Right-I'm sick of Booker shortlist fiction-so help me, post your all time favourite work of classic fiction

[DarrellRivers]

Ann Enright finished me off finally with the dross that is called 'The Gathering'
So I decided to start reading some more classic works of fiction.
Am currently reading Nana by Zola, it's great [bit suprised]

At least these people seem to be able to write cracking tales (and not just emotional vomit)
I think I read most classic works of fiction when I was a teenager -ie Jane Austen, when I was too young to appreciate anything about life.

So post what should i read next, and what you loved about it.I think anything published in last 20 years should not be allowed but exceptions may be permitted.

I'll read it if you wish ahundred, just to please you

hurrumph.....

Ooh I forgot about evelyn Waugh. i like Deline and Fall and also A handful of Dust

Love Madame Bovary, have read it about 5 times, incl for A level & degree French.

A couple of modern authors I like - Kazuo Ishiguro (Remains of the Day, The Unconsoled, Pale View of Hills) and Arundhati Roy (God of Small Things)

Dickens Tale of Two Cities

And anything by John Irving if I want something "easy", I love A Prayer for Owen Meany!

100x sorry, I had already added it in my mind to the imaginary list, but had not online.
Middlemarch it is

Aha, He who wrote Crime and Punishement, will add

My new year resolution is to read some Dickens - I have been 'bouncing off the surface" since I was a teenager!

I'm currently reading Dombey and Son - cheating really because I recently heard some of it on the radio - but I'm really enjoying it. Much easier, faster reading than I expected.

I think Mill on the Floss is just SLIGHTLY bettet than Middlemarch.

and Les Miserables, (is it a little depressing as a tale)
mind you, a lot of great reads do tend to be dramatic and end messily

Brideshead Revisited is wonderful!

And, of course, In the Fourth at Malory Towers.........

amazonianwoman - I sgree totally about John Irving. A Prayer for Owen Meany is my favourite too. I liked When We Were Orphans by Ishiguro but tried the most recent one (name escapes me now) but couldn't get into it.

Definitely agree re Vanity Fair. Also love Middlemarch...

I would try trawling through Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead Revisited, perhaps) and Muriel Spark (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, perhaps) - three of my favourites.

[frowns at Seeker, shakes head]

Why oh why are there SO many votes for Evelyn Waugh?

Marina, The Honours Board, I remember reading that as a teenager.
I think it was quite a racy read for me (although nothing in comparison to Lace/ or Jilly Cooper)
I do have a liking for Mrs Gaskell, romantic type of stuff

Why oh why shouldn't there be so many votes for Waugh?

...

Loved Narnia until I realized at the age of about 15 that it was concealed propaganda. And anti-woman. Never forgave CS Lewis.

There's romance in Middlemarch, and oh so much more.

[dogged]

You don't like EW, ahundred? I remember loving Scoop, recommending it to one of my best friend and he hated it!

A prayer for Owen Meany is one of my favourite books of all times.
John Irving makes me laugh out loud
If i had to compile a top 10 of books that would be the first on it, and then , I don't know how i would ever compile the rest

I just think its surprising.

I mean [grand gesture] I suppose he's a good stylist, a man of his time and witty and mean, but I wouldn't put him in a list with Dostoevsky, Eliot, Hugo and Dickens.

Detention for you Seeker and Psychomum5 , EnidBlyton is definitely not allowed on the list