Tess of the D'Urbevilles by Hardy is probably my all time favourite. Hard to pick a favourite from Conrad, maybe The Shadow Line.
Did To Kill a Mockingbird as my O-Level (we're talking mid 1970s now) English literature book so slightly overdosed on it.
Robert A Heinlein - Starship Troopers. A modern classic.
LOTR.
*thinks*
Yeah, LOTR.
Not sure if Shadow of the Wind counts as a classic, but I'd argue it has all the makings of one.
Code of the Woosters. Closely followed by any other Wodehouse.
Malvern rider, please turn your books the right way up or flip your photos.
Or type the titles. We will believe you own them.
yadayada. I just like posting pics. Anyway, which way do you read best? Vertical or horizontal? Can't cater for everyone, tchoh! Tsk, &c 😉
'Lolita' - Mrs MR's recent re-acquisition. I read it in my teens and remember how creepy it was. Haven't the stomach for disturbing fiction these days, yet used to soak up horror and psych stuff up until my late twenties. See also 'The Magus' and 'The Collector' by John Fowles. Brrrr.
Add my vote for The grapes of wrath, as perfect as a book gets IMHO.
The Iron Man by Ted Hughes just re-read with my lad and its such a lovely kids book.
Not sure they are old enough to be classics but Louis de Bernieres South American trilogy are amazing reads.
Brideshead Revisited.
It's as if Waugh took an indelible pen and drew a line under the history of Britain and from then on we set off on a new path.
Not a single book but I love HG Wells (and to a slightly lesser extent Jules Verne). Sci-fi seen through the lens of turn-of-the-century technology and society, and with that era's slightly florid prose (by modern standards).
and another for 'Crime and Punishment'
Also slightly more modern 'USA' by John Dos Passos
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
1984 - Orwell
Galapagos - Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Ripley Bogle eh? I remember Frank Ormsby, my English teacher reading this out in class. I subsequently bought it and read it many years later, excellent. But not a classic.
Of Mice and Men? Orwell? Don't know.
Got Brave New World to read soon.
Never really been bothered with most of the so-called 'classics', I started reading SF pretty early on, and I've always been much more interested in speculative fiction than what's already happened. I've read pretty much all of JG Ballard's SF, including [i]Crash[/i], although I'm not entirely sure that can be classed as SF, though.
Read LOTR and The Hobbit around the same sort of time, I doubt I could read them now.
Thomas Hardy- Tess of The D'Urbervilles
DH Lawrence- Sons and Lovers
Emily Bronte- Wuthering Heights
One of my favourite books ever is Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy, but not old enough to be a classic
Would say Cormac McCarthy counts, I'd go for The Road as an honourable mention.
I'll also have Tom Stoppard's Rosencrants and Guildenstern are Dead. I know it's a play but I've read the script loads.
Final honourable mention would be Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding.
All time best, hard to say but I'll second bleak house for the reason it's the only one mentioned so far that made me think, I'll read that again
Cider with Rosie - Laurie Lee
Animal Farm - Orwell
Cannery Row - Steinbeck
Asimov's foundation trilogy.
The Odyssey.
Gulliver's travels.
If any modern authors can be classed as classics I'll throw in Don Winslow's Power Of The Dog and Cartel.
