Gripping classic to take on holiday! please i need ideas..

[McCloudismynewnameforawhile]

Something that is clever without being too intellectual.

hardy is for cold nights by the fire when you've got a stretch of time ahead of you, imo

The Plague by Camus (re-reading it now in light of Swine Flu events)
One Flew over the cuckoos nest.

wide sargasso sea

How about The Wind Up Bird Chronicle (Murakami) or A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers)?

The Nancy Mitford novels are great but have you read Gone with the Wind? Politics are dubious but it's a fab book.

I often take Northanger Abbey with me on holiday if I want a 'classic' read but not anything that's going to feel like too much hard work . If that doesn't make me sound too stupid!

Think it definitely needs to be raining if you're going to read Hardy!

I love Antonia White - Frost in May, Beyond the Glass, the Sugar House, The Lost traveller - about a girl sent to catholic boarding school and her life later on - before she goes mad....soooooo fabulous although I'm aware I'm not really selling them....luckily that career in publishing PR took a different turn...

"Something that is clever without being too intellectual"
Emma of course. Delicious characters and a satisfactory ending.

ooh yes, read The Plague, loved that book

The Outsider also vv good

Northanger Abbey would be perfect.

For Hardy you need to be fifteen and full of the self-indulgence of an indie teenager, I think. It goes so well with The Smiths, growing one's fringe and wearing head to toe black methinks.

Have never appreciated it again anywhere near as much as I did when going through the above phase.

PortoPandemico- Two lives by Vikram Seth. I am reading it now and loving it.

I really love Alexander McCall Smith to take on holiday- such easy reading

I forgot Trollope! Although they are series the novels stand alone

The Eustace Diamonds is my favorite of the Pallisers - a really minxy heroine!

Also one of the Barchester novels A Small House in Allington. Again a really strong heroine and quite an unconventional storyline too (don't want to spoil it)

Also, I love all A.S. Byatt's books. Possession is a cracking read and she just has a new one out.

I adored the Antonia White books too...

Rite of passage by William Golding.

Forever Amber - interesting historically and a ripping good yarn to boot

Fingersmith: agree it's gripping and a great holiday read

Poisonwood Bible: fantastic, but you might as well rip out the last quarter because it takes a turn downhill which is a shame

Barbara Pym novels: I think they've just been reissued; I've read Excellent Women several times

whoops, just read title of thread properly. Barbara Pym novels, although great, are not 'gripping' as such.

Repeat Fingersmith for truly gripping read. Not her other novels though.

Alias grace so miserable..

You felt so strongly you had to resurrect 16 year old post nobody would have ever read again otherwise? 😄

Tom Jones
Moll Flanders
Persuasion (everybody reads Emma and P&P, but not this)
Middlemarch
Vanity Fair
Dorian Gray
Jane Eyre
Return of the Native
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Parade’s End (a forgotten masterpiece)
Women in Love (most critics would say this is Lawrence’s masterpiece, not Sons and Lovers)
Dubliners
Lord of the Flies
Horel du Lac
Mrs Dalloway (much more enjoyable than To the Lighthouse)

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier - gripping, intriguing, gothic - it's brilliant!