Classics - what would you recommend to me?

[pippistrelle]

I've resolved to read more classics this year.

I'm currently reading 'Middlemarch' and finding it a slog. Towards the end of last year, I read 'Northanger Abbey' which I found okay.

They can be of the more modern variety so I also read some Maigret short stories and Dashiell Hammet's 'The Thin Man'. Maigret was okay, didn't much like the Hammet.

Classics I have enjoyed - ' A Tale of Two Cities', and I absolutely love 'The War of the Worlds'. And my all time favourite is 'I, Claudius'.

Based on that skeleton information, what else might I enjoy?

@pippistrelle

Other Defoe books worth a look:
Robinson Crusoe, lots of isms but a cracking read, fast paced and exciting.
Moll Flanders, similar caveats as above.

Do you think it was the study aspect that put you off? Or is that you have to understand deeply the history of the period to get the references?

Thanks @seashaken .

I think I had Robinson Crusoe as one of those presents from auntie but it would have been an abridged and, no doubt, bowdlerised children's version

I would definitely recommend Riceyman Steps because then you'll know if Bennett is for you.

I love Thomas Hardy - Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd

I’m currently listening to an Austen and Brontë collection. 220 hours!!

I would definitely recommend Riceyman Steps because then you'll know if Bennett is for you.

Thank you @CrossPurposes

Sorry, I thought I’d posted a reply and now can’t find it.

Just wasn’t my cup of tea, although it’s a long time ago so I can’t exactly remember why. It felt a bit knockabout for my tastes, just didn’t chime with me. Sorry, not much help.

No, that's fair enough @Ohpleeeease. And sometimes there isn't a significant reason beyond 'didn't like it'.

I love Hardy but Dickens bores me to tears. I genuinely think reading tastes are so interesting.

I always loved the start of Thomas Hardy, but was never keen by the end of them. Maybe I should try again. I used to have full access to the stock room when I was a student, so read many of the classics. Had my ED and her friend come stay where we live and she was also making her way through the classics. Was fun to talk about English Literature.

I'm really enjoying David Copperfield at the moment it's a long book but very readable. ..

Or for something short I recommend Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol and Trollopes Christmas at Thompson Hall. I enjoyed rereading both this Christmas

North and South is also brilliant and I can't believe I waited so long to read it. I have Cranford on my list of books to read this year

My favourite Arnold Bennett is The Card, it's so funny and charming.

The first 300 pages of Middlemarch are soooo boring. They’re setting the scene to make the scandalous events of the second half even more shocking!
North and South had me in tears several times and I’m hard as nails…
I’d recommend Bleak House by Dickens, more for the secondary characters than the main plot.

Yes! Tristram Shandy is brilliant and nuts!

The first 300 pages of Middlemarch are soooo boring

I feel vindicated for not loving it!

Can you tell me more? See, I sort of like the sound of that but worried it might be a bit 18th century Pratchett. I know that Pratchett has legions of fans but I'm not one of them. I always feel like his books are running around shouting at me or speaking in funny voices. I do think the black page is so inventive though. (That's the full extent of my knowledge of Tristram Shandy!)

Mary Barton is a shorter Gaskell. None of them are heavy going though. She also wrote ghost stories.

War and Peace, (probs just me but I found it much easier to keep track of who is who after watching the bbc adaptation and after that I adored the book)

Basically, Tristram Shandy is a country squire who wants to write his autobiography. He starts telling the story but keeps going off at a tangent about members of his family, servants, people he knows in the local area. His family are all pretty crackers (his uncle fought in a war), his parents squabble, his (Tristram) life was ruined by a series of mishaps. It's very funny.

The writer was a clergyman but it's stuffed full of double-entendre and jokes. It was very ahead of it's time.

I imagine you can get it for free on kindle. The film with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon is really good and a very valiant attempt to make it work as a film.

Jamaica Inn. Couldn’t put it down and I’m usually rubbish at finishing books!

Wilkie Collins. Start with The Moonstone and then The Woman in White.

As a Manc I recommend Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell

I don't like George Elliot or Thomas Hardy so with you there.

Love
Tender is the Night
Jamaica Inn
Pride and Prejudice
Woman in White (and then read Fingersmith)
Heart of Darkness
Death in Venice
Turn of the screw
A Town like Alice
Some of those are more novella size so get a good taste or author without needing too much commitment

At the opposite end of scale - Bleak House - ok it's massive and Dickens can be marmite but was my surprise hit of 2025 reading. Moved me to tears at times, plot that's still relevant for today, and has a case of spontaneous human combustion so everything covered 😂

All of Daphne du Maurier.