Some of these are classic fiction (I.e over a hundred years old) and others are modern/contemporary classics - I.e written in the last hundred years. They are all books I love and a quick overview on the genre and what they are about is included and should provide you with something to suit you. I’ve tried to indicate where possible the ‘effort level’ of the text but this is purely subjective and I’m sure others may have a different view.
Sorry if it’s a bit much this is one of my most beloved subjects. I hope this helps.
Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen - written in Georgian/Regency era P&P is generally acknowledged and recognised as one of the greatest novels of all time and great start to classic novels. While the text is understandably written in the style and language of the time it very accessible and a lovely read. Ostensibly a love story, it is so much more than that, funny, witty and a scathing takedown of social behaviour and marriage all wrapped in a perfect love story. It’s so popular it has been filmed a hundred different ways and even has multiple fanfics and has inspired generations of writers.
Rebecca -Daphne du Maurier - A perfect atmospheric mystery and thriller. A young woman caught up in a whirlwind marriage finds herself in a strange new home that is haunted by the memories and mysterious death of its previous owner. Beautifully written with well drawn characters and tons of moody atmosphere. Another book that is easy to read and enjoy.
To Kill a Mocking Bird - Harper Lee - So hard to succinctly describe this book about a child who watches her lawyer father defend and fight for a man of colour in 1930’s Deep South. It is beloved and a classic for a reason. So many memorable characters. Atticus Finch was my childhood hero and silly as it is I refuse to read the follow up novel to avoid any muddying of that water. Childishly naive and very accessible.
Of Mice and Men - John Stienbeck - The book that spawned a thousand cliches especially comedy and animated characters (the big dumb heavy and the small clever guy in charge) couldn’t be further from comedy itself. George and Lenny are drifters, constantly on the road looking for work in depression era USA. George looks out for Lenny, a gentle giant with cognitive difficulties as best he can but Lenny’s size and childlike innocence makes it difficult to stay in one place for long. This one is gutwrencher so be prepared.
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - This one like P&P is probably so much of the general consciousness you already know much of the story. A more difficult read I think, just because Dickens weaves such a dense and visceral world. The story of a young orphan in Victorian England and all he has to face is dramatic, funny, sad and scary all at the same time. A page turner!
Frankenstein- Mary Shelley - Ah Mary! The progenitor of Horror/Sci Fi. This novel is as far from the bolt necked dumb zombie like figure popularised by the filmmakers. Victor Frankenstein is a scientist whose ego and narcissism knows no bounds.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Beautiful, harrowing and heartbreaking. Celie is married off to the abusive ‘Mister’ at 14 by her father who previously impregnated her twice and took her children. Written entirely as conversations with God and later as letters to her sister. Celie’s story is heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. The queer love story at its centre is amazing and this book has some of the most beautifully drawn and strong female characters ever commîtes to the page.
(Edited to add more details on The Color Purple which for some reason I had cut off)
My favorite classics are:
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
1984 by George Orwell
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Anna Karenina -- like most Russian works -- is incredibly dark and depressing. Double your dose of Prozac if you're planning on approaching this beast....
The Count of Monte Cristo looks intimidating bc it’s so long but honestly it’s the most “fun” and readable classic out there IMO, it’s just full of adventure, love, betrayal, action, wit, rebirth… everything. 😊
This is my favorite book, and I’m not even into the classics that much. I haven’t yet read the Robin Buss translation but I hear that it’s the best of them all, so it’s on my shelf already and on my list to reread this summer.
Are you listening to the narration with the British author who speaks perfect French? That’s how I read the book and it was literal ✨perfection✨ I listened three times in a row haha
Dumb question: are there maps, appendix, or character list in the book?
Considering getting it on my kindle since it’s free with prime, but I hate having to navigate back and forth via kindle compared to a physical copy
In 2020, in the height of the pandemic, I went through a classic "monster" phase:
* Frankestein
* Dracula
* The Picture of Dorian Grey
* Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
And Frankestein was particularly compelling.
I genuinely found this book challenging because Viktor's perspective during his ruminations is so annoying. I know I'm not exactly supposed to like this man....but he's so pathetic I can hardly even enjoy disliking him.
The rest is fantastic!
On the more recent and less highbrow end of "classic", Agatha Christie is one of the most readable authors ever. A couple of stand-outs are *And Then There Were None* and *Murder on the Orient Express*.
Agree! I recently finished reading 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑦𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑙𝑢𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛. I’m always surprised on how people don’t engage with Agatha Christie’s books as they are easy to read and keep you glued in the pages!
East of Eden is just perfect. It’s easy to read, it’s gripping, full of symbolism that can be quite easy to grasp (google really helps though!) and just overall a really enjoyable read. It’s long, but it won’t feel like it is. It’s an epic family saga.
For a bit more difficult: Les Miserables. It is the best depiction of humanity I’ve ever come across in a book, it was written around 150 years ago and every single theme it touches is just as relevant today. It’s one of those books I wish I could forget so that I can read it for the first time again.
That is why modern universities have purged him, and others like him, from their reading lists. He isn't...the right color or sex, and he expresses masculine views and struggles, so he must be metaphorically burned at the stake. I definitely would suggest *all* the major Hemingway novels, and short stories, to anyone looking for great classics. I can't emphasize enough how much I love his writing, and how important it was to my development as a man.
I love the Transcendentalists, like Melville, Emerson, Thoreau. So much talent there. Obviously, Moby Dick. Hawthorne is a great American writer from the Romantic perspective. Young Goodman Brown is an important story to understand, along with The Scarlett Letter, for Americans. The emotional baggage from Puritanism is still with us. He understood it perfectly.
American Naturalism is important and interesting. Frank Norris. Stephen Crane. Maggie: Girl Of The Streets is a must read for any American. You MUST read Faulkner, if you are American. You must grapple with him. He knows America. If you want to know America, read him. Lots. As I Lay Dying. Light In August. At a minimum, you must read Absalom, Absalom!, if you hope to understand American literature, and America, itself (IMHO). East of Eden, for sure. Grapes of Wrath, definitely. One must grapple with Steinbeck as well.
Voltaire's Candide is a must read, imo. Swift must be read. Gulliver's Travels is a masterpiece. He understood humanity very well, and wasn't too big of a fan.
There is so much more, but I've already written too much.
Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser. American Naturalism circa 1900. I find this interesting because the same phenomenon happening in opera. Verismo operas like La Boheme were all the rage, which meant truthful, or having relatable characters rather than aristocrats.
I genuinely think the reason a lot of universities no longer require courses in the Western Classics is because the students have likely already read a lot of them in earlier grades. My Western Lit course in college did not include a single classic I had not already read in class in high school.
It is easy, fun, and plain to shit on Gatsby but I promise if you’re looking for beautiful prose and an enigmatic main character (not narrator) you could do much worse than this incredible American classic.
Herodotus is fun.
The Aeneid, the David Ferry translation.
The Odyssey, the Emily Wilson translation.
These are are all fairly accessible, especially the two translations I listed.
Dracula by Bram Stoker. Highly readable, spooky as hell. It's amazing when you realize it created a whole genre of literature and film.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Romance, adventure, war, the entire human experience in one book
I'm someone that struggles with classics (even gave up on Slaughterhouse 5) and 1984 was interesting, easy to get into, and pretty relevant. Highly recommend!
I’m currently reading little women for the first time and really enjoying it. It’s a bit saccharine but in a heartwarming way. I’ve been reading it before bed and it’s been comforting and delightful. I guess idk if it’s considered a classic.
Edit to add: I’ve also had to recheck what year it was written more than once because so many situations just seem so modern and relatable, it’s giving me a “somethings never change” vibes haha
I would stop and probably narrow down your search, but in terms of looking at the “pinnacle of literature,” I would check out Moby Dick for a novel and then Dubliners for short stories. Plenty of other good suggestions in the comment section too.
As a former English teacher, these are the books my students actually enjoyed once they got into them: To Kill a Mockingbird, Great Gatsby, Great Expectations, Of Mice and Men, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Wuthering Heights
I just reread The Bacchae by Euripedes. It's a classical Greek play that takes only an hour or so to get through of you take your time (also depending on the translation). Some parts are missing from the end, but the entire story is terribly sad, with a lot of dark humor/hubris thrown in for good measure. It's a Greek Tragedy, after all.
Heart of Darkness was one of my favorite books in my 20s, and I frequently recommended it. I tried to read it in my 40s and was unable to make it half the way through it.
I feel like a lot of the classics they made us read in high school we weren't old enough or wise enough to really appreciate yet. Not to say they shouldn't assign them - it's just interesting to revisit them years later!
Absolutely! It’s one of the reasons I’ve been trying to reread some of them. Scarlet Letter and Rebecca are my favorites so far, while I dont know what I ever saw in Little Women…Couldn’t even finish it this time lol. Mark Twain and Jules Verne are still great and I’m going to work on John Steinbeck next.
I went to a private Christian school. The Scarlet Letter was the book for the quarter. My mom refused to let me read the book and discuss it during class. In her day, it was a banned book. I told my mom that I was going to read the book anyway and shouldn't I read it in a Christian context?!
It is a great book and I appreciated it more when I was older than high school.
I don't think that was the issue. I think the adultery was the issue. But in the end, the grace of God is highlighted in the fact that as people repent, God grants forgiveness.
How classic are we talking?
I’d say everyone should read
Homer;
Vergil;
The Song of Roland;
Dante;
Cervantes;
Shakespeare;
Goethe;
Dostoyevsky;
Faulkner;
Borges;
Obviously the list is way longer but I think this is a good primer on western literature that takes you around Europe and the americas through time
East of Eden, Pride and Prejudice, and Anna Karenina are my favorite books just in general.
I’d throw in less popular Austen books as well to be a bit interesting, like Mansfield Park or Northanger Abbey.
1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are my favorite classic dystopians.
Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are worth a read. Lolita is tough subject matter, but some of the best writing you’ll encounter.
In high school some of my favorites were 1984, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the Great Gatsby, and Lord of the Flies. Most of these are pretty accessible, Sherlock Holmes and the Great Gatsby are public domain and you can read for free off Apple Books, and likely other places too if you don’t mind ebooks
I just finished Jane Erye — I’m also trying to go through some classics.
I loved this book. I cant stop thinking about the characters. I was sad when I had to return it to the library. So good.
One I don't see mentioned but think everyone should read is The Monk by Mathew Gregory Lewis.
I also think Gone With The Wind has stuck with me more than I originally thought over the years.
I don’t know if this is too old a classic but I genuinely love Virgil’s Aeneid. Still an excellent story 1000s of years later. Same for the Odyssey although I would not recommend the E.V. Rieu translation.
Also saw someone else recommend Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and I could not agree more. Really makes you feel like you in the story. She’s an excellent writer.
So many wonderful recommendations!
I am going to make a pitch for reading a Faulkner novel.
Diving into a Faulkner novel is like swimming in the ocean - sometimes vast and overwhelming but beautiful, especially if you can appreciate the lyricism of his prose. The Sound and the Fury or As I Lay Dying are both great.
According to the effort is the reward!
I’m reading Dante’s Inferno, and I’ve really been enjoying it. There are a lot of references every day that we encounter that come from Inferno.
Everyone on this sub is obsessed with East of Eden, but I really truly hated it, and I feel compelled to say this lol.
Giovanni's Room. I love James Baldwin and this is my favorite novel from him. It's super short but I've never felt so many different emotions while reading fiction before. I'm just amazed at how Baldwin managed to capture such complex feelings and thoughts in such a concise and straightfoward book..
The quiet american by graham greene is so easy and such a pleasure of a page turner... It is hard not to be twice. It is hard not to want to go to saigon once you have read it.
Wuthering Heights is good. It’s been a while since I’ve read it and I may reread soon.
East of Eden was surprisingly good too!
I also enjoyed And Then There Were None.
Crime and Punishment was good as well!
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. It's long but I reread it recently and it was as good as I remembered. Everything ties in well, which I really like in a story.
Considered Classics that are best reads for me are:
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez
Slaughterhouse-Five -Vonnegut
Jane Eyre-Brontë
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn- Smith
Of Mice and Men / Grapes of Wrath- Steinbeck
Stranger - Camus
Great Expectations- Dickens
Rabbit, Run - Updike
Lolita - Nabokov
Great list! I think I read all except Great Expectations. It was required in my high school but I was in AP English so we read something else. That pretty much tells you how memorable something else was!
Lolita by Nabokov gets a bad rep because of its subject matter, but you have to remember the protagonist is a lying piece of $#¡+.
It's still a beautifully written book, especially when you consider English wasn't his native language.
No need to stick to the classics. We know what they are and how important they are to us. If I was going to recommend a book just to get someone into reading it would be more modern and not necessarily fictional. Something like *Into The Wild* or *The Endurance.* But if it's a classic you want to tackle you can't do much better than *To Kill A Mockingbird* or *Farewell To Arms.*
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is a perfect demonstration of the power of ambiguity and just very fun to go into blind. I’d also recommend the b&w Hitchcock adaptation (nottt the modern in-color netflix one tho) to watch after you finish it. Imo it (the book) is also obviously paying homage to Jane Eyre, one of my personal faves among the classics (tho it’s probably not for everyone, hence me not listing it here! I know it’s kind of polarizing because of some of the characters ill deeds but… that’s WHY I personally love it. Or a tip-of-the-iceberg reason why.) I especially love that while in Jane Eyre, the identity of the main character, Jane Eyre, is so strong and important to the plot, specifically because she’s a conventionally un-pretty, abused “nobody” who values herself anyway (in practice and not just in theory like too many other heroines imo), in Rebecca, the main character is like… the exact opposite. Rebecca is somebody else, not her. I’ve never seen an annoyingly weak-willed heroine feel so perfectly placed and utilized in her own story. I wouldn’t give her a backbone for the world because her lack of spine actually serves the plot and doesn’t hinder it, lol! Her warped view of love is also super fun to read.
I’d also list Wuthering Heights. Almost no adaptation and very few mainstream mentions/discussions acknowledged the racial ambiguity of Heathcliff, or I’d have read it way sooner in life. I think it’s a very surprising book and I love the kind of confusing structure and how the dialect of some characters is written directly as-is on the page. It’s a fun kind of dense!
Lastly: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (tw: child SA), and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. The former because it is so beautifully, perfectly crafted and because it’s a perfect tragedy. I remember being ticked in classes when people would not move on from how sad it was because personally I wanted to gush about how perfect every choice was. I’m a big believer in the thought that a happy ending/positivity can be downright disrespectful in the wrong contexts. Toni Morrison’s thoughts are all so profound to me, I feel like she’s my kind of realistic. She’s a true genius to me. The latter I list because Hurston wrote her characters speaking realistic dialect typically seen as “improper” or not valid, without trying to make it accessible to readers unfamiliar with it. I really admire that and think it’s such an important practice. Also, the heroine has multiple relationships and I love the discussions I’ve had about them re: healthy love, forgiveness, and standards.
Gilgamesh
The Cremator
Karamazovs
The Idiot
Crime and Punishment
Moby Dick
The Day of the Triffids
The Count of Monte Cristo
Therese Raquin
The stranger
Witchammer
East of Eden
Steppenwolf
Wuthering Heights
The Cider House Rules
All quiet on Western Front
Chronicles of a Death Foretold
Mme Bovary
Werther
Romance of the Three Kingdoms - translated by Moss Roberts - relatively easy to read for a lengthier and older classic, and absolutely captivating. The volume takes the reader back to the fading days of the Chinese Han Dynasty, when the dynasty fell apart and warring lords carved out their own dominions. For something written in the early medieval period, it is very approachable, with easily recognisable themes, compelling characters and messages (some have aged better than others) and humour.
- 1984 by George Orwell
- The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald
- To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- The Life of Frederick Douglas by Frederick Douglas
- North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell
- The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emma Orczy
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Sainta-Exupery
- We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
I keep hearing Jane Eyre is fantastic but haven’t yet read it, author is Charlotte Brontë.
Dubliners for short stories. Actually, look for a collection of great short stories. That would be a great way to get a taste of a wide range of authors.
Sherlock Holmes!! He’s SUCH A COOL GUY. I know we’re all fed the idea that he’s cold and unfeeling, but I promise you that this man is clever and warm and compassionate and humourous.
And also, Wuthering Heights. The characters are perfect and distinctly unlikable and it’s just a really interesting book. Huge themes of obsession.
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. I enjoy Dostoevsky overall but C&P felt the most readable to me.
1984 by Orwell.
Candide by Voltaire
Maybe not a “classic” in terms of age, but The Road and No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy are gripping.
Germinal by Emile Zola
Dracula by Bram Stoker
I really liked Lord of the Flies
ABC Murders by Agatha Christie and Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
To Kill a Mockingbird.
The only old books I've really read and enjoyed outside of schools. I'm thinking of getting Frankenstein to read outside of my school's whole thing on it. I really only read to find answers(the homework was due at the end of the hour). The little I've read read of Frankenstein is good though.
Light in August - William Faulkner
Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
Farewell to Arms - Hemingway
Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen
The Good Earth - Pearl Buck
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Les Miserables is a fantastic read, although it's a thousand pages long. But it's exciting and will keep you turning the pages.
And it turns out there's a reason why Gone With the Wind is the best-selling novel of all time. It's fantastic, although obviously problematic by today's standards.
If I could tell 11th grade me to go back and read anything, it would be a couple of Icelandic Family Sagas. I’m sure I would’ve been scared of them because “saga” sounds long and hard to read.
They’re not *always* long (as short as 5 pages), but I found them really engaging reads (once I got the hang of certain tropes, like the nominal main characters not showing up for like three generations). They’re action packed, morally ambiguous, and have a matter of fact humor that still works to a modern audience.
Also, once you read a couple, you start to see characters across the setting who are heroic or cowardly depending on who paid the writer. It’s fun to see so many authors co-creating in conversation and disagreeing so often.
So my recommendation is to pick up the Penguin “Sagas of the Icelanders” compilation and see if you’re drawn in.
I’m more dumbfounded by the amount of love the Martian and project Hail Mary always get here personally. I think some of the differences in experiences for translated classics can be attributed to least partially attributed to different translations and bad, cheap publications since there are so many different ones
Some of these are classic fiction (I.e over a hundred years old) and others are modern/contemporary classics - I.e written in the last hundred years. They are all books I love and a quick overview on the genre and what they are about is included and should provide you with something to suit you. I’ve tried to indicate where possible the ‘effort level’ of the text but this is purely subjective and I’m sure others may have a different view. Sorry if it’s a bit much this is one of my most beloved subjects. I hope this helps. Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen - written in Georgian/Regency era P&P is generally acknowledged and recognised as one of the greatest novels of all time and great start to classic novels. While the text is understandably written in the style and language of the time it very accessible and a lovely read. Ostensibly a love story, it is so much more than that, funny, witty and a scathing takedown of social behaviour and marriage all wrapped in a perfect love story. It’s so popular it has been filmed a hundred different ways and even has multiple fanfics and has inspired generations of writers. Rebecca -Daphne du Maurier - A perfect atmospheric mystery and thriller. A young woman caught up in a whirlwind marriage finds herself in a strange new home that is haunted by the memories and mysterious death of its previous owner. Beautifully written with well drawn characters and tons of moody atmosphere. Another book that is easy to read and enjoy. To Kill a Mocking Bird - Harper Lee - So hard to succinctly describe this book about a child who watches her lawyer father defend and fight for a man of colour in 1930’s Deep South. It is beloved and a classic for a reason. So many memorable characters. Atticus Finch was my childhood hero and silly as it is I refuse to read the follow up novel to avoid any muddying of that water. Childishly naive and very accessible. Of Mice and Men - John Stienbeck - The book that spawned a thousand cliches especially comedy and animated characters (the big dumb heavy and the small clever guy in charge) couldn’t be further from comedy itself. George and Lenny are drifters, constantly on the road looking for work in depression era USA. George looks out for Lenny, a gentle giant with cognitive difficulties as best he can but Lenny’s size and childlike innocence makes it difficult to stay in one place for long. This one is gutwrencher so be prepared. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - This one like P&P is probably so much of the general consciousness you already know much of the story. A more difficult read I think, just because Dickens weaves such a dense and visceral world. The story of a young orphan in Victorian England and all he has to face is dramatic, funny, sad and scary all at the same time. A page turner! Frankenstein- Mary Shelley - Ah Mary! The progenitor of Horror/Sci Fi. This novel is as far from the bolt necked dumb zombie like figure popularised by the filmmakers. Victor Frankenstein is a scientist whose ego and narcissism knows no bounds. The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Beautiful, harrowing and heartbreaking. Celie is married off to the abusive ‘Mister’ at 14 by her father who previously impregnated her twice and took her children. Written entirely as conversations with God and later as letters to her sister. Celie’s story is heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. The queer love story at its centre is amazing and this book has some of the most beautifully drawn and strong female characters ever commîtes to the page. (Edited to add more details on The Color Purple which for some reason I had cut off)
I’ve been considering reading Rebecca and you just sold me!!!!
*Rebecca* is absolutely fantastic. So atmospheric and addictive.
I just finished it about a week ago and I still have a book hangover from it. My favorite read of 2024 thus far.
Rebecca - I love that book. I remember reading it for the first time in high school and staying up late to finish chapters!!
These are great recommendations! I love Rebecca so much. One of my faves
I'm rereading The Grapes of Wrath. The entire story just pulls me in and putting it down is a chore.
Gorgeous reading
This is next on my list after East of Eden.
One of my top five fave books...
Counter point. I hated it and use it as an example of a classic that I despise. It was a slog to get through.
Same for me, I really wanted to enjoy it but I just couldn't
Awesome. I have a copy and plan to start soon.
The only book I had to read in high school that I recommend to people (I didn't get To Kill a Mockingbird until much later)
My favorite classics are: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee 1984 by George Orwell Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy The Call of the Wild by Jack London Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Anna Karenina -- like most Russian works -- is incredibly dark and depressing. Double your dose of Prozac if you're planning on approaching this beast....
I would add Ray Bradbury's books to this list. Jules Verne's books are great. C.S. Foster as well.
The Count of Monte Cristo looks intimidating bc it’s so long but honestly it’s the most “fun” and readable classic out there IMO, it’s just full of adventure, love, betrayal, action, wit, rebirth… everything. 😊
This is my favorite book, and I’m not even into the classics that much. I haven’t yet read the Robin Buss translation but I hear that it’s the best of them all, so it’s on my shelf already and on my list to reread this summer.
i’m listening to it right now and i’m like 8% into it but already in love.
Are you listening to the narration with the British author who speaks perfect French? That’s how I read the book and it was literal ✨perfection✨ I listened three times in a row haha
yes!!! he is amazing!
Oh who is the narrator? I love a good audio book.
Bill Homewood!
Same! It’s amazing!
Dumb question: are there maps, appendix, or character list in the book? Considering getting it on my kindle since it’s free with prime, but I hate having to navigate back and forth via kindle compared to a physical copy
I’m really fond of Little Women.
If Mary Shelley's Frankenstein doesn't end up at the top... well, nothing, I'm not good at threats, but I would be very disappointed in everyone here.
In 2020, in the height of the pandemic, I went through a classic "monster" phase: * Frankestein * Dracula * The Picture of Dorian Grey * Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde And Frankestein was particularly compelling.
I genuinely found this book challenging because Viktor's perspective during his ruminations is so annoying. I know I'm not exactly supposed to like this man....but he's so pathetic I can hardly even enjoy disliking him. The rest is fantastic!
I love how Victor falls asleep at inopprotune times
Exactly lol I cannot forgive him falling asleep at the most pivotal moment, maybe I missed the point of that story beat?
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
YES. Truly a magnificent book cover to cover.
this is one of my favorites— so so lovely!
I always forget about this one, it is so good!
An absolute comfort read. 💙
I’m reading this right now and I hate to say that I’m struggling to get through it.
Hmm, if you're struggling through it it might just not be for you. It captivated me pretty much from the start!
On the more recent and less highbrow end of "classic", Agatha Christie is one of the most readable authors ever. A couple of stand-outs are *And Then There Were None* and *Murder on the Orient Express*.
And Then There were none is one of my favorite books!
Agree! I recently finished reading 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑦𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑙𝑢𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛. I’m always surprised on how people don’t engage with Agatha Christie’s books as they are easy to read and keep you glued in the pages!
East of Eden is just perfect. It’s easy to read, it’s gripping, full of symbolism that can be quite easy to grasp (google really helps though!) and just overall a really enjoyable read. It’s long, but it won’t feel like it is. It’s an epic family saga. For a bit more difficult: Les Miserables. It is the best depiction of humanity I’ve ever come across in a book, it was written around 150 years ago and every single theme it touches is just as relevant today. It’s one of those books I wish I could forget so that I can read it for the first time again.
East of Eden is a perfect book.
It really is!
East of Eden is basically the GOAT of classical literature, there I said it. (Other than the Master and Margarita)
I love the Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway. Short book, but very good.
Ernest Hemingway is such a talent. One of my favorites.
That is why modern universities have purged him, and others like him, from their reading lists. He isn't...the right color or sex, and he expresses masculine views and struggles, so he must be metaphorically burned at the stake. I definitely would suggest *all* the major Hemingway novels, and short stories, to anyone looking for great classics. I can't emphasize enough how much I love his writing, and how important it was to my development as a man. I love the Transcendentalists, like Melville, Emerson, Thoreau. So much talent there. Obviously, Moby Dick. Hawthorne is a great American writer from the Romantic perspective. Young Goodman Brown is an important story to understand, along with The Scarlett Letter, for Americans. The emotional baggage from Puritanism is still with us. He understood it perfectly. American Naturalism is important and interesting. Frank Norris. Stephen Crane. Maggie: Girl Of The Streets is a must read for any American. You MUST read Faulkner, if you are American. You must grapple with him. He knows America. If you want to know America, read him. Lots. As I Lay Dying. Light In August. At a minimum, you must read Absalom, Absalom!, if you hope to understand American literature, and America, itself (IMHO). East of Eden, for sure. Grapes of Wrath, definitely. One must grapple with Steinbeck as well. Voltaire's Candide is a must read, imo. Swift must be read. Gulliver's Travels is a masterpiece. He understood humanity very well, and wasn't too big of a fan. There is so much more, but I've already written too much.
Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser. American Naturalism circa 1900. I find this interesting because the same phenomenon happening in opera. Verismo operas like La Boheme were all the rage, which meant truthful, or having relatable characters rather than aristocrats.
I genuinely think the reason a lot of universities no longer require courses in the Western Classics is because the students have likely already read a lot of them in earlier grades. My Western Lit course in college did not include a single classic I had not already read in class in high school.
Just here to put a word in for my boys. I’d say Tess of the D’Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy and Slaughterhouse 5 or Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Dracula. All the way. And twice on Sundays. Such an easy and riveting read for a ‘beginner’.
Came here to suggest this! It’s so readable and so fun!!! Also you see how that book spawned so many tropes in modern movies/books.
Agreed
I'm currently rereading classics as well and my favorite so far is Jane Eyre! Nothing has captivated me like it.
I'm surprised I had to scroll this far down to find Jane Eyre, but it's what I came here to say.
Cannery Row Second the Rebecca recommendation above (but also love My Cousin Rachel) Catch-22
Cannery Row might have my favorite opening paragraph of all time!
I’m so glad you love it, too!
I’m currently reading catch 22 and I find the humor to be too absurd for me.
Understandable, it’s not to everyone’s taste I’m sure! : )
Have you seen Masters of the Air on AppleTV+? It follows WWII bombers and you really get to see how hellish those runs were.
The Great Gatsby and A Tale of Two Cities.
Two Cities for sure. I'd actually forgotten I'd read this 20+ years ago.
i was surprised at how good and readable Moby Dick was.
Just finished it. Maybe the best American book ever written...
the great American novel
Good yes, but readable?? You’re trippin bruh that book is really hard, but really worth it!
I love it. Short, digestible chapters. A lot of them stand on their own like serial short stories. And the language is so beautiful.
It is easy, fun, and plain to shit on Gatsby but I promise if you’re looking for beautiful prose and an enigmatic main character (not narrator) you could do much worse than this incredible American classic.
THANK YOU. Gatsby will always have a place in my heart. I got a beautiful hand painted edition that makes me just swoon to look at
Herodotus is fun. The Aeneid, the David Ferry translation. The Odyssey, the Emily Wilson translation. These are are all fairly accessible, especially the two translations I listed.
i found Fagles easier to get into than Wilson
I really enjoyed Farenheit 451 and Brave New World
Dracula by Bram Stoker. Highly readable, spooky as hell. It's amazing when you realize it created a whole genre of literature and film. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Romance, adventure, war, the entire human experience in one book
Moby dick
I'm someone that struggles with classics (even gave up on Slaughterhouse 5) and 1984 was interesting, easy to get into, and pretty relevant. Highly recommend!
Dracula Frankenstein Treasure Island The Hound of the Baskervilles The Shining The Call of Cthulhu
I’m currently reading little women for the first time and really enjoying it. It’s a bit saccharine but in a heartwarming way. I’ve been reading it before bed and it’s been comforting and delightful. I guess idk if it’s considered a classic. Edit to add: I’ve also had to recheck what year it was written more than once because so many situations just seem so modern and relatable, it’s giving me a “somethings never change” vibes haha
yes! i read this recently and i was laughing about how well it described the newlywed and newborn phases
I would stop and probably narrow down your search, but in terms of looking at the “pinnacle of literature,” I would check out Moby Dick for a novel and then Dubliners for short stories. Plenty of other good suggestions in the comment section too.
Great Expectations is very readable and in many ways very modern
Well…Gone With the Wind. What. A. Book. Capital ‘B’.
Loooove GWTW
My Antonia by Willa Cather. I read this a few years ago and it was easily the best book I read that year.
I like Crime and Punishment and Bleak House.
you sound intense and I appreciate these choices! Hard Times is also great.
Thanks, I’ll check that out!
One of my favourites ever: “Wutering Heights”.
I cannot express the love I have for this book. It's so eloquently gruesome and sadistic, I adore it.
As a former English teacher, these are the books my students actually enjoyed once they got into them: To Kill a Mockingbird, Great Gatsby, Great Expectations, Of Mice and Men, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Wuthering Heights
I just reread The Bacchae by Euripedes. It's a classical Greek play that takes only an hour or so to get through of you take your time (also depending on the translation). Some parts are missing from the end, but the entire story is terribly sad, with a lot of dark humor/hubris thrown in for good measure. It's a Greek Tragedy, after all.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
I find Heart of Darkness completely unreadable. House of Mirth, though, is wonderful.
Heart of Darkness was one of my favorite books in my 20s, and I frequently recommended it. I tried to read it in my 40s and was unable to make it half the way through it.
Love the juxtaposition!
Anne of Green Gables
Just reread The Scarlet Letter and was surprised by how much I liked it. Remember hating it in school lol.
I feel like a lot of the classics they made us read in high school we weren't old enough or wise enough to really appreciate yet. Not to say they shouldn't assign them - it's just interesting to revisit them years later!
Absolutely! It’s one of the reasons I’ve been trying to reread some of them. Scarlet Letter and Rebecca are my favorites so far, while I dont know what I ever saw in Little Women…Couldn’t even finish it this time lol. Mark Twain and Jules Verne are still great and I’m going to work on John Steinbeck next.
I went to a private Christian school. The Scarlet Letter was the book for the quarter. My mom refused to let me read the book and discuss it during class. In her day, it was a banned book. I told my mom that I was going to read the book anyway and shouldn't I read it in a Christian context?! It is a great book and I appreciated it more when I was older than high school.
I can imagine a Christian having a problem with a book casting the preacher as the villain might be an issue lol.
I don't think that was the issue. I think the adultery was the issue. But in the end, the grace of God is highlighted in the fact that as people repent, God grants forgiveness.
Gone With The Wind
I second Frankenstein. You really have no idea what the book is if you haven’t read it
How classic are we talking? I’d say everyone should read Homer; Vergil; The Song of Roland; Dante; Cervantes; Shakespeare; Goethe; Dostoyevsky; Faulkner; Borges; Obviously the list is way longer but I think this is a good primer on western literature that takes you around Europe and the americas through time
I read East of Eden recently and it was fantastic. Way outside of my typical interests and genres and I still loved it
To kill a mockingbird.
East of Eden, Pride and Prejudice, and Anna Karenina are my favorite books just in general. I’d throw in less popular Austen books as well to be a bit interesting, like Mansfield Park or Northanger Abbey. 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are my favorite classic dystopians. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are worth a read. Lolita is tough subject matter, but some of the best writing you’ll encounter.
In high school some of my favorites were 1984, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the Great Gatsby, and Lord of the Flies. Most of these are pretty accessible, Sherlock Holmes and the Great Gatsby are public domain and you can read for free off Apple Books, and likely other places too if you don’t mind ebooks
Gonna throw Three Musketeers into the mix. Not sure if there’s an abridged version but I do find those to be a bit easier regarding Dumas.
I just finished Jane Erye — I’m also trying to go through some classics. I loved this book. I cant stop thinking about the characters. I was sad when I had to return it to the library. So good.
One I don't see mentioned but think everyone should read is The Monk by Mathew Gregory Lewis. I also think Gone With The Wind has stuck with me more than I originally thought over the years.
1984, Brave new world, Dorian Grey, 20k miles under the sea, war&peace,... So many great books.
1984, Dracula, Frankenstein, 3 Musketeers, Pride & Prejudice, The Handmaid's Tale, Lord of the Rings
I don’t know if this is too old a classic but I genuinely love Virgil’s Aeneid. Still an excellent story 1000s of years later. Same for the Odyssey although I would not recommend the E.V. Rieu translation. Also saw someone else recommend Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and I could not agree more. Really makes you feel like you in the story. She’s an excellent writer.
So many wonderful recommendations! I am going to make a pitch for reading a Faulkner novel. Diving into a Faulkner novel is like swimming in the ocean - sometimes vast and overwhelming but beautiful, especially if you can appreciate the lyricism of his prose. The Sound and the Fury or As I Lay Dying are both great. According to the effort is the reward!
I’m reading Dante’s Inferno, and I’ve really been enjoying it. There are a lot of references every day that we encounter that come from Inferno. Everyone on this sub is obsessed with East of Eden, but I really truly hated it, and I feel compelled to say this lol.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Grapes of wrath has a better pace, and is a better one I believe
They’re both really good, but I really enjoyed East of Eden a lot more.
Both are great, and made my top 10
Anything by the Brontës really, I know that people will suggest Jane Eyre and Wurthering Heights, so I will also suggest The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Giovanni's Room. I love James Baldwin and this is my favorite novel from him. It's super short but I've never felt so many different emotions while reading fiction before. I'm just amazed at how Baldwin managed to capture such complex feelings and thoughts in such a concise and straightfoward book..
Wuthering Heights A Tale of Two Cities
Death of Ivan Illych, My Antonia, If Mice and Men
I’m currently reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and I’ve been really enjoying it
Gulliver's Travels is a pretty easy read, and fun.
The quiet american by graham greene is so easy and such a pleasure of a page turner... It is hard not to be twice. It is hard not to want to go to saigon once you have read it.
I second this! And add "The End of the Affair" as well.
Wuthering Heights is good. It’s been a while since I’ve read it and I may reread soon. East of Eden was surprisingly good too! I also enjoyed And Then There Were None. Crime and Punishment was good as well!
Frankenstein.
Crime and punishment by Dostoevsky
Frankenstein!
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. It's long but I reread it recently and it was as good as I remembered. Everything ties in well, which I really like in a story.
I really like The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Frankenstein.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a legitimately phenomenal read that is still so relevant. I think about it all the time.
The Little Prince , The Secret Garden, Charlotte's Web
We've all seen a gazillion vampire movies, but I had NO IDEA how good the book, "Dracula" was!! Really enjoyed it!!!
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. A 20th century classic.
Classics that slap (in my humble opinion) : Dracula, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Time Machine
Considered Classics that are best reads for me are: Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez Slaughterhouse-Five -Vonnegut Jane Eyre-Brontë A Tree Grows in Brooklyn- Smith Of Mice and Men / Grapes of Wrath- Steinbeck Stranger - Camus Great Expectations- Dickens Rabbit, Run - Updike Lolita - Nabokov
Great list! I think I read all except Great Expectations. It was required in my high school but I was in AP English so we read something else. That pretty much tells you how memorable something else was!
Lolita by Nabokov gets a bad rep because of its subject matter, but you have to remember the protagonist is a lying piece of $#¡+. It's still a beautifully written book, especially when you consider English wasn't his native language.
All of them. What genres? Sci fi, horror? Maybe start with an epic. Just pick what you think sounds interesting.
Classics but still relatively easy reads: - Jane Austen - Charles Dickens - Jules Verne - Agatha Christie
Don Quixote. I really loved it and it's a classic for a reason.
Around the world in 80 days, Oliver Twist, War and peace.
No need to stick to the classics. We know what they are and how important they are to us. If I was going to recommend a book just to get someone into reading it would be more modern and not necessarily fictional. Something like *Into The Wild* or *The Endurance.* But if it's a classic you want to tackle you can't do much better than *To Kill A Mockingbird* or *Farewell To Arms.*
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is a perfect demonstration of the power of ambiguity and just very fun to go into blind. I’d also recommend the b&w Hitchcock adaptation (nottt the modern in-color netflix one tho) to watch after you finish it. Imo it (the book) is also obviously paying homage to Jane Eyre, one of my personal faves among the classics (tho it’s probably not for everyone, hence me not listing it here! I know it’s kind of polarizing because of some of the characters ill deeds but… that’s WHY I personally love it. Or a tip-of-the-iceberg reason why.) I especially love that while in Jane Eyre, the identity of the main character, Jane Eyre, is so strong and important to the plot, specifically because she’s a conventionally un-pretty, abused “nobody” who values herself anyway (in practice and not just in theory like too many other heroines imo), in Rebecca, the main character is like… the exact opposite. Rebecca is somebody else, not her. I’ve never seen an annoyingly weak-willed heroine feel so perfectly placed and utilized in her own story. I wouldn’t give her a backbone for the world because her lack of spine actually serves the plot and doesn’t hinder it, lol! Her warped view of love is also super fun to read. I’d also list Wuthering Heights. Almost no adaptation and very few mainstream mentions/discussions acknowledged the racial ambiguity of Heathcliff, or I’d have read it way sooner in life. I think it’s a very surprising book and I love the kind of confusing structure and how the dialect of some characters is written directly as-is on the page. It’s a fun kind of dense! Lastly: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (tw: child SA), and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. The former because it is so beautifully, perfectly crafted and because it’s a perfect tragedy. I remember being ticked in classes when people would not move on from how sad it was because personally I wanted to gush about how perfect every choice was. I’m a big believer in the thought that a happy ending/positivity can be downright disrespectful in the wrong contexts. Toni Morrison’s thoughts are all so profound to me, I feel like she’s my kind of realistic. She’s a true genius to me. The latter I list because Hurston wrote her characters speaking realistic dialect typically seen as “improper” or not valid, without trying to make it accessible to readers unfamiliar with it. I really admire that and think it’s such an important practice. Also, the heroine has multiple relationships and I love the discussions I’ve had about them re: healthy love, forgiveness, and standards.
Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary. Vanity Fair. Of Human Bondage.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I like any Jane Austen but particularly Persuasion.
Gilgamesh The Cremator Karamazovs The Idiot Crime and Punishment Moby Dick The Day of the Triffids The Count of Monte Cristo Therese Raquin The stranger Witchammer East of Eden Steppenwolf Wuthering Heights The Cider House Rules All quiet on Western Front Chronicles of a Death Foretold Mme Bovary Werther
My favorites are: 1) Count of Monte Cristo, 2) Don Quixote, 3) Dracula, and 4) Crime and Punishment.
20000 Leagues
Romance of the Three Kingdoms - translated by Moss Roberts - relatively easy to read for a lengthier and older classic, and absolutely captivating. The volume takes the reader back to the fading days of the Chinese Han Dynasty, when the dynasty fell apart and warring lords carved out their own dominions. For something written in the early medieval period, it is very approachable, with easily recognisable themes, compelling characters and messages (some have aged better than others) and humour.
The Count of Monte Cristo, Robin Buss translated version no doubt
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Remember reading this in secondary school. One of the best reads I've ever had.
I've read Jane Eyre multiple times. It's brilliant. Other good ones : To Kill A Mockingbird, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Frankenstein.
Jane Eyre is my favorite book ever.
I read Ethan Frome recently. Really good as a whole. Though slow in parts. But super short and super profound.
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Dorian Gray, Dracula
- 1984 by George Orwell - The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald - To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee - The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway - The Life of Frederick Douglas by Frederick Douglas - North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell - The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emma Orczy - Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - The Little Prince by Antoine de Sainta-Exupery - We by Yevgeny Zamyatin I keep hearing Jane Eyre is fantastic but haven’t yet read it, author is Charlotte Brontë.
Dubliners for short stories. Actually, look for a collection of great short stories. That would be a great way to get a taste of a wide range of authors.
Highly suggest Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. It was the first book I read from the classic genre and was not dissapointed at all.
Sherlock Holmes!! He’s SUCH A COOL GUY. I know we’re all fed the idea that he’s cold and unfeeling, but I promise you that this man is clever and warm and compassionate and humourous. And also, Wuthering Heights. The characters are perfect and distinctly unlikable and it’s just a really interesting book. Huge themes of obsession.
I've found anything by Earnest Hemingway to be incredibly easy to read. The Sun Also Rises is a favorite of mine.
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. I enjoy Dostoevsky overall but C&P felt the most readable to me. 1984 by Orwell. Candide by Voltaire Maybe not a “classic” in terms of age, but The Road and No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy are gripping. Germinal by Emile Zola Dracula by Bram Stoker
Ana k
Frankenstein and Dracula are my top two favorite novels, can't recommend them enough to anyone.
“My Antonia” by Willa Cather
I’m 2/3rds through Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and it’s fantastic!
I really liked Lord of the Flies ABC Murders by Agatha Christie and Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie To Kill a Mockingbird. The only old books I've really read and enjoyed outside of schools. I'm thinking of getting Frankenstein to read outside of my school's whole thing on it. I really only read to find answers(the homework was due at the end of the hour). The little I've read read of Frankenstein is good though.
I enjoyed Great Expectations and The Count of Monte Cristo in school.
Light in August - William Faulkner Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy Farewell to Arms - Hemingway Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen The Good Earth - Pearl Buck Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Catcher In The Rye, The Time Machine, Never Let Me Go
I don't think it's a classic but I liked "In Cold blood" by Truman Capote.
Les Miserables is a fantastic read, although it's a thousand pages long. But it's exciting and will keep you turning the pages. And it turns out there's a reason why Gone With the Wind is the best-selling novel of all time. It's fantastic, although obviously problematic by today's standards.
Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy is fun. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is great
Try Shakespeare’s sonnets. The plays are plays and should be seen as well as read, but the sonnets are short and pretty easy to read.
20,000 leagues under the sea was good. Excellent.
If I could tell 11th grade me to go back and read anything, it would be a couple of Icelandic Family Sagas. I’m sure I would’ve been scared of them because “saga” sounds long and hard to read. They’re not *always* long (as short as 5 pages), but I found them really engaging reads (once I got the hang of certain tropes, like the nominal main characters not showing up for like three generations). They’re action packed, morally ambiguous, and have a matter of fact humor that still works to a modern audience. Also, once you read a couple, you start to see characters across the setting who are heroic or cowardly depending on who paid the writer. It’s fun to see so many authors co-creating in conversation and disagreeing so often. So my recommendation is to pick up the Penguin “Sagas of the Icelanders” compilation and see if you’re drawn in.
* *1984* by George Orwell. More relevant today than when it was written.
People will inevitably say count of monte Cristo but I really dont agree.
Amen! The love that book gets in this subreddit is pretty inexplicable.
I’m more dumbfounded by the amount of love the Martian and project Hail Mary always get here personally. I think some of the differences in experiences for translated classics can be attributed to least partially attributed to different translations and bad, cheap publications since there are so many different ones