Top Ten Best Classics...in your opinion

[Zeldania]

I've been seeing a lot of boards dedicated to a single book. So why not come together and discuss your top ten favorites? Mine are the following(not in order):

-Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

-Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

-The Three Muskateers by Alexandre Dumas

-The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

-The Harry Potter series, by JK Rowling. Yes I know it isn't at least 150 years old, but it's a classic!

-Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain

-Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

-Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte

-Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo

-The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston LeRoux

What are yours?

[carusmm]

- Heart of Darkness

- A Clockwork Orange

- Macbeth

- Rime of the Ancient Mariner

- We

- 1984

- The Old Man and the Sea

- Charlotte's Web

- Of Mice and Men

- Peter Pan

Peter Pan is a particular delight.

[carusmm]

Note above.  We is a science fiction novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

[dulcinea3]

1. Don Quijote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
2. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
3. The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
4. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
5. Persuasion, Jane Austin
6. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
7. Vanity Fair, William Makepiece Thackeray
8. Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie
9. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
10. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

[carusmm]

I have picked up The Haunting of Hill House to read for the June bookclub.  It must be good, for Stephen King reckons that it is the greatest haunted house story of all time.  High praise indeed.

[dulcinea3]

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carusmm wrote:

I have picked up The Haunting of Hill House to read for the June bookclub.  It must be good, for Stephen King reckons that it is the greatest haunted house story of all time.  High praise indeed.

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If you mean this club, I think we are actually going to be reading the short stories in the collection by Jackson, The Lottery, rather than a novel.  However, we did read The Haunting of Hill House on the Literature by Women club a while back (I think it was last year, but it could have been longer), and if you are interested in reading it, you should be able to find those older threads and you could add your own comments.

I hope you like it!  I wore out my first paperback copy.  I can see why King calls it a haunted house story, but maybe the house is haunted, maybe not.  I'd be interested in hearing your own conclusion after you've read it.  The more recent movie The Haunting definitely presents the house as haunted, while I think that the earlier movie leans in a different direction.

[eadieburke]

My favorite classics are: Little Women, Wizard of Oz, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Moonstone, Tale of Two Cities, Silas Marner, Pit and the Pendulum, Anna Karenina, An American Tragedy

[redbaronfan]

My top 11 (I couldn't narrow it down any further), in no particular order are :

Of Human Bondage- Somerset Maugham

Lolita- Vladimir Nabakov

Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant

Tess of D'urbervilles- Thomas Hardy

Emma- Jane Austen

Murder of Roger Ackroyd- Agatha Christie

Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen

On the heights of Despair-Emil Cioran

The Moon and the Sixpence-  Somerset Maugham

Siddhartha-Herman Hesse

Crime and Punishment-Fyodor Dostoyevsky

[Mountain_Muse]

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Zeldania wrote:

I've been seeing a lot of boards dedicated to a single book. So why not come together and discuss your top ten favorites? Mine are the following(not in order):

-Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

-Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

-The Three Muskateers by Alexandre Dumas

-The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

-The Harry Potter series, by JK Rowling. Yes I know it isn't at least 150 years old, but it's a classic!

-Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain

-Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

-Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte

-Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo

-The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston LeRoux

What are yours?

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 The Good Earth -  Pearl S Buck

  Jane Eyre -  Charlotte Bronte

  The Lord of the Rings -  J R Tolkien ( but 150 but a modern classic) 

  Les Miserable - Victor Hugo

 The Iliad & The Odyssey - Homer

Paradise Lost - Milton

Shakespeares Tragedies & Comdedies

The Divine Comedy -  Dante

The Republic - Plato

Aesop's Fables

The Holy Bible

The Arabian Nights from the tales of a 1001 Nights -  Anonymous

Okay, I listed 12, but they are all on my shelf and read and re-read.   I've read and love the ones you have listed, too.

Mtn Muse

[CLForrest]

I haven't read near as many classics due to the fact that I'm only 17, but I have read some...so here's my meager list.  It may not be top 10...haha.

1. Dante's Divine Comedy

2. Odyssey

3. Iliad

4. Republic

5. Swift's A Tale of a Tub and Other Satires

6. The Redwall Series

7. Metamorphosis

There's my two cents worth.  It's not a full two cents...but it's something right?

[Mountain_Muse]

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CLForrest wrote:

I haven't read near as many classics due to the fact that I'm only 17, but I have read some...so here's my meager list.  It may not be top 10...haha.

1. Dante's Divine Comedy

2. Odyssey

3. Iliad

4. Republic

5. Swift's A Tale of a Tub and Other Satires

6. The Redwall Series

7. Metamorphosis

There's my two cents worth.  It's not a full two cents...but it's something right?

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Not doing bad at all.  Keep it up.  There is much we can learn from the wisdom and beauty of the literature of the past.  Let us know as your list grows.

Mtn Muse

[32rosie]

I love that Pride and Prejudice generally shows up in all of these lists. I don't believe I've ever met anyone who dislikes the book.

At any rate, here are mine, in no particular order:

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. The Picture of Dorian Gray
3. The Bell Jar
4. Northanger Abbey
5. Jane Eyre
6. Harry Potter (can we consider that a classic?)
7. Wuthering Heights
8. The Importance of Being Earnest
9. The Taming of the Shrew
10. Mrs. Dalloway

[Jill_Marie]

Harry Potter (GASP!) lol. I'm sure it is a classic, but it's one I have stubbornly refused to read. I've seen all of the movies, and 1) haven't really enjoyed them all that much, and 2) can't bring myself to invest the time in reading all of the books. I probably should though, oh well. As for my list...

1. The Jungle

2. The Picture of Dorian Gray

3. A Tale of Two Cities

4. Little Women

5. The Scarlet Letter

6. The Iliad

7. Of Mice and Men

8. Don Quixote

9. The Wizard of Oz

10. Heart of Darkness

[Mountain_Muse]

It is interesting that parallel discussions are happening on two boards.  Over on General Fiction there are two threads about this same general topic.

One of the threads started off as "What author do you hate to read?" but the discussion has morphed its way through to to the subject "What makes you read?"  That is proving to be an interesting and deep discussion.

The second thread is "What if I could only own six novels?"  This discussion supposes that you are going somewhere where you will not have access to any other books for a very long time and you have to choose 24 books of different topics to take with you....once again, not just what are your favorite books, but why, and what makes you be willing to read and re-read these books again and again.  What qualifies a book to be worth being read again and again?

What made the books we have all listed here "Classics", other than most by definition are over 100 years old, hence classic.  

Any comments?

Mtn Muse 

[mmbrunet]

In no particular order

1. Around the world in 80 days by Jules Verne

2. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

4. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

5. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

6. Tess of the D'Urberbvilles by Thomas Hardy

7. The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe

8. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

9. Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

10. The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Not sure if Unbearable Lightness of Being would be considered a classic as it's not even 30 years old.

[Jill_Marie]

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mmbrunet wrote:

In no particular order

1. Around the world in 80 days by Jules Verne

2. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

4. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

5. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

6. Tess of the D'Urberbvilles by Thomas Hardy

7. The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe

8. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

9. Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

10. The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Not sure if Unbearable Lightness of Being would be considered a classic as it's not even 30 years old.

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Ooh, another The Jungle fan!

[mmbrunet]

Yes!!! I remember snatching it on my way to the cash register because the picture of the raw meat and the title were just too good to pass up. And it's been the best surprise of a book I've had. I couldn't put it down and it instantly became one of my favorites.

[SRiddle]

Catch-22

1984

Brave New World

The Postman Always Rings Twice

Lolita

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Magnificent Ambersons

The Great Gatsby

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Lord of the Flies

[shayanzia]

The Iliad

The Odyssey

David Copperfield

Metamorphosis

The Phantom of the Opera

Emma

Pride and Prejudice

The Death of Ivan Ilych

Hamlet

Macbeth

Madame Bovary

[MacMcK1957]

Ovid or Kafka?