The Classics- Recommendations

Ahh then i shall to go scavenging in my local second hand and see if i can find any, post haste

oh yeah and Meta, Lovecraft rocks my world...anzways

Bett

No Melodie, I haven't read that Hardy one, but I enjoyed Mayor of Casterbridge.

So classic, sorry luv but I don't have time to read through everyone's response so if I repeat, sorry. I have read all of these so if you have any questions PM me.

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Daniel Deronda (my all time favorite) - George Eliot...she's a genius
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
A Doll's House - Henrik Ibsen
Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Major of Casterbridge - Hardy
The Ol' Curiosity Shop - Charles Dickens (the only one of his works beside Bleak House and Hard Times that I like)
Hard Times - Dickens
The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
Tom Jones - Henry Fielding (the guys very witty)
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
Dubliners - James Joyce (don't attempt this unless you really wanna think hard)

more recents classics...

Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut (amazing book)
One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (loved this book, one of my favorites ever)
The Stranger - Albert Camus (interesting read)
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

thats all I can think of right now.

Betty Paige

hmmm I still stick to Achilles.

Anyway, has anyone read Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy? My english teacher thinks it's one of the greatest books ever written. I destest it stongly, however.

Other opinions?

Two other favourites I forgot to mention are:

Bleak House -- Charles Dickens
Black Beauty -- Anna Sewell.

I've been working my way through the classics lately, my favourite has to be "crime and punishment" by Dostoyefsky I would recommend it to everyone. Currently half way through "war and peace" a great book but can become something of a sup hill struggle. Damn those russian names. Have to agree with everyone who said Frankenstein, and Dracula is great too, although it does drag a little in the middle in my opinion. Poe also is amazing, some of my favourite poems. Any one here read any Lovecraft ? im yet too but im kinda curious as to what he is like. ciao[quote[/quote]

Oh no... Odysseus. Completely different guy. And he went around quite a bit...

Are you talking anout Westly? I love everything about him but his name. But if you read buttercup's baby you know he is inecent in most sexual aspects.

Odysseus is awesome! Deceitful, yes, and he does do lots of stupid things, but look at his character! He's loved by his servants - always a good trait. He is loyal to his wife (yes, he goes on several sexual escapades, but he always wants to return to her, and most of the time he's just lost, trying to get back home and doing everything he can to get back home. He's lost everything. He just wants to go home.

I love him... so human, so heroic. I've based one of my best characters off him. ^_^;;

Ooh, the Princess Bride is pretty cool. I've only read the first few chapters but...ah vell. Cool book.

I love classics! read the princess bride. I know it sounds girly but it is definetly not. It is only girly in name.

areida07 wrote:

Melodie wrote:Areida, I know exactly what you mean about Odysseus. I didn't like him at all. I thought his character was tricky and decietful. My favorite is Achilles. I think his character is awesome.

Achilles? Meh. He was always running to his mommy to gripe. I love Hektor and I was pretty fond of Diomedes too.

I never liked Greek mythology but I enjoyed reading Odysseus.

Melodie wrote:Areida, I know exactly what you mean about Odysseus. I didn't like him at all. I thought his character was tricky and decietful. My favorite is Achilles. I think his character is awesome.

Triona! It excites me so much that you put down Anna Karenina! It's the best book I've ever read, period. Loved it, loved it. Some consider it the greatest novel ever written, and if you don't believe me, look it up on the internet! It's fabulous. Really long, though. It took me about 6 months to get through it.

Wuthering Heights is good and so is Vanity Fair by Thackery, but it really doesn't get that much attention.

-Sarah

My favourites include:

Nicholas Nickleby - Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Wuthering heights - Emily Brontë

Melodie, I love anything by Oscar Wilde, he's one of my favourite writers.

The Iliad was awesome, I loved it. I'm in middle of The Aeneid, I don't really like it. But its for class so it must be read, *sigh*. I'll pull through it.

Areida, I know exactly what you mean about Odysseus. I didn't like him at all. I thought his character was tricky and decietful. My favorite is Achilles. I think his character is awesome.

areida07 wrote:The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexander Dumas (Dry at times, but it only took me about a week to get through reading kind of slowly)

I know what you mean. I read both the Iliad and the Odyssey in eighth grade for my Omnibus class (Antiquity), and though the Iliad was definitely more difficult, I ended up liking it better. I suppose it just seemed less contrived, but that might just be me.

Besides that, I didn't really like Odysseus as much as Homer truly intended me too. He was pretty sneaky, if you know what I mean. Plus I love Hektor and I was still ticked off that he'd died. *shrug*

Both are worth the reading, though.

I'd recommend Picture of Dorian Grey, for that matter I'd recommend anything my Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Ernest is great. It's a play though. I don't know if that counts in your English class. Also one of my favorites is The Iliad. Not a big fan of The Odyssey though.
I love Peter Pan and Treasure Island is awesome too.

I loved Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. James Joyce's Ulysses is fab too if you've got a few months. And Silas Marner by George Eliot - fantastic book!!

You're welcome.

The Pit and the Pendulum! I've tried looking for that book in my local library and found a really horribly mashed up one. The library can't bother to replace it so I'm gonna have to look else where.

Thank you! Now I remember...Anyway, Poe's works are verrry good, and I'd recommend any of them. The Pit and the Pendulum is one of my favourites.

Bram Stroker wrote Dracula.

I vote, and ever shall, for The Lord of the Rings! Ok, I recommend it; by now a timeless classic no doubt. But I would also recommend Frankenstein by Mary-Shelley (someone mentioned) Dracula (forgive me I seemed to have forgotten the author, and yet it is on the tip of my tongue!), To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (or the other way around, and to think I only read it last year!)

Lol

Ooh, see, I loved Jane Eyre!

I must be a simpleton too...

I hate Jane Eyre in my opinion she's just a simpleton and I hated stupid Mr.Rochester or whatever his name was.

I recommend "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding and "Secrets of the Heart" by Kahlil Gibran.

Classics? Here you go:

Watchmen -- By Alan Moore, and Dave Gibbons.
The Dark Knight Returns -- By Frank Miller.
The Dark Knight Strikes Back -- By Frank Miller.
Kingdom Come -- By Mark Waid, and Alex Ross.

My favourites include:

Villette -- Charlotte Brönte
Wuthering Heights -- Emily Brönte
A Tale of Two Citites -- Charles Dickens
Frankenstein -- Mary Shelley
Animal Farm -- George Orwell
Ivanhoe -- Sir Walter Scott
Oliver Twist -- Charles Dickens

Haven't read the bible and I'm not interested.

Hehehe...I've read a lot of that...but wouldn't have thought of it.

The Bible! It's withstood how many millenia and still remains as fresh as it was!

Hehe, thanks guys!

Got Animal Farm, 1984, Lord of the Flies, The Red Badge of Courage and Farenheit 451 (not really a 'classic', but it's been popular for quite awhile) upstairs.

I want to read Homer, definitely, Ari.

Phew...now I have a list of good things to read! Whee!

Well, part of what makes it "classic" is that it has stood the test of time, or can be considered timless. People remember it. So yeah, there isn't really a specific number of years, but if you talk to certain people, they will say that it's proved it's timelessness once it's been around for one hundred years.

I didn't like Jane Eyre much. I stopped reading it will about twenty-five pages to go because I knew how it ended, and the book was taking so long to get to that point. It was just so tedious.

Alcina: The Picture of Dorian Gray, definitely, but it can get a little messy.

The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn would have to be my suggestion, especially for young readers.

Dickens, yeah... but the books are very long-winded, and not everyones favourite. I didn't really like them.

I've read Emma (Jane Austen) several times too...its great.

I couldnt finish Jane Eyre - I knew the ending and I hated Jane...UGH! What a simpering ninny! But Wuthering Heights is great - really creepy in parts. So passionate. Also (I havent read all of these, but...): Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy, The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins, The Mill on the Floss, Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy, The Thornbirds (author ???)....I could think of more but you might be better googling it. Oh and I definitely recommend Pride & Prejudice - one of my faves! And A Room With a View, E. M. Forster. House of Mirth, Edith Wharton....

I read classics all the time but the one that i love "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde. I think its called that, I just call it Dorian Gray. I've read it more then 10 times, I think its a great book.

I liked the Three Musketeers. And I dunno... Rudyard Kipling is awesome. Is he classic?

I'll second East of Eden it was really good. I'll also second Pride and Prejudice it was actually really funny..

I didn't care for Jane Eyre, personally.. A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens was alright, though.

still need to read 1985.. been meaning to. Same with Red Badge of Courage (and yeah, its Stephen Crane), and apparently dad has a copy, so that gets read after Catch-22 (but I don't think that qualifies as a classic.. does it?)

A classic isn't necessarily defined by the number of years it's been around. There's no "set number" of years. Don't the Lord of the Rings count as classics oftentimes?

Red Badge of Courage I think was by Stephen Crane.

So... as for suggestions...

East of Eden, John Steinbeck (I think you'd like this one. Kind of reminds me of your style of writing.)
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexander Dumas (Dry at times, but it only took me about a week to get through reading kind of slowly)
The Iliad, Homer (Okay, so I don't know if your teacher is counting epic poetry or whatever, but that's a good one.)

I'm brain dead. That's all I got right now, LOL.

Not too fond of classic lit myself. Though A Christmas Carrol is all right.

*shrugs* Know any good ones, then, Rei?

Well, the way people define a classic changes from person to person. Some may say fifty and some may say seventy-five. But I was taught that it was one hundred years.

Meh, my English teacher's really laid back...and I think 1984 was written in the thirties, am I correct?

darn it, Peter Pan was published in 1911, so if you wait 6 years you could do a report on it then, The Three Musketeers was first published in 1844.

If it was published at least one hundred years ago, it qualifies as a classic.

Classics!! wow, i would recomend Charles Dickens to you, but i can't stand reading his books, so i wont recomend him. You can go for things like Wuthering Heights by one of the other Bronte's, or Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, i think anyway, is a classic. But on the other hand Peter Pan is a classic, just for a difference audience.