What is your favorite classic novel?

[IrishEyes]

I've been reading a lot of classic novels lately but I'm interested in reading more. I'm making a list of books to look out for when I go to the thrift store. I'm curious if anyone has any favorites that they can recommend. Some of the books that I have enjoyed include The Great Gatsby, Slaughterhouse-Five, Great Expectations and Dracula.

My to be read list includes 1984, Catch-22, Brave New World, Rebecca, Les Miserables, Of Human Bondage, Agnes Grey and The Count of Monte Cristo.

[yankee87]

1. Sci-fi Geek here

Favorite classic novel is Lucifer’s Hammer.

[IrishEyes]

4. Thank you. I like Sci-Fi stuff. I will check it out.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

29. Interesting.

I read that when it first came out, and really liked it.

A few years ago, my science fiction book club in Kansas read it along with Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. If you haven't read it, please do. For one thing, it's never been out of print since it was published in 1959. What we all noticed, and were quite frankly appalled by, was the overt racism of Lucifer's Hammer. Yeah, there's racism in Alas, Babylon, but it's not the vicious version in the former book.

[Docreed2003]

2. Depends on what theme and genre you're interested in

"Dracula" remains one of the best gothic horror novels ever.

"Count of Monte Cristo" is superb as is "Les Miserables" but both are rather long and it helps to have a bit of knowledge of French history when reading them.

You've listed some great ones...I think "East of Eden" is probably my favorite "classic" novel. It's themes are especially relevant today in a world where people are so willing to misconstrue the meaning of biblical verses in order to cause harm to their fellow humans.

[IrishEyes]

5. Thank you for the suggestion

I added East of Eden to my list.

[cachukis]

3. While Catch -22 may be the greatest novel ever written,

Heller writes Catch -22 into each paragraph and almost ever sentence, in my estimation, the pinnacle of introspection is in Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov." The "Grand Inquisitor Chapter," alone, is worth the read.

[IrishEyes]

7. I haven't read anything by Dostoevsky.

I have a copy of Crime and Punishment. I will check out The Brothers Karamazov. Thank you.

[cachukis]

8. "The Idiot," is a good start.

Raskolnikov, is truly one of the most important characters in literature. When I read Crime and Punishment in high school I realized then, that the human mind could understand and display all personalities.
When I taught high school I emphasized that each student was every character in the book. They had to become empathetic to even the minor character's point of view.
Dostoevsky writes from the mind of a murderer, revealing a bit of all of us.

[SheltieLover]

15. Both are excellent!

[Docreed2003]

10. "Brothers Karamazov" is an incredible choice!

[Docreed2003]

11. Which translation of "Brothers Karamazov" do you prefer?

I first read the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation and still think it's well done, but the Mcduff translation is my favorite.

[cachukis]

12. I read the Garnett version while living in a hammock on

the beaches of Quintana Roo in 1978. Read and reread so many paragraphs. Intense experience.

[Docreed2003]

13. Garrett's is fantastic as well

That sounds like and incredible experience!

[Glorfindel]

6. "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens

n/t

[OilemFirchen]

9. Can't go wrong with Somerset Maugham.

I'd recommend The Razor's Edge.

[hlthe2b]

14. Depending on the timeframe you consider "classics," I have recently gone back to

James Michener's historical novels. Fiction, yes, but his research of history for them is incredible and the one which he won the Pulitzer for, "Tales of the South Pacific" is among my favorites. Since this one was written about the same time as Orwell's "1984," I guess it meets the criteria.

[SheltieLover]

16. Cannery Row, Steinbeck

Good read.

[applegrove]

19. Loved that book.

[SheltieLover]

20. Me too!

Gives us a glimpse into the past.

[applegrove]

21. Such characters. I've forgotten much of it. I should read it again.

[LuckyLib]

17. Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy

[Polly Hennessey]

18. Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre,

Paradise Lost, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and more.

[brer cat]

22. Harper Lee "To Kill a Mockingbird" is my all time favorite.

I would also recommend Flannery O'Connor if you haven't read any of her books.

[RockRaven]

23. Lots of good suggestions already, I'll try to avoid repeating anything already mentioned:

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Jane Austen -- Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Divine Comedy, or just The Purgatorio, by Dante
Don Quixote by Cervantes
The Trial by Kafka
I, Claudius by Robert Graves

[pansypoo53219]

24. pride + prejudice, jane eyre, perdition. i also really enjoyed dracula. OH!! THE DECAMERON!!!

i found a deco edition w/ awesome illustrations. then i found 2 diff editions. the 1st considered the best translation. a diff 1930 fancier illustrations.
i also got 4 free 1903 american edition encyclopedia britannica and while waiting i started reading F + it changed everything. history is way more fun than fiction. my goal from then on was to find a complete old EB set. i finally got a 1891 set. science + shit removed the best stuff.

[leighbythesea2]

27. Was

Going to add Dracula, glad to see it here!

[pansypoo53219]

28. book better than the movies.

[pansypoo53219]

25. pride + prejudice, jane eyre, perdition. i also really enjoyed dracula. OH!! THE DECAMERON!!!

i found a deco edition w/ awesome illustrations. then i found 2 diff editions. the 1st considered the best translation. a diff 1930 fancier illustrations.
i also got 4 free 1903 american edition encyclopedia britannica and while waiting i started reading F + it changed everything. history is way more fun than fiction. my goal from then on was to find a complete old EB set. i finally got a 1891 set. science + shit removed the best stuff.

OOH! collier's fancies + goodnights from early 1900. and a AWESOME WW1book, floyd gibbon's and they said we wouldn't fight. i still have to read my Casanova's memoirs(i read 1 story + it was delightful.

[leighbythesea2]

26. One Day in the Life

Of Ian Denisovich.

My top choice is Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

Anything by Pearl Buck also.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

30. Uncle Tom's Cabin.

I read it some time back when Talk of the Nation on NPR had a Book Club on the Air. One time they made Uncle Tom's Cabin the choice, and so I decided to read it, figuring it was about time. I assumed that it would be a slog, like any book assigned in high school Let me tell you, the first fifty pages were a bit slow, and after that it picked up and I simply could not put it down.

Early on there is a scene where a woman is asked to get clothes for some one, and this

And oh! mother that reads this, has there never been in your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you like the opening again of a little grave? Ah! happy mother that you are, if it has not been so.

just broke my heart. No, I don't have a drawer or closet like that, but what is so striking about that passage is that when Stowe wrote it, the loss of a child was universal.

Plus, later on, when one of the slaves is sold South, and you learn about what happens to him (I've really forgotten all the details) it reads like a description of the death camps during the Holocaust.

[bif]

31. "Catcher in the Rye"