2022 year of classics

[stiltonandcrackers]

I normally read historical fiction or just contemporary fiction and the odd biography. But there are so many classics that I both want to read and feel I should.

I have lined up Little Women to start with.
Dracula, The brothers Karamazov, Wuthering Heights and Anna Karenina.

Any suggestions of classics that you have loved?

My favourite classics are:
Emma, Jane Austen
War and Peace - Tolstoy
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
1984 - Orwell
Vanity Fair - Thackeray
A hero of our time - Lermontov
Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald (recent re-read and enjoyed it much more than Gatsby)
Evelyn Waugh - Scoop, A handful of dust
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hardy - Tess of d'Urbervilles and Mayor of Castorbridge
Joseph Conrad - The Secret Agent

I'm reading Dickens this year

You certainly get a lot of words to the penny.
Glad to see Janina mentioning Tristram Shandy as that's one I hope to read. I'd like to visit Shandy Hall at some point. I've also downloaded some Trollope.

Recs - my favorite Bronte is Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Jane Austen and Wilkie Collins are enjoyable. And for a bit of Victorian melodrama, frowned on its day but rendered respectable by time, Lady Audley's Secret and East Lynn are fun and may lead you to swoon on your chaise longue.

Animal Farm is good. Also Emma, most Austen is good.

The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men I also like.

If you like the Russian novels, try Dead Souls by Gogol, and The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov (which was mentioned earlier).

Buddenbrookes by Thomas Mann is fantastic too.

How are we defining classic?

I have made a real effort on this in the last few years and have learnt so much about society!

I have also learnt I am never going to like Austen...

For me, the revelation was Elizabeth Gaskell- very readable. I also read Frankenstein and Dracula. My Scottish education meant I hadn't read some school 'standards' such as Shelley and Dickens. I also really liked Adam Bede.

Of the Dickenses I have read , my faves were David Copperfield which is now one of my favourite books , and Bleak House.

War and Peace is actually great, but needs breaking up. There is a readalong thread.

Managed to start reading again properly after making myself re learn to concentrate last year.

Am woefully under read on classics, so really enjoying all the suggestions here.

The two I know I have on my shelves are:
Evelyn Waugh - Scoop
Hardy - Far From The Madding Crowd

So I’ll probably start there.

Anyone have any opinions about Ayn Rand? I have a couple of hers too, I guess they count?

I've read atlas shrugged which had some good bits and a lot of wordy dross. I read it for book group and it was really interesting thinking about my own preconceptions about Ayn Rand.

I'm going to try and read a few more classics - I've read W&P, Anna Karenina and the Master and Margarita, all the Jane Austen's and the Brontes but haven't read anything requiring effort since February 2020.

I never got on with either dickens or hardy and Eliot wasn't in the A level syllabus! Which would be the best starting point - Eliot / Hardy/ dickens?

Pigling if you weren't keen on Hardy or Dickens, definitely give George Eliot a go. Like Mrs Gaskell she's less wordy and has more of a straightforward storytelling style. Her character development is excellent.

I love Middlemarch; it's quite a chunky read but some great characters. The Mill on the Floss would be a shorter one to start with but I'd really advise giving Middlemarch a go at some point.

Piggy I agree about Mrs Gaskell. North and South is excellent. I have Cranford waiting to be read this year and looking forward to that.

I had a Scottish education too, and no Shelley, Yeats etc, although we did read Bleak House in SYS studies. Once you got past the interminable start (read aloud by our very boring teacher in a monotone until pupils were flinging themselves out of the windows) it was a great book.

Did you read Sunset Song at school? That seemed to be the law for every pupil in Scotland, in my day anyway. My nephew recently chose it for his English-speaking book group in Krakow, mostly made up of Polish and German people - they found the language quite a challenge!
I have A Scots Quair that I picked up in a second-hand bookshop recently. I wonder if it'll stand the test of time ...

Yes, I did Sunset Song! Loved it! I may reread one day. We also did Burns and House With The Green Shutters. Hardy was my SYS - we did 4 of his novels. Never sure if that was my school being weird. I always saw that as a difference between A Level and SYS.

By Shelley, I meant Mary (although we also didn't do PB apart from a dash of Ozymandias) . I did do English at an English uni and did feel a bit fish out of water when I started.

I’m not sure how we define a Classic. My suggestion is that it’s up to personal judgement to some degree. Some are clearly obvious cannon. I think it gets less obvious once you get into modern classics. I suspect a traditional approach would also perhaps leave out lots of non-European work (maybe?) except for very obvious writers perhaps like Garcia Marquez.

@StColumbofNavron I agree it's personal judgment. For me the whole notion of having a year of classics for me came from all the reading I did last year about Russia, fiction and non fiction. I became somewhat obsessed with the country and its history. So my starting point was Russian classics. Then on holiday in Yorkshire this year we went to past the Brontes house and the setting for Wuthering Heights so added some Bronte to my list. For me it's about traditional classics rather than modern classics where the definition gets a bit murkier. However, having said that I do want to read One hundred years of solitude. This is probably a modern classic.

I got myself a copy of Anna Karenina yesterday and started reading Little Women. Only to chapter 3, finding it quite hard to get into but will persevere! It's probably a bizarre starting book. My only reason for choosing it was my love for the movie, as in the the 1949 version. As a child I loved that movie and have had the book gathering dust for years!

@highlandcoo thanks very much! I loved Cranford so will give Mill on the Floss a go and hope it fills me with enthusiasm for Middlemarch! Good to have a project for the new year

@stiltonandcrackers you and I are going to get on like a house on fire, I am utterly obsessed with Russian history and literature.

Just finished Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. It was ok?? Read more like a YA book

[quote StColumbofNavron]@stiltonandcrackers you and I are going to get on like a house on fire, I am utterly obsessed with Russian history and literature.[/quote]
It's a fascinating country isn't it?

What are you planning on reading next? I'm just really starting my journey with Russian classics.

I’m slowly working my way through a volume of Chekhov’s short stories. I’ve read Anna Karenina this year and War and Peace last year, although I’m re-reading with the thread here.

I’ve also read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin which is said to be the inspiration for 1984 and The Foundation Pit by Andrei Platonov, which is fab. Also One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Those are all post revolution though, oh and Doctor Zchivago.

I’ve read some non-fiction; The Romanovs by Sebag Montefiore, A People’s Tradegy and The Whisperers by Orlando Figes; The Russian Revolution by Sheila Fitzpatrick and The Gulag by Anne Applebaum. I read some of the bios of poets and stuff who were victims of Stalin too. I studied as an adult which is how I came to read these.

I’m planning for a Rasputin bio and Natasha’s Dance this year as non-fiction and Crime and Punishment as my fiction.

Probably already been mentioned, but Crime and Punishment is my favourite classic, followed by David Copperfield.

I also have a soft spot for Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

I have just finished Rebecca and can't recommend that enough. The writing is just so exquisitely beautiful.

Thanks for the reply on Ayn Rand Pigling, I’ve also just found The Master and Margarita on the shelf, as well as Love In the Time Of Cholera. So I’ve got a few to get started with!

Throwing in a potential “modern classic” Heartburn by Nora Effron…?

That takes my list to:
1/ The Master and the Margarita
2/ Love In The Time Of Cholera
3/ Far From The Madding Crowd
4/ Scoop
5/ The Fountainhead

Not necessarily in that order…

So many others people are recommending here that I’d also like to try!

Hello! I am aiming for 26 books again - read 31 this year - and I think I'm going to use these prompts:

elifthereader.com/reading-projects/reading-challenge-2022/

Not keen on Hardy or Jane Austen. I've tried and tried to read Pride and Prejudice but just find myself drifting off.
Cold Comfort Farm - loved
A day in the life of Ivan Denisovich - ok
The Road to Wigan Pier - loved
TKAM - over rated
Grapes of Wrath - loved

My list to read in 2022
Vanity Fayre
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
The only George Orwell I haven't read is Homage to Catalonia and I have it on my TBR.
Jane Eyre

I listened to sitting with the classics podcast on Spotify so listened to:

Persuasion
Jane eyre
Great expectations
Now on Frankenstein but found a different recording as I didn't like the sitting with the classics version.

The analysis at the end is interesting.

I also reread the French Lieutenants Woman which is more modern classic.

I'm going to listen to the rest of Austen on audible. I quite like audio books for classics I've already read. I can listen when I'm too tired.

I also fancy books mentioned here: Anna Karenina and The Count of Monte Cristo

Ooh I also fancy making my way through Gabriel Garcia Marquez. My faves are:

100 years of solitude
Chronicles of a death foretold
Love in a time of cholera