Best classics

[Arcadia]

I am doing the 50 book challenge this year and as I am on track, but largely contemporary stuff, I now want to incorporate a couple of 'classics'. I want books that are not too long, and don't want to feel like it is 'hard work' ploughing through for the sake of it. Any recommendations?

I enjoyed ''Frankenstein'', '' Animal Farm'' and ''Hound of the Baskervilles'', all good and relatively short.

Of Mice and Men is very short!

Animal Farm is a good suggestion. I like Jane Eyre and heard The Moonstone is good.

Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - RL Stevenson
The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Time Machine H G Wells
Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
Good Morning Midnight - Jean Rhys
The Lifted Veil - George Eliot
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

All great books, all short.

Jayne Austin (any but Emma my favourite); The Hobbit; My Cousin Rachel or Rebecca (Daphne duMaurier). Grapes of Wrath.

Rebecca is a gripping modern classic

Oh yes - Rebecca is good. I enjoyed Jamaica Inn too.

Pretty much any HG Wells - his writing style is very readable and his books aren't too long. Ditto John Wyndham (The Day of the Triffids is superb).

Pride and Prejudice is also quite an easy classic and very enjoyable.

It depends on your taste really though, I find Dickens very hard work. Even though I often enjoy the story, the effort required takes away from that.

Second Frankenstein , animal farm and of mice and men
Also
The old man and the sea
The awakening
Catcher in the rye
Robinson Crusoe
Gulliver's travels

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. Under 200 pages and an entertaining read - well...I think so!
Anything by Jane Austen, particularly Persuasion.

I'll second Cranford, a real page turner, thoroughly enjoyed it.

I also love most Daphne du Maurier and John Wydham, don't know whether I would class them as proper classics as they are very easy reads!

Thanks all, will work my way through some of those. Even better if free to download on the kindle. I was tempted to try the old Sherlock Holmes one. I may also revisit a jane Austen, and I haven't heard of that George Elliot one. Will also revisit of mice and men. I read a lot of classics when I was younger but am sure I would get more out of them as an adult with a different perspective.

Are you getting these in libraries/ kindles/:amazon?

A mixture wizzywig, also charity shops and what friends and relatives have lying around.

Just tried googling this. Its not the michael gove 50 books a year thing is it?

A Room with a View

The Grapes of Wrath

Animal Farm

I'd recommend Rebecca - I just re-read it.

If you listen to Audible books - try Dickens from there, but there are usually several versions, read the narrator reviews

I've re-read some children's classics recently -Treasure Island, The Secret Garden

Les Liaisons dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos is bloody great. Sex, lies, betrayal and intrigue - Fab

I recently saw 1984 in the theatre. Read it years ago and had forgotten how brilliant and utterly terrifying it is.

Please do not mention he who shall not be named in my thread wizzywig no nothing to do with the government! it is actually a goodreads thing and there are threads on here about the books people are reading for it.

I'm not a reader but I managed pride and prejudice easily.

Don't know if this counts but stepford wives is very short and can be finished in 2 hours.

Stepford wives looks good - might try downloading that! Has anyone read day of the triffids?

Apologies arcadia

I suggested Triffids upthread, OP. It is a masterpiece.

Thanks evilgiraffe