So - help me with a classic novel

[happystory]

I vowed I'd read a classic novel this year and I've failed miserably. And now it's near the end of November. Please recommend something to me, American, English, I don't mind but not a massive tome you could use for a doorstop!

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth.

I loathed, 'The Remains of the Day'! Steinbeck being depressing is sort of the point.

Happy Anything you fancy yet?

Austen is a genius and I highly recommend hers, but I'm not sure you should launch straight in, based on your comments so far. I have friends who got into the books once they'd seen some of the films, so had a sort of 'security blanket' into them. Maybe worth a try?

Right OP says she has vowed to read a 'classic novel' this year. I say 'Pride and Prejudice'. What do you say?

I hate reading about toffs and much prefer the ordinary man so I would recommend the grapes of wrath, to kill a mocking bird or the color purple
Animal farm or Lord of the flies are also on my list

I love Austen and one of my favourite books ever is pride and prejudice. I first read on holiday and laughed out loud on the beach!

At this time of year though, surely it has to be 'a Christmas carol'?

Maya Angelou could do no wrong in my eyes, beautiful writer as are Toni Morrison and Alice Walker.

If you're raging at the Tories George Orwell could either be a great idea or make you more angry. Likewise 'To kill a mockingbird' if racism infuriates you.

Sorry I could get so carried away with this. For something quick but not a book there's Jonathan Swifts modest proposal (which seems to be Cameron's fucking template!)

Avoid Catch 22 like the plague.
Awful, pointless book.

Agreed that Malory Towers (EB) are classics. Love them.

The Great Gatsby
Great Expectations
Portrait of a Lady
Jude the Obscure (depressing but excellent)

What about John Le Carre just to put the fly into the ointment? Or dare I mention Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.

To Kill A Mockingbird, obviously!

oh yes, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is brilliant

Diary of a Nobody
Lucky Jim
Decline and Fall
The Woman in White

Even lit scholars can't agree on which are canonical texts.

Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle also excellent.

Baconyum It is wonderful that you laughed out loud.
'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.'
Any book that starts with that line is going to be funny, even more so in the time it was written.

Can I make a suggestion- I've found audiobooks a brilliant way to start 'reading' the classics- try that! (I just can't concentrate on physical reading for long, and find that I can get on with other stuff while listening too).

I've now listened to most of what Dickens wrote, all of Jane Austen, some Anthony Trollope and am getting through Moby Dick at present.

It's amazing what you can download from your local library too- I was able to listen to a lot for free.

My favourite so far has been Martin Jarvis reading David Coppperfield, and Hard Times. Brilliant stuff.

Conrad? Heart of Darkness is short and easy to read. Henry James - The Turn of the Screw. Faulkner - not The Sound and the Fury (I hated that) but Light in August is powerful and beautiful.

A day in the life of Ivan denisovitch. Short, classic.
The stranger, Camus. Ditto
Strait is the gate, Gide. Ditto

Short stories, Maupassant.
Uncle Silas le Fanu. Scary.

The woodlanders hardy. Touching
Mrs Dalloway Woolf

David Copperfield
A tale of two cities
Great expectations

Cold comfort farm

I second Cold Comfort Farm. Short and funny.
Any Austen is awesome.

I wouldn't call heart of darkness an easy read! Any more than James Joyce! (Except Dubliners maybe)

Elephantoverthehill it was actually the scene with Darcy/fireplace (so as not to give spoilers)

Another vote for Cold Comfort - it's my go-to comfort reading, and has been since I was given a copy for my 12th birthday: I didn't know all the stuff about being a take-off of books like Precious Bane, but just loved it from the first read.

I personally can't bear Jane Austen - to me, it's just better written chick lit (which I also can't bear: something about the happy endings, I think...). But if you're not in the mood for gentle humour and Something Nasty in the Woodshed, how about Dorian Gray? Or as someone said above, Ivan Denisovich? Or - off the wall a little here - Three Men in a Boat?

You like American fiction, so I recommend "Their eyes Were Watching God", truly great, moving, insightful, well written, unlike anything else, short, easy to read.

Also, this is obvious, but have you read Huck Finn- a wonderful book that lots of people haven't actually read.

Edith Wharton - The House of Mirth or The Age of Innocence

Graham Greene - Our Man in Havana ( just brilliantly funny) or The Quiet American

Waugh - any, except I found Brideshead slow

Dickens - Hard Times. Shorter than a lot of the others but really resonates with our age of austerity.

Stoner is a wonderful book...

I am allergic to bonnetry and poor people going up chimneys and then dying of consumption but I love:

Graham Greene- The Power and the Glory (actually, most GG)
DH Lawrence- Lady Chatterley (all TV versions are ultimately Sunday evening romcoms, the book is fabulous)
EM Forster
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Thomas Hardy (the most bonnet-y on my list, but surprisingly easy to get into)

I continually attempt to get into bonnets (am yawning my way through Middlemarch (again) at the moment)

Supporting Cold Comfort Farm and a Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

I am reading to kill a mocking bird now. Its not like anything else I have read.