“You cannot learn too early in life that most classical literature is both dull and unimportant.” Kyril Bonfiglioli.

Kindles have opened up classics a lot I think, because they’re so often cheap or free. So I thought fine, I’ll broaden my reading a bit but frankly most are disappointing. A mix of age and expectations I suppose. Tale of Two Cities was the low point, it’s just nonsense. Manette’s letter’s possibly the most unintentionally hilarious thing in the history of literature… “I write this unbelievably florid and overly-wordy endless letter full of repetition and deviation with an iron spike on my own blood, using a convenient 500-sheet pack of A4 paper that someone left in my cell…”

It’s got about 2 good pages, one right at the start and one right at the end. Cheers for that Dickens.

Jock of the bushveld – Percy FitzPatrick

A South African classic that I have reread a number of times since I was young.

Just finished reading The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick, (of Bladerunner fame).

Serialised on Amazon Prime and well worth a watch

Favourite classic for me is War of the Worlds

Catch 22 by Heller

It’s a good book but a share that Heller dropped the pages and couldn’t quite get the chapters back into the correct order.

Nothing more than good though. Very over-rated.

(Lazy pics)

‘Noggin and the Dragon’ is a masterpiece.

And (thanks to this thread reminding me of Titus) found this stack of wood for just 50p whilst at the vets yesterday 🙂 Only ever read half of ‘Gormenghast’ and nothing else by Peake. That was decades ago so really quite looking fwd to it.

Fond memories of The Sydney Lending Library there.

Malvern rider, please turn your books the right way up or flip your photos.
Or type the titles. We will believe you own them.

(I see Lolita in there – great book)

RLS – Treasure Island.
Perhaps not the ‘best’ book but a great read.
My dad read it to me a load as a kid (massively fond memories of him doing so), so I read the kids version to my son a few years ago and he’s now read it himself. Then I picked it up on holiday a couple of years ago and read it straight off…what a fantastic adventure story. Loved it, and the sort of book you could read time and time again.

Kids books – The Gruffalo in Scots…is off the scale good 😀

As a kid, I enjoyed animal stories – White Fang, Call Of The Wild, Watership Down.

Became a bit obsessed with Orwell in my teens and devoured everything he wrote, with my favourite being Keep The Aspidistra Flying.

Did a degree in English and was force-fed classics for several years, which pretty much put me off reading them subsequently.

I enjoyed the Scottish Literature component of my course more than the rest of it. I remember being particularly taken with George Douglas Brown’s The House With The Green Shutters and the Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg.

Northwood’s Kyril Bonfiglioli quote definitely struck a chord.

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 Crash, 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.