Recommend classics / traditional books please

[DawnChoral]

I‘m enjoying books again, and often follow up on recommendations from here, which are mainly contemporary. Can you help educate me on where to start with non-contemporary books?

I’ve read very few classic, traditional older books, and would like to do so this academic year. Anything from … Shakespeare perhaps … to 20th century must-reads. Where should I start?

preferences (not obligatory):
uplifting (at least, not depressing)
female authors (Austen? Brontë? Elliot?)
female characters
adventure, action, rural, outdoor, women with agency
Likely to be mostly fiction, but could be non-fiction.

I’ll listen to them as audiobooks (I walk a lot for health reasons) so bonus points for good audio editions. I mostly use the library apps, or free on Audible, but do have some Audible credits.

Thank you so much!

BBC Sounds have a great selection of audiobooks for free. And lots of classics. I’ve listened to:
Wuthering Heights
Frankenstein
Silas Marner
Kidnapped
War of the Worlds
The case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

There are lots of others on there too.
I’m currently listening to The Railway Children for all the nostalgia feels.

I’ve been trying to get back into the classics a bit this year and have really enjoyed the following

• Long but fast-paced adventures- The Count of Monte Christo, The Woman in White and The Iliad
• Loads of modern classics- some of these are short too so nice to put in between the big tomes- The great Gatsby, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Dubliners, The Metamorphosis (weird but thought provoking and funny at times), A Room with. View, The Bell Jar, The Remains of the Day (not sure if this is old enough to count as a classic)
• I’ve also found 3 favourite new authors whose full works I’ve now added to my tbr- Virginia Woolf (A Room of One’s Own, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse), John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, currently reading East of Eden) and Edith Wharton (Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence)

preferences (not obligatory):
uplifting (at least, not depressing)
female authors (Austen? Brontë? Elliot?)
female characters
adventure, action, rural, outdoor, women with agency
Likely to be mostly fiction, but could be non-fiction.
_
First one I thought of based on these preferences though it obv doesn't meet them all is The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. It's got lots of action and adventure and features one of the best female characters ever. It's a very exciting read.

Vanity Fair by William Thackeray. Becky Sharp has more agency than you could shake many sticks at. For a 19th Century novel it’s very readable.

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe - 18th Century and hilarious

Barchester Towers
David Copperfield (and then go on to read demon copperhead)

Any dickens narrated by Miriam margolyes is amazing, she does all the voices! I also look out for Martin Jarvis narrations.

@BaruFisher John Steinbeck is just great isn’t he. I read East of Eden about 18 months ago and I still think about the characters. It would make a great TV series.
I also finished Grapes of Wrath last week. So good!

@NigelTheCrab Glad to hear Grapes of Wrath is a good one- I have it on my tbr! Also have Sweet Thursday (the follow up to Cannery Row) is on my list. I find him full of heart. Love the books.

South Riding by Winifred Holtby is the first novel I thought of regarding women with agency. TV adaptation with Anna Maxwell Martin is very well done too.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. And Cranford.

I love Middlemarch; it's quite a marathon though.

YY to Vanity Fair and Trollope is excellent too. I worked my way through the Barchester Chronicles in lockdown. The first volume isn't the best, but as a whole they're great.

And of course Jane Austen, most definitely. P&P, S&S, Emma and Persuasion are my favourites.

I'd start with Jane Austen.

I second Vanity Fair. I personally love Trollope-worth a try.

One I loved was Anna Karenina. Not really uplifting though, sorry.

Vanity Fair, Villette, the Woman in White…and George Orwell’s 1984. Thomas Hardy can be good.

Oh, and remember there are a million books- if you don't like something, stop! You can always try again later- but reading's supposed to be an enjoyable thing to do. Don't slog on with something that's not for you. (Looking at you, Dickens!)

Middle March and Vanity Fair are two of my favourites. However I didn’t get into the books until Id seen the BBC tv series.

If you’re doing audiobooks, then the Juliet Stevenson versions of absolutely anything will be brilliant. I’m in a similar spot, working my way through the classics. All JS’s readings of Austen are brilliant. I’m half way through her version of Middlemarch at the moment and am completely blown away.

Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, and the Kings General by Daphne Du Maurier are all recent reads which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I’ve also recommended the Jenny Agutter reading of I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith to a couple of people who have all come back to rave about how much they enjoyed it.

My favourite classic novel is Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I'm sure all the Jane Austen novels are free on Audible. My favourite listens on Audible have been Endless Night and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie, both read by Hugh Fraser.

Echoing South Riding. A wonderful book.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall would meet your criteria, and is a terrific book.

And Rebecca! In fact, any du Maurier. I love My Cousin Rachel.

Anything by Diana Norman. Her female characters are full of agency and extremely modern and relatable without being anachronistic. She also wrote a medieval murder mystery series as Ariana Franklin about a young female doctor at the court of Henry II.

Another vote for Wilkie Collins, he writes fabulous female characters and they are great adventure stories with wicked villains. Great fun.

Of the great 19th century women Austen is very witty and the books are short love stories, George Elliot is the most realistic and psychologically complex, the Brontes are various degrees of romanticism. Anne the most realistic, Charlotte the most enjoyable and Emily the most bonkers. Oh, and I love Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South is probably her best, then Wives and Daughters.

For 20th century classics written by women then try the following:
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Color Purple
The Handmaids Tale
Nights at the Circus
South Riding
Orlando
Excellent Women
The Pursuit of Love
Half of a Yellow Sun
Nervous Conditions

In translation:
Kristen Lavransdatter
Alberta and Jacob
The Copenhagen Trilogy (3 novellas so short)
The Cost of Sugar
The House of the Spirits
Our Lady of the Nile

Couple of Memoirs:
Testament of Youth
Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea

Actually, The Copenhagen is 'autofiction' so a memoir really.

Oh my goodness what a cornucopia of wonderful suggestions. Thank you. I’ve only read a couple of these - I enjoyed Anna Karenina earlier this year inspired by the read-along thread here.

Based on frequency of recommendation, The Woman in White could be first and I’ll return (there are many years of reading here!).

Hardy is good? From GCSE studies I remember Mayor of Casterbridge starting miserable and going down from there!

thank you for your generosity with which you share your knowledge! should I “know” more about the books or can I just start and see where the story goes?

I would second Frankenstein.

Has Jane Eyre been mentioned yet?

If you liked Anna Karenina, try War and Peace. It's wonderful.

Dh, ds and I love classics, these are some of our favourite books with lesser known classical female authors:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Schaffer (not a classic but written like one)
Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy
Plum Bun - Jessie Redmon Faucet
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
The Colour Purple - Alice Walker