Classic recomendations for my dad!

[Zebedeedoodah]

My dad has finally decided he wants to 'learn about literature', which means I've decided to give him Penguin classics for Christmas (well....he DID ask!). Nothing too challenging at this early stage mind you. So, any recommendations are welcome, provided it was written around or before 1900!

So far, I've decided on a Trollope and a Dickens, but I'm not sure on which titles. Any other suggestions for a man who's previous reading has been stuff like Graham Greene & GK Chesterton.

Have fun!

I love Barnaby Rudge or Tale of two cities

I thought The Book People did some 'classic collections' ... all I could find today was
audiobook set :
www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_10001_10051_55503_100_10015_10013_category _10013

• not a bad list anyway! (not that I've read them all myself)

well for high octane passion and death he could do worse than wuthering heights.

Isn't Chesterton literature?

What about:

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
A Handful of Dust and Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

(all early 20th century)

19thC

Madame Bovary
(I hate to say it but) Far From the Madding Crowd/Return of the Native/Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (HATE Hardy but lots of people love him)

18thC
Moll Flanders

Are you going to work backwards? - 19th c this time, then earlier? As I guess I would do it the other way round and pick very early stuff that is fun & work forwards in time.

(As parallel, I am currently working through this historical set, also from The Book People, and just loving it.)

Anyway, if you're doing 19th c., then for the Dickens give him Pickwick Papers, as it's a riot (unexpectedly); Trollope The Way We Live Now (as it's a stand-alone - most of the others are in series); and hey how about War and Peace? (Tolstoy is hefty but a surprisingly flowing read.)

Trollope: The Warden is a good one to start with as it's short. In fact, I'd start him on all short books (which woul dmean working backwards) as I find the longer ones v daunting and hard to finish (and I'm an English graduate)

I know it's miles later, but he might like to read The Outsider by Camus.
or Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh....

Not War and Peace! Anna Karenina far superior!

And all men love Madam Bovary, so he could have a good time comparing & contrasting those two.

You can't miss out George Eliot either. What about The Mill on the Floss? It is not so long, and has a really good plot - not quite so 'hard' as Middlemarch.

Poor guy is going to busy for years with this lot!

And remember to get some female novelists on the list...

Well, he's retired Lulu, what else is he going to do?

But thanks, and do keep going. So far I'm thinking of a selection of the following:
Great Expectations or Pickwick
The Warden
Crime & Punishment
Dorian Gray
Jude the Obscure or the Mayor of Casterbridge
The Great Gatsby
Heart of Darkness?

But what about the 17th and 18th Centuries, this is wayyy to Victorian!? I'm not sure how he'd deal with Moll Flanders or Madame Bovary, although the Scarlet Letter might do.

My mother has everything ever written by the Brontes & Jane Austen, so that's covered. I'm not sure he's ready for Middlemarch (my own favourite), and I can't stand Mill on the Floss. I always want to slap Maggie almost as much as I want to slap Cathy in Wuthering Heights. And I've never finished War & Peace, so I'm not sure that would be fair on the poor guy.

Dangerous Liaisons? Might be a bit unsuitable for a parent though

I loathed GE. Had to do it at achool. Put me off Dickens for life.

How can you not like The Mill on the Floss! Argh!

Anyway, I just had another thought. Do you know that series The New Pelican Guide to English Literature? It's a set of about 10 or so books of fairly general critical essays, arranged chronologically, so you could get hime the one for the right centuries to match the books. Some of the criticism might be a bit outdated, but I've always found them a good starting point for an area which you don't know anything about. They're similar to the essays at the front of Penguin classics.

Sorry for incoherent grammar and typos there ...

Chekhov - One of the short stories collection.
Andre Gide - Symphonie Pastorale and Straight is the Gate

EffieP - Lol at DL unsuitable for a parent! One of my fave books as a student - must re-read.
How about Tom Jones or Moll Flanders, The Decameron (hilarious), Tristram Shandy, Don Quixote, Vanity Fair, if Dickens then I'd start with 'A Tale of Two Cities' - ooh I'm just getting started now - will consult shelves & come back later

We're on a roll now! Fanny Hill just cropped up, but I think that might be even worse than Dangerous Liaisons!
My old dad's gonna regret asking.

And if we're gonna get really stuck in, what about the Romans, the Greeks and the Arab writers? Come on, it's Friday afternoon, what else do you have to do?!

Now I'm gonna have trouble whittling down.

Aha, if we're onto Greeks, there is Herodotus Histories that I read evey few years and is endless entertaining, especially Book 2 where he goes to Egypt. Also, there is a new paperback translation of the Odyssey by Simon Armitage which has the most accessible and lively narrative without dunbing down or traducing the plot. I bought it 'for DS1', but am secretly devouring it of an evening when he is in bed as he has a habit of nabbing his books before I get to to them if I am not careful.

I know The Warden is the shortest Trollope to start with but I think it is not the most immediately engaging. I would go for The Way we live now or the first of the Pallisers instead. The great thing is, if you get him hooked on Trollope and Dickens you are sorted for the next few years.

OK, will wheel out my non-novel recommendations:

Beowulf (Seamus Heaney transl)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight/Pearl/Sir Orfeo (usually in one vol, the modern Penguin version is good and I'd go for the Middle English edition with notes rather than a translation)
Medieval English Lyrics, ed T G Duncan (some cracking stuff here)
The Decameron
Canterbury Tales

Fantastic stuff! This is lots to be working with. I will, of course, publish the final list when I finally buy his 'canon of literature'!