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?

Tess of the D’Urbervilles is my favourite classic. Followed by Wuthering Heights.

Harold Bloom is my go-to guide to the classics. Try some of his books.

I always resolved to read the classics until the BBC did a run down (some time ago) of the greatest 100 novels, voted by the public. I was actually shocked to find that the top ten seemed to be just stories about women being reliant on and ruined by men. Big swerve for me. Who needs those in their life…

Another vote for North and South. Helped me to understand more about industry / unions / ‘up north’ (as a non-native). Also, decent heroine. BBC adaptation is a bonus.
i wonder if you would like Ursula Le Guin?

I always resolved to read the classics until the BBC did a run down (some time ago) of the greatest 100 novels, voted by the public. I was actually shocked to find that the top ten seemed to be just stories about women being reliant on and ruined by men.

This Top Ten? Trying to think how 'women reliant on and ruined by men' applies to Winnie the Pooh....

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis

10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

I wouldn't take 'voted for by the public' as the final word on what is a classic.. Many people voting in those kind of polls don't seem to know anything outside their own memories of experience.

I see a few recommmendations of North and South. Is is a mammoth doorstop? After the commitment to Middlemarch, I'm not sure I'm quite ready immediately for another huge book.
It was a much easier read than I thought it was going to be. I flew through it.

I really like Dickens now I'm older; he's droll. Even the harrowing To2C made me laugh at some points and I also loved it. These are some classics I've particularly enjoyed:

The Moonstone & The Woman in White
In a Glass Darkly
Three Men in a Boat
Crime and Punishment (Audible with Will Poulter; think reading would be a slog)
Count of Monte Cristo (also Audible)
Jane Eyre
Agnes Grey
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Ovid's Metamorphoses
Dante's Inferno
All Jane Austen (but not Sandition; finished by a less talented relative)

Slightly more modern classics I've loved:
My Family and Other Animals
The Water of the Hills (Pagnol)
Watership Down

Oh gosh I forgot Ursula Le Guin. Yes her books are amazing; I completely forgot about them.

That's also reminded me of the Dark is Rising series and all the Anne of Green Gable books.

I'm going to have a go at North & South now Ive read all the recommendations - I love the BBC adaptation.

Forgot Bleak House too - that's a great Dickens' IMO.

I had that resolution too, but I have decided to focus on children's classics. So far I've read Little Women, The Secret Garden, Call of the Wild and Jungle Book. I plan to read The Neverending Story, The Hobbit, Narnia, some Laura Ingalls Wilder and Alice in Wonderland.

Thank you for all the recommendations.

A particular thanks to those who suggested I look at the Persephone imprint. I am very much enjoying looking through their list. And I am happily judging books by their covers as they are so beautiful.

Emile Zola - Germinal

Wuthering Heights, of course

Oh yes, and the free bookmarks! You can sign up to receive the catalogue through the post. I collect Persephone books.

Talking of children's classics, did anyone else hear Sarah Perry talking on R4 this morning and get a shock about her and the presenter's pronunciation of 'Brisingamen'?

I've always said it as 'Bri-ZIN-gamen' but they said 'Brising-AH-men'. It was mildly up there with SOW-ron rather than SAW-ron, and KELL-I-born rather than CELL-I-born after I read the Appendices of LOTR.

I've been through a bit of a French phase so another recommendation for Zola but also Flaubert and Maupassant are worth a look at.
EM Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady
Winifred Watson - Miss Pettigrew lives for a day
John Wyndham's Trouble with Lichen always seems to be overlooked.

I've always considered the Wind in the Willows to be a classic and had promised myself a re-read last year but never got around to it - this year

Are the Hobbit and LOTR considered classics yet?

@AtomHeartMotherOfGod I make up my own pronunciations for LOTR etc and didn't like the pronunciations in the films as they weren't what I had made up in my head,

When studying Return of the Native our lecturer was a bit shocked that I pronounced Wildeve as Wild eve it's apparently Will deve. My pronunciation is always off

.

This reminds me of Rowan Atkinson and "ah lee bee".

I read all Hemingway a few years back, The Old Man and the Sea is my favourite. I also love Russian lit, the Brontes, Daphne du Maurier. I am also partial to The Chalet Girls and The Moomins!

I liked Edith Wharton - very readable. Doris Lessing the Fifth Child is good.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

I love Guy du Maupassant. Some of his stories are very witty, and one of his novels, Bel Ami, is one of my favourite books. Easy to read.

Definitely Persephone - I love their books.

You sound as though you'll probably like the gothic/ghost story genre most so I'd definitely second Turn of the Screw and I don't think anyone has mentioned Charlotte Perkins Gillman's short story, The Yellow Wallpaper (two eerie, psychological ones there). One of my favourite books of all time is Frankenstein

For more modern classics Margaret Atwood is always a good shout and Toni Morrison's Beloved blew me away in my first year at university. If you read/have read Jane Eyre maybe follow it up with Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea.

Did anyone here listen to the first episode of Gone with the Wind on R4 yesterday?

I’d recommend The tenant of wildfell hall and Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell.