"I’m halfway through The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas & loving it.Mary Barton by Mrs Gaskell has vivid characters and is a real page turner."
"George Orwells novels are good, particularly 1984 and Animal Farm, but I really enjoyed Down and Out in London and Paris, describing his early life working in Parisienne restaurant kitchens, then coming back to live with the poorest in society in London.I also enjoy Thomas Hardy books. Tess if the D'Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd and Jude the Obscure all set in one of my favourite parts of the UK."
"Pride and Prejudice is also my comfort book"
"Little women - I love it, and any TV/film adaptation"
"The Iliad and the Odyssey.All of human desires, foibles, pains, joys, cruelties and kindnesses are contained therein.They will change your life.Read The Odyssey first as it's easier to get into than the Iliad.Use the new Emily Wilson translations."
"Jane EyreThe Mill on the FlossAnne of Green GablesA Christmas Carol"
"Because reading is so subjective, I can go out on a limb.Wuthering Heights is in my opinion the most self indulgent pile of pitiful wank ever written. There. I've said it. (Although it does have a redeeming feature in that it gave rise to one of the most brilliant songs ever.)Dickens is tricky because he's so long winded. Great romping stories though, and the more popular ones are referenced frequently.Balzac was a great writer, often churning out books practically overnight to pay off his debts. Daphne du Maurier and John Wyndham were also superb for both storytelling and writing style and Jane Eyre is and will always be wonderful. For modern classics, anything by Penelope Lively is worth a read. Oh and Brave New World.Great thread. Always lovely to have an excuse to talk books instead of do work..."
"Frankenstein - I love that book and Jane Eyre"
"Flowers for AlgernonThe Reader"
"Agree with a lot of the comments above.I recently read Gulliver's Travels (for the first time( and really enjoyed it. Well written, very entertaining, and contains some surprisingly pertinent observations.Also add Bulgakov's Master and Margarita as a great read.Interested to see several people mention John Wyndham - I really like his novels and short stories but are they really 'great books' or 'classics'? Not sure I think of them in that way."
"To Kill a MockingbirdRebecca1984Lord of the FliesThe only "classics" I have ever enjoyed. Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion bored me to tears."
"MiddlemarchNorth and South"
"The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver (I know it doesn’t always get listed on the more traditional great literature lists).In Cold Blood, Truman Capote"
"I love Moby Dick. It manages to be both about nineteenth century whaling - you can almost taste the salty air - and the human condition. I’m usually quite severe on books with no female characters but this is so absorbing and all-encompassing that it doesn’t seem to matter.I know this is quite a niche view! - and I wonder if people who don’t like it are expecting a rollicking yarn and are disappointed to find it’s more meditative and descriptive."
"Lessons in chemistry is one of my all time Favourites."
"War and Peace!Honestly, if you enjoyed Anna Karenina you will enjoy W&P. It is long but it is really enjoyable and has unforgettable characters.If it helps, there is a Substack called Footnotes and Tangents that does a read along and is full of notes.Actually, how could I forget, there was also a Mumsnet read along thread that you can still access!"
"Draculadr Jekyll and mr Hydethe Scarlet letterH.G Wells- the invisible man, the war of the worlds, the Time Machineenjoyable in their own right, but also all of the above have had an enormous impact on horror/sci fi in all forms across the world."
"Machiavelli the prince"
"Great Expectations has wonderful characterisation and some excellent set pieces.Persuasion is truly romantic.Candide is very funny.Lolita is a fabulous piece of characterisation through voice. So clever (“Picnic, lightning.”).Northanger Abbey is a cracking p**stake.Cold Comfort Farm is hilarious satire.Middlemarch is very dense and involving."
"The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald is almost perfect. Or as close to perfect as any book I’ve ever read.Anything by Camus is wonderful but the First Man, his unfinished novel is just sublime."
"Vanity Fair - my all-time favourite book"
"Donna Tartt is right up there too imho. See The Secret History and Goldfinch.yy to these lists. They didn’t get to be classics because they’re rubbish.Virginia Wolf, Jane Austen & George Elliott are my comfort reads.There’s loads of humour in Middlemarch. It’s a brilliant piece of work."
"All the Brontes and Austen. Dickens too, although he goes on a bit."
"Anthony Trollope is very readable for a 19th century novelist, The Palliser novels, Barchester Chronicles, and also The Way We Live Now and He Knew He Was Right.Also Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence is great."
"Germinal by Emile ZolaI also thought like others East of Eden was phenomenal."
"I enjoy a lot of classic novels, but I often think ones that were considered a bit trashy/risque in their day can be more fun for a modern reader:The MonkDangerous LiaisonsLady Audley's SecretFanny HillDraculaOF more modern classics, I love Stefan Zweig (Chess, Impatience of the Heart), Nabokov (especially Pale Fire), Orwell (perhaps avoid A Clergyman's Daughter), and one of my favourite novels ever is The Name of the Rose."
"I liked The Catcher in the RyeWolf Hall was good but dense going."
"Bleak House, DickensThe Gree Mile, Stephen KingA Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony PowellThe Quincunx, Charles Palliser"
"Oh, mustn’t forget G K Chesterton, Father Brown."
"I sometimes think when reading 19th-century literature that the author really needed a good editor who would take their blue pencil to whole pages, if not chapter! Dickens, Tolstoy...Having said that, "A Tale of Two Cities" is gripping once they actually get to France (the first third is a bit slow and turgid).A great alternative to Dickens, and much underrated in my opinion, is "The Odd Women" by George Gissing."
"A Suitable Boy by Virkram SethI Capture the Castle by Dodie SmithIn the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco"
"Tess of the D'UrbervillesWuthering HeightsThe Woman in WhiteMadame Bovary"
"The Raj Quartet - Paul Scott."
"Ulysses - a truly life changing read. I'm obsessed."
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Lmao. probably in cursive to resemble the word "hell"
Those 'hardcore pussies' set your precious White House on fire and showed you who's boss, don't you forget that little Murica boy.
But yeah, why the fuck is 'have' censored?
Was this a contest to mention every borderline classic novel ever written? This person mentions Catcher and Wolf Hall in the same breath. Stephen King, The Green Mile? It was good but not classic. No Watership Down, though.