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Having just bought and read 'Of mice and men', which I thoroughly enjoyed, I'm wondering what other classics are worth a read - so what book would you recommend and briefly why?
If you've never read Conrad's Heart of Darkness, do so immediately. Gripping, fascinating stuff.
I'd also suggest Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding. A very different style of book, but roaring good fun.
One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest
To Kill a Mockingbird
They're the only two recognised 'classics' I have. Both excellent.
Thr Cruel Sea is ace.
The Wasp Factory!
The Catcher in the Rye.
Inspired a man to kill John lennon!
Loved The grapes of wrath and nearly finished War and peace which is a fantastic read too. I like a decent length book to get my teeth into.
Only book I've never finished was Moby Dick.
100 Years of Solitude
For Whom The Bell Tolls
Madame Bovary
Anna Karenina
The Great Gatsby
Revolutionary Road
all good
Every single person on the planet should read To Kill a Mockingbird.
The Picture of Dorian Gray's good, if a little thin. A good quick read, I guess.
On The Road's such a cliche, but I really enjoyed reading it. Proper escapism.
Junky (Burroughs) is pretty engrossing (dunno if that's a recognised classic, just thought of it when thinking about Kerouac).
+1 for One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest.
If you liked Mice and Men, you should really read Grapes of Wrath next..
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and the sequel, Leila. Don't just read Zen as you won't know what the hell it was all about without Leila.
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Agree with Nick, to kill a mockingbird is a must read.
Oh and The Count of Monte cristo.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Not classics in their own right but anything by one of the three Scottish Ian's, not a dud amongst them.
Plus anything by Dickens, great stories
You can't go wrong with more Steinbeck. I think East of Eden is every bit as good as grapes of wrath and cannery row is also excellent.
Thanks, there's some good suggestions so far - which I'm browsing at on Amazon.
avdave2 - are Steinbeck's other books anywhere near as good as 'Of mice and men'?
Drac - LOL!
Have you got a Kindle?
If you do: http://www.amazon.co.uk/l/ref=mh_rd_l?node=434020031&device=desktop
Hardy - return of the native. Actually quite a happy story for hardy.
Lord of the flies
1984
Robinson Crusoe
Jane eyre
The rainbow
Grapes of wrath is superb.
Trollope books are always a good read
The 39 steps...... "of it's time" but good fun
oh, and my favorite book evar: Gorky park
2nd edit: Also, anything by Raymond Chandler
The Jungle Book is brilliant,
Jane Eyre +1
Cloud Atlas
East of Eden is a more satisfying novel than Grapes of Wrath IMO. I have enjoyed many of his books, though Cannery Row is probably my favourite. If you judge a books success by feeling compelled to re-read it, then Sweet Thursday and Tortilla Flat are worth a mention. Cannery Row is the only novel I have ever finished and found that I needed to read it again immediately.
Erskine Childers [i]The Riddle Of The Sands[/i]. Spies and skulduggery prior to the First World War on the North Sea coast. Excellent book, well worth reading, and free.
War of the Worlds.
Not all "classics" as such, but all ace books - short books mainly because I'm rubbish with long books.
Ray Bradbury - Farenheight 451
Kurt Vonnengut - Cats Cradle (although I could give you a long list of his books which are ace)
Pat Barker - Regeneration Trilogy
Bowman - Ascent of Rum Doodle
Chuck Palahniuk - Survivor
Tressell - Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
are Steinbeck's other books anywhere near as good as 'Of mice and men'?
Yes - cannery row and east of Eden are excellent
In Cold Blood , Truman Capote - first of it's type and really good.
One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich - Solzhenytsyn
Walden - Thoreau
Strangers and Brohers - CP Snow
The Outward Urge - Wyndham Lewis
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
Big fan of Orwell. Funnily enough not really 1984. Down and out in Paris and London and homage to Catalonia would be my favourites. Actually now you mention it might reread down and out.
Burmese Days is another Orwell classic
+1 Cannery Row
Love a lot of Orwells stuff.
Daphne du Maurier did some great stuff, not sure if it's classed as "classic" or not. Jamaica Inn is a great read.
Tressell - Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
This is my favourite book. I have read it a dozen times and bought and lent it to dozens of people! As an aside he is buried in the small cemetery opposite the entrance to Walton prison on Hornby Road.
Also anything by George Orwell and Solzhenytsn as above.
[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Consider-Lilies-Iain-Crichton-Smith/dp/0753812932 ]Consider the lilies[/url] is a fantastic short read.
Caleb Williams - William Godwin
Dangerous Liaisons - Choderlos de Laclos
Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia - Samuel Johnson
And you didn't specify novels, so I'll also mention La Rochefoucault's Maxims.
A book of incredibly sharp short observations on human nature which ought to be required reading for anyone planning on using an internet forum.
For example...
"There is more pride than kindness in our reprimands to people who are at fault; and we reprove them not so much to correct them as to convince them that we ourselves are free from such wrongdoing."
Huxley's [i]Brave New World[/i]. Richer and more multilayered than Orwell's [i]1984[/i] I reckon.
Hamlet
Some poetry:
Paradise Lost
TS Eliot - The Wasteland
Another vote here for Cannery Row.
And then there's The Secret History, probably the best book I've ever read.
I'd also put in a mention for Robert Graves
Goodbye to all That - his account of WW1 which is apt in 2014 and I Claudius - a book i picked up only because I'd read everything else on the bookshelf. It's not like your reading about ancient Rome you are quite simply there, a stunning book.
Dracula - an astonishing book and nothing like the 400000000 movies made based on the original story.
Lots of fantastic suggestions above but here are some of my favourites:
Vladimir Nabukov - Lolita
The subject matter is obviously a challenge but as an exploration of someone struggling with their sexual nature it's almost perfect. An uncomfortable read at times but incredibly compelling.
Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway
A hard read but only because its structure is so innovative. Once you get used to it it's an amazing snapshot of a world in which characters move and exist rather than the world being shaped around them. A bit like an impressionist painting or a complex jazz record, you have to commit to exploring it to get the most out of it.
Phillip Roth - American Pastoral
My favourite novel - exploring the relationships between classes, generations and cultures in the 1960-70s. I read it in about 48 hours then went back to the start and read it again.
Joris Karl Huysmans - A Rebours
The most cynically comic novel I know of, tearing into the intellectualism and affectation of its era but still relevant to our own fabs and fashions and still very funny.
Ernest Hemmingway - For Whom the Bell Tolls
Pretty much a perfect book, not really sure what to say about it really.
+1 for Consider the Lilies
The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann
Nothing really happens, but Mann makes every other novel you've read seem like it was put together by a 10 year old. Incredibly rich in ideas.
Very much enjoying 1984 at the moment, in my version all the party members are wearing Rapha Jerseys.
Many very good recommendations - but a few authors worth adding to the list
Had one of the great 19th French Realists but I don't think we have had the other two, Balzac, The Old Goriot being a good starting point and, for Zola, Thérèse Raquin.
And no list of great classics would be complete without Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment would be the first one to read.
Glad the most cliched and overrated book in English Literature has been avoided so far. How long can we go.....
Normally #1 on any classics list so good that STW has greater critical faculties!!
Glad the most cliched and overrated book in English Literature has been avoided so far
Ulysses? Certainly the most overrated. Not sure about cliched.
The 39 steps...... "of it's time" but good fun
I tried to read some of his other stuff and it is horribly dated.
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
The Great Game - Peter Hopkins
Dune - Frank Herbert
All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
+1 One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch
[i]Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K...[/i]
Kafka is a special writer with such a strong voice that he seems to occupy his own space in the classics.
Another singular writer from the twentieth century is Borges - although he never wrote a novel, all short stories. Huge influence on the form and v fun and readable - the original magical realist (but don't blame him for that).
Some classic Russian stuff mentioned - another one from the 20th century is [i]The Master and Margarita[/i] by Bulgakov - brilliantly written satire on Stalin, was samizdat literature in the soviet union for years [underground books distributed by hand]. Source of the immortal line '[i]Didn't you know that manuscripts don't burn[/i]?'
Dracula, very scary,
Well worth a read
Thanks for all your suggestions, I've bought Cannery Row to read next off the back of several endorsements but will refer back to this thread for future reads v shortly as plenty of them look well worth a read!!! 😀
Talking about Russian themed books, one that I'm going to read again, now that you mention it, is one of the first books I read all on my lonesome after I left school. I was never a big reader till I read this book. But The Fixer by Bernard Malamud. Remember it as a cracking book, very dark.
Think I'll re-read The Trail again actually aswell since you mention Kafka. Reckon I'll get alot more out of that now I'm older, should still have it kicking about somewhere.
+1 for Catch 22
Is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy old enough to be a classic
Reading Kafka's 'collected novels' (The Trial, Amerika and The Castle) at the moment, The Castle by far my favourite but might go back and re-read the Trial when I've finished it as the last few chapters flew by.
+1 for Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov is great as well.
Only read Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck but think there is a copy of Cannery Row in the house.
My reading list grows exponentially...
5elefant - you appear to be typing with authority and knowledge you don't possess. Zen predated LILA by many years. Zen stands alone as a fine read.