not averse to a bit of easy reading!)
But am embarrassed to say I have only read some bits of classic books that I had to at school
Think its time I bit the bullet and gave some a try. Can I have your recommendations please for a good first time classic.

Madame Bovary is wonderfully fab. I also love Room with a View, Candide, Three Men in a Boat, Diary of a Nobody (the last 3 are very funny), Jude the Obscure, Wuthering Heights, any Jane Austen but Pride and Prejudice is always great, Great Expectations, 1984, Brave New World.

How about some modern classics as well, such as Catcher in the Rye, Clockwork Orange, Lolita, The Sea, The Sea or A Prayer for Owen Meany?

Blimey - I feel a lot better reading your list, as I have read 5 of them!!
I guess I was thinking along the lines of Bronte/Austen/Dickens.
You reckon Pride and Prejudice?

BTW like the new name!

Oh Posey I don't like it (the name that is) -I may start a thread pouting.

Well, definitely try Great Expectations, it is very funny and exciting and has some unforgettable characters. I don't rate the Brontes that much except Jane Eyre, which is marvellous - very sexy and thrilling. Any Jane Austen is good, really - just pick the one you like the blurb for.

And choose a Thomas Hardy if you haven't read any - 'Jude' is so insanely dramatic that I adore it, but maybe one of the others to break you in gently?

'Little Women' by Louise May Alcott may be a good place to start.

I love Charles Dickens, and 'Nicholas Nickleby' in particular.

Also 'Middlemarch' by George Eliot.

And 'The Ice Palace' and 'The Great Gatsby' by F.Scott Fitzgerald.

Not so keen on Thomas Hardy, but did enjoy 'Far from the Madding Crowd'.

Ooh have read Little Women too!
Thanks for all the suggestions, really helpful.

I second all the books already listed, esp lolita, madame bovary and jane eyre. what about some graham greene? and pg woodehouse (jeeves and wooster) for some lighthearted classics?
and when you feel ready there's also anna karenina......

I second all the books already listed, esp lolita, madame bovary and jane eyre. what about some graham greene? and pg woodehouse (jeeves and wooster) for some lighthearted classics?
and when you feel ready there's also anna karenina......

Also The History Man, Cold Comfort Farm, Lorna Doone. Some of George Orwell's stuff wasn't bad either.

down and out in paris and london by george orwell was interestin
Hard times by dickens

This is good, you keep mentioning books I have read. But enjoying the new suggestions. Thank you!

something like Lady Audley's Secret - a Victorian page-turner, available in those 99p Wordsworth editions?
Dracula?
Woolf's Orlando is v charming.
AS Byatt - Possession, for a modern one.
Everyone should read 1984.

I hate hate hate Madame Bovary though.

Lady Audley's secret sounds like something I'd love to read

oh, why did you hate MB?

What sort of non classics do you go for - there's such a rnge, it would be good to know the sort of themes you like before making a recommendation.

Jacksma - I read a huge range of stuff, really difficult to categorise.
Anyway am off to Borders when ds goes to nursery this afternoon for a browse, armed with recomendations.

Brideshead Revisited

How about Frankenstein, in keeping with the Halloween theme?

I love Pride & Prej, Sense & Sensibility and Jane Eyre. Other good ones are The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte and The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.

As you can see I prefer lady authors!! I personally find Dickens and Hardy a bit heavy-going.

have fun at the bookshop... I wish I could do the same...

quirky Halloween reading 'Classic' stylie: why not try some original Gothick lit like The Castle of Otranto (Walpole?! was it?!) or Vathek (Beckford) They are a bit silly but fun and then the spoof of Gothick novels of course Jane Austens Northanger Abbey.
I would also recommend Wilde's Portrait of Dorian Grey, it really is a fantastic book.
And I like Moby Dick but it is a bit long... and who has time for such long long books these days?

Try as many Austens as you can - one of them will be you (I know P an P is supposed to be the best but I secretly prefer Emma...). Wuthering Heights of course. If you didn't read it at school, then Lord of the Flies / Of mice and men / To kill a mockingbird. Also some modern classics? - Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison well worth it. Why not try some plays? ( know you're supposed to see them but it you never go out (like me...) then how about Waiting for Godot and Glengarry Glen Ross? They'll keep you stumped for ages. Hard Times a great intro to Dickens. Enjoy!

PS - F and Z - you didn't suggest F and Z!! Why? It's a corker!

One of my favoutite books of all time is Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Anything by Thomas Hardy is good too.

I am not a big fan of Dickens but Jane Austen rocks

My favourite Austens are Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion. Both have the trademark irony to laugh with, but you really get a sense thruough both of these of the limitations of being a woman and living in those times. Rich husband anyone...?
Also love Vikram Seth "A suitable Boy" a HUGE book to take on a holiday with you!

Agree with loads of these - also other Evelyn Waughs - my favourite is The Loved One. If you fancy something a bit more off the wall, Mervyn Peak's Gormenghast trilogy is fab.

Agnes Grey by anne bronte is the best bronte book to my mind. Tend to prefer more modern, ususally latin american, things though school really put me off classics.

If you wanted to try something from an earlier period, I would recommend Daniel Defoe, Laurence Sterne, John Cleland.

The Penguin site is good for a browse.

Irene Nemirovsky's Suite francaise, it's just been published, she wrote it in the early 40s (she then died in Auschwitz). I loved it, and definetely think it's a classic.