Feb 022010
When I had to read them in school, I read the Cliff or Monarch notes instead of actually reading them. I want to read them now for pleasure & get an insight into their place in literary history & how they have influenced our culture & society as a result. The lists I’ve found are random and subjective instead of in order of significance and value to our society. I’m looking for a comprehensive list of the best classical books ever written. Any suggestions where I could find a list like this?
read these authors -you can’t go wrong here..
JANE AUSTEN
CHARLES DICKENS
THOMAS HARDY
GEORGE ORWELL
LEO TOLSTOY
VICTOR HUGO
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
SOMERSET MAUGHAM
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
JOHN STEINBECK
BRONTE SISTERS
HG WELLS
EM FOSTER
WILLIAM THACKERAY
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
ALEXANDER DUMAS
GEORGE ELLIOT
RL STEVENSON
many more
just go to the library and browse through these authors works -read the blurbs/reviews and pick the ones you like ..
What books you think are of most value to society is entirely personal and depends what you think a classic should be. My favourites are…
Vanity Fair
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Revolutionary Road
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Persuasion
Cranford
1984
The Waves
Lolita
Catch-22
Bleak House
Herodotus’ History
Les Miserables
All lists are gonna be subjective – just read a load and decide what you like best! Otherwise if you search the websites of most national papers they have a list of ‘the best classics’ in their book sections which you can look through.
here’s a list of my favorite classic lit
(if you don’t like reading much, these are the least boring school books):
heart of darkness – joseph conrad
catcher in the rye – j.d. salinger
frankenstein – mary shelley
the adventures of huckleberry finn – mark twain
hamlet – william shakespeare
the great gatsby – f. scott fitzgerald
of mice and men – john steinbeck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_yea…
The books on that list should just about cover it.
um…
Herman Melville’s- Moby Dick
Homer’s- Odyssey
Mary Shelley’s- Frankenstein.
check the classic section at barnes and noble. the books are soft back and they are very reasonably priced. i mean some of them are like 3 bucks
Well, Barnes and Noble has a classics section.
A few of my favorites though are The Picture of Dorian Gray and King Solomons Mines
The Catcher in the Rye
Of Mice and Men
Death of a Salesman
War and Peace
Lord of the Flies
1984
Brave New World
The Great Gatbsy
Jane Erye
Tale of Two Cites
Grapes of Wrath
Etc……
Do not read THE GREAT GASBY. Trust me, you’ll go crazy. And don’t read a tale of 2 cities. That will make you shoot yourself.
You should read:
The Count of Monte Cristo (Great book)
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100best.html
The Great Gatsby.
Good luck!
Read them for free:http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/
Unfortunately, any list you find will be subjective like the ones I’ve linked below. However, there has to be a modicum of implied significance in these lists; they are not just ‘good books.’
Some of my personal favorites………….
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford (The title is a metaphor and has nothing to do with the military)
An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
The Devil in the White City – Erik Larson (although the story about a serial killer at Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition is true, Larson sprinkles in his conjecture as fact along the way)
On a personal, self-improvement level:
How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
This is absolutely one of the hokiest and most derided titles of any book ever written. Don’t be fooled by it. If you want to be a better person, improve your human relation skills and make people like you, you can’t beat it. There is a reason this book has sold close to 40 million copies since it was first published in the early 1930s. Its message and lessons are timeless.
Click the following link for three subjective lists of the 100 all-time best novels: http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary… http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary…
As noted above, these lists are subjective and nothing more than the opinions of a select group of literary pundits, not the opinion of the masses.