Spoonie Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 Over the past few year and a bit I've been trying to fill in a lot of the gaps in my reading around the books that are considered classics. Not the classics in terms of the great books the great philosophers from hundreds of years gone by (althought some of these will come into it) but the classics across all genres that are considered must reads. Keen for people to throw in their ideas here as to what books might come into that category. A few example I've read include: Thomas Hardy - Tess of the d'urbervillesJohn Steinbeck - The grapes of wrathHerman Melville - Moby DickHarper Lee - To kill a MockingbirdJD Salinger - Catcher in the rye That's just a few for starters. What else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 Man, Moby Dick is a slog. Some that are on my kindle just now: Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic GibbonTreasure Island by Robert Louis StevensonKidnapped by Robert Louis StevensonPeter Pan - JM BarrieDune - Frank HerbertThe Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 I also keep meaning to go back and read some Charles Dickens and some of the Shakespeare plays we didn't cover at school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemonade Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 Wuthering Heights for sure. What a fantastic book. To Kill A Mockingbird. The Catcher In The Rye. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colb Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 Michael Lewis - Liars PokerHunter S Thomson - Fear and Loathing, Las Vegas and Campaign TrailPJ O'Rourke - Parliament of WhoresAnonymous - Primary ColorsFrank Kafka - The TrialDavid Simon - HomicideTom Wolfe - The Right StuffDouglas Coupland - MicroserfsHenry Miller - Tropic of CapricornSteven Blush - American Hardcore Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neepheid Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Broonbreed Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 Aldous Huxley - A Brave new worldIsaac Asimov - Foundation trilogyPhilip K Dick - Do androids dream of electric sheep?John Fante - Bandini quartetAnthony Burgees - A Clockwork Orange I dare say there's a couple more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paranoid Android Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 A few obvious ones that have not been mentioned yet.Joseph Heller - Catch 22Chinua Achebe - Things Fall ApartF. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great GatsbyOscar Wilde - Picture of Dorian GreyDostoyevsky - Crime and Punishment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoonie Posted July 13, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 Keep them coming - just remember it's the bonafide, nailed-on classics we're looking for here, rather than more obscure books that you love. I've read a tonne of these, with plenty more to get into. Shakespeare is someone I've never dabbled in, so I need to start thinking how I can approach that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robkevertson Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 Keep them coming - just remember it's the bonafide, nailed-on classics we're looking for here, rather than more obscure books that you love. I've read a tonne of these, with plenty more to get into. Shakespeare is someone I've never dabbled in, so I need to start thinking how I can approach thatShakespeare is brutal.. Remember it well , Macbeth for my Higher english exam in 1989 lol Some hideous but beautiful quotes. I should read some more of that stuff!! I also second 1984 by george orwell as a fantastic read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Moon Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 50 shades?... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Broonbreed Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 (edited) If this isn't open for personal interpretation of classics, why not just Google it? Just saying. Oh yeah, and rack off, YoungA. Edited July 13, 2015 by James Broonbreed 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoonie Posted July 14, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 14, 2015 Because this website gets used for fuck all else so I thought I'd get some discussion going! There are a lot of 'you should have read' lists out there but I was keen to get a definitive one from Ab-Mus's avid readers! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Broonbreed Posted July 14, 2015 Report Share Posted July 14, 2015 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colb Posted July 14, 2015 Report Share Posted July 14, 2015 (edited) It's a good list, but it's not a british list.Jack London, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and Susan Coolidge are all American for starters.Few French authors in there as well.... Edited July 14, 2015 by colb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paranoid Android Posted July 14, 2015 Report Share Posted July 14, 2015 ...and they're not all novels Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Broonbreed Posted July 14, 2015 Report Share Posted July 14, 2015 Well.... Not according to me/Wikipedia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottyboy Posted July 15, 2015 Report Share Posted July 15, 2015 (edited) I read Madame Bovary this year. I wouldn't recommend it. If we're talking Classics-with-a-capital-C I'd have thought they should be pre-20th century. Of the few I've read, I'd go with Crime and Punishment, mentioned by 'droid above. I also read Anna Karenina for my Higher personal essay thing and it wasn't bad; probably better if you have an interest in the 19th century Russian aristocracy though... Les Miserables was another doable doorstop, but I got about 900 pages and halfway through, thought I might take a break and just never went back to it. I saw Treasure Island listed above - I've read it a few times and think it might be my favourite 19th century novel, fuck y'all. Shakespeare is probably the only pre-20th century writer I really dig, but I'm kind of against the notion of "reading" him, and I think this is why people just don't get him at first (in school, damn near invariably). People rave about the writing on The Wire, Sopranos etc., and a hardcore fan might sit down with just the scripts; but who would do so without first actually watching it, probably several times? I've never met a Shakespeare film (heresy?), history or tragedy at least, that I didn't really like. 20th century modern classics, though, and the list could be a fair bit bigger: any of Hemmingway's best (Old Man..., For Whom the Bell Tolls; A Farewell to Arms); The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden; All Quiet on the Western Front; 100 Years of Solitude; Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange (both good shouts above) are some I've loved most, off the top of my head. I saw Tom Wolfe mentioned above, so if he's allowed: Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full. Both incredible and really sort of 19th century, massive-scope, classic style. Edited July 15, 2015 by scottyboy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colb Posted July 15, 2015 Report Share Posted July 15, 2015 Treasure Island is a really great book.I'm not sure that something has to be old to be a classic, doesnt it just have to be great/groundbreaking/influential? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottyboy Posted July 16, 2015 Report Share Posted July 16, 2015 Possibly, possibly. I'm basically going with what gets published by Penguin Classics vs Penguin Modern Classics (vs. not published by either of those). If that's not the ultimate arbiter of what are "bonafide, nailed-on classics" then I dunno what is... (er, Morrissey's autobiography excepting). Though a book has to be out of copyright - and thus a certain age - before it will get published by any "classics" publisher, I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gypsum_Fantastic Posted July 16, 2015 Report Share Posted July 16, 2015 Zola, though I have only read one and enjoyed it a lot. I read Germinal but I believe it is a series that is best read in order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Knight Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 On the Road by Jack KerouacI have re-read this often - at about 10 year gaps 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaki Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 East of Eden - John Steinbeck. I maintain it's his best, as did he, and is therefore the best book ever. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaki Posted July 22, 2015 Report Share Posted July 22, 2015 For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway. A struggle in places but has the best passage I've ever read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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