What is your favorite classic novel?

[nytemare]

I would have to say for me, it is "All Quiet on the Western Front". Perhaps the translation from German is the cause, but I loved the descriptive use of language. That is a book I have to read every few years.

How about you, DU?

[av8rdave]

1. East of Eden

Steinbeck's best, IMO.

[Danger Mouse]

12. i prefer 'of mice and men' myself.

[WinkyDink]

101. I adore this book; taught it, also. "I don't need no ketchup, George."

[Howler]

33. I also have to say "East of Eden"

This book made me laugh, cry,and feel awed.

[av8rdave]

62. Same here....

Such a great tale on several levels.

[Howler]

87. Steinbeck was like that.

The imagery he left me with in "The Grapes of Wrath" have haunted me all these years since I read it.
And "Mice and Men" Forget it. I was a puddle then after I read it. I am a puddle now just thinking about it. LOL!
I did however find his book "The winter of our discontent" A little naive. Though I suppose the time it was written it had its Impact.Not so much in the grand ole year of 2004.

[OmahaBlueDog]

100. You have to be a little forgiving when you read "Winter"

He's old and living outside California at that point, and he's really writing in a time and place outside his comfort zone.

I'm not sure naive is the term I'd use, but it lacks the richness and texture of the earlier work. I reread it about 4 years ago; it is readable, but it's not the Steinbeck at his best. He has a love and passion for the west found in man like photographer Ansel Adams. You can envision Cannery Row and its people, eben if you've never set foot in Monterrey. The trip with the Joads is so engaging -- the roadside camping, the foreshadowing of what's to come in California, the search for used car parts to fix the Ford when the con rod breaks, and then the horrors and comforts they discover in California, and the final scene of Rose O Sharon breastfeeding the starving man (which somehow didn't make it in to the John Ford movie -- go figure) I could go on, but I'll spare you.

[Howler]

108. Forgiving Steinbeck....

For "The winter of our discontent" Is so easy its not even a issue.
I think He is one of the most influential writers of all time.He certainly influenced me.
The scene you mentioned in the final scene of the "grapes of wrath" After she sent the body of her baby on its final travels and went into the barn to nurse him. Was the very scene that has haunted me all these years.I was a kid when I read it years ago. That scene is indelibly and vividly etched on my mind for life.it was very affecting!!!

[Howler]

123. OmahaBlueDog

It seems as I get older the longer and more intense some story imagery stays with me.
For instance I am really glad I read "Black Beauty" and London's "The call of the wild" series when I was young and could bounce back much easier.
A few years ago During the Summer. I decided to wonk out on Mark Twain. It was late at night when I, ran across one of his short stories "A Dogs Tale"
OMG I not only couldn't get to sleep that night. The unwelcome story imagery still slams front and center into my thoughts at moments to this day!BTW, WARNING!!! If you are sensitive to animal cruelty tales stay away from any of mark Twains "A horse's tale"" A Cats tale" "A dog's tale" This is not for you.

[av8rdave]

107. Winter of Our Discontent is actually a Steinbeck I haven't read

OMG my ignorance is starting to show!

[Howler]

109. Av8rdave

If your ignorance is starting to show then mine is running over!LOL!
There are so many books to read and so little time in which to read them in.
I picked up five books written by William Faulkner, And "Franny and Zooey" written by J.D Salinger a year ago at a Planned Parenthood book sale and still haven't cracked the covers on any of them.
I have been so busy with other authors.

[av8rdave]

113. It takes me a while to get through books anymore...

Read a page here and there when there's free time on a trip. Makes me wonder how I managed in college!

[Howler]

118. I know what you mean!

But every once and a while a book makes you drop everything to sit down and read it straight through.
"East of Eden" did that to me so did Steinbecks "Mice and men" "Grapes of wrath" Even "The winter of our Discontent"Had me rapt.
For me reading Steinbeck's books always changed me and the way I looked at the world. I felt older and more experienced if not exactly wiser.(Has talented has Steinbeck was he wasn't a miracle worker) Snort.

Fed- Up- Mom
I loved the dog in 'Travels with Charley"
The scene where the main character walks up and observes those housewives protesting and yelling racial slurs at the kids going to an all white school for the first time was intense.

[fed_up_mother]

114. Loved East of Eden. Heck, I loved Travels with Charlie. :)

I was a big Steinbeck fan, but haven't read his books in years. I think I need the large print version now. LOL

[OmahaBlueDog]

99. The Grapes of Wrath

But I love East of Eden and Cannery Row -- there's not much Steinbeck I don't love

[DarkTirade]

2. Most of the 'classic novels' I've read are classic sci-fi. :)

I'm a geek, what can I say?

[av8rdave]

3. I love Asimov's Foundation series, as well as Clarke's Rama series

They definitely qualify as classics in my book!

[DarkTirade]

6. Yeah, I need to reread those, It's been so long I'm forgetting details.

I think I read the Rama books back in early high school, and the Foundation ones in late high school. And I graduated in 2000, so it's been a few years. :)

[Richardo]

4. Catch-22

It's also my favorite novel - period. :)

[Va Lefty]

104. "That's some catch, that catch 22"

:hi:

[KitchenWitch]

5. "To Kill a Mockingbird"

[av8rdave]

7. I love that book as well.

[Rhythm]

17. Yep... that's mine, too

I've probably re-read it a dozen times.

[LibDemAlways]

23. My daughter's 9th grade English class just finished

studying it, and I read it along with her. Embarrassed to say that was the first time I had read it. I loved it. I cried at the end when Scout is finally looking at the world from Boo Radley's point of view. Beautifully written.

[applegrove]

39. I love that book too. I haven't read it since grade nine. I should get it

again and read it.

[haf216]

97. That one would have to be mine too.

[JanMichael]

8. Impossible. Theres a rift in ability.

"All Quiet on the Western Front" is literary a one hit wonder. But it's fabulous! But "Crime and Punishment" is also grant! So is "War an Peace"! This is an impossible ranking question....

[Danger Mouse]

9. 'Of Mice and Men'...it's Steinbeck's finest novel, and one of the best I've ever read.

'Slaughterhouse Five' and 'The Great Gatsby' ranks as close seconds.

[Fox Mulder]

10. Dracula by Bram Stoker.

[billyoc]

11. For Whom the Bell Tolls.

I re-read it all the time.

[KatyMan]

83. Agreed...

The Old Man and the Sea as well, but FWtBT is awesome. I'm actually surprised there's not more Hemingway on this thread. That man could write a story.

[Chan790]

13. Cat's Cradle

Vonnegut was the world's last literary genius.

[khashka]

28. Oh yes!

And Slaughterhouse Five. Great book.

Khash.

[JTG of the PRB]

14. On the Road, Catch-22, Crime and Punishment, All Quiet on the Western Front...

The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Last Unicorn, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...

Classic novels are like Pringles - once you pop, you can't stop.

Or something like that...

[Kool Kitty]

15. "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn", by Betty Smith.

I never get tired of it.

[Tess49]

16. Same here. In fact, I was thinking about reading it again. Found

it on one of my bookshelves and immediately started thinking about all of the book's characters.

[Connonym]

30. I love that one too

but I'd probably have to say that my absolute favorite is Anne of Green Gables.

[alphafemale]

78. The "Gussy" pit always cracks me up. nt

[badgerpup]

18. Just re-read "The Count of Monte Cristo"

I've read both the abriged and unabriged versions...think the abriged is better, honestly.

[Westegg]

48. Love it! I've read it 5 times, maybe...

...since the age of 12. A classic adventure story with one of my favorite guilty-pleasure themes: REVENGE! I've never read the abridged version. I love to wallow in the details, and the writing-- pure escapism for me. They don't write books like this anymore.

I love all the details about daily life back then that seem almost surreal in our own age. There are too many of those to count, of course, but one that comes to mind (especially in a complicated story of intrigue like this one) is how everyone was always writing letters or dashing off notes to let everyone else know about their plans. Dinner tonight? I'd better send a letter and wait for the reply! Of course, this was in the realm of the super-rich, where one always had a servant at hand to carry off another note or letter and wait for a reply.

Life moved so much more slowly then--yet for all that, this is one of the most exciting novels ever!

[JCMach1]

19. 100 Years of Solitude

is my favorite novel EVER!

[Westegg]

49. Pure magic writing. I heard a story about its conception...

...recently. GGM was riding a bus and the idea for the book hit him like a ton of bricks. He went straight home and into his office and told his wife, "Don't disturb me for a while." Over the next two months or so, he wrote continuously, and pretty much finished the entire thing. This may be apocryphal, but it's a great story of creative genius. I'd love to be hit be a similar ton of bricks.

[KatyMan]

82. i love that book

has to be one of the greatest ever. All of his books that I've read are superb, but there's something about 100 Years of Solitude that resonates.

[Westegg]

86. Agreed. It's genius from a special realm.

[nomorenomore08]

20. Maybe 'The Sound and the Fury.' The book that turns a dysfunctional family into a Biblical epic.

nt

[cemaphonic]

25. I like "As I Lay Dying" better

but Faulkner is up there. Don't think I could pick one.

[Westegg]

50. "AILD" is in my Top 10.

[TZ]

21. "Lord of the Flies"

Just really thought provoking and well written, full of rich symbolism, which I love..."Great Gatsby" and "Grendel" are two others I love.

[zingaro]

36. Me too and

Gatsby is always number two on my list as well. Beowulf is high on my list but I'd never even heard of Grendel. Must read list updated. :)

[Ava]

122. strange, i was about to post that one in addition to the stranger

seems we have similar tastes! lord of the flies is great, but it really does show how brutal people(even kids) can be doesn't it?

[Missy Vixen]

22. Jane Eyre or Little Women

I read both as a pre-teen. They've stuck with me for the past thirty-odd years.

Julie

[Hardrada]

24. Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers

[Krakowiak]

80. Seconded (nt)

[ellisonz]

26. Huckleberry Finn

[khashka]

27. Tristram Shandy

or anything by Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters.

Khash.

[Westegg]

52. Been trying to read this for two years!....

...I find it revolutionary and amazing (I realize I am not the first), but it's like two other novels I really like but haven't been able to finish in the last two years: Gravity's Rainbow and Moby Dick. What I need is a six-month vacation. Alone. No phone. Paid-for.

[YankeyMCC]

29. The Odyssey

Or for something more contemporary perhaps "East of Eden"

[Orsino]

31. Pride And Prejudice, or maybe Huck Finn. n/t

[BlueIris]

32. "Sense and Sensibility." nt

[bigwillq]

34. Frankenstein (nt)

[Deep13]

40. ditto

[Tuesday Afternoon]

35. Anything by Austen

She rawks!

[Phillycat]

59. Me too. :)

[Dr. Strange]

37. Dune

In the original Fremen tongue.

[zingaro]

38. I loved the first few. Then they got too weird for me. nt

[grannylib]

41. "Rebecca" by Daphne DuMaurier; also one of my fave movies

[MorningGlow]

42. Yep

Read Rebecca in freshman English in high school--I was dreading it, because I assumed any novel I'd "have to" read for class would be boring, but damn--loved it and still love it (and the movie too). Also surprised that I enjoyed Ethan Frome in high school too--I was a sucker for the twist ending. 'Course, then we had to read The Old Man and the Sea, and... :puke: :boring:

[grannylib]

43. *lol* Hope you haven't wasted your time on the "sequel"

It sucked. Thank goodness they probably can't make a movie of that trash, since they changed the ending of the book for the movie and killed Mrs Danvers off...

[MorningGlow]

45. There's a SEQUEL?!

I am so glad I didn't know that for most of my life. What a travesty! It's like the sequel to Gone with the Wind. (And didn't I hear that there's going to be a second sequel or something for GWTW?) Cripes!

[lost-in-nj]

88. I knew I liked you

this is my favorite movie and book ever

my daughter just watched it about a month ago

she called me in awe

said she doesn't know why she didn't see it sooner

its not as if I never watched it lOl



lost

[DaydreaminHippie68]

44. Mine I would have to say is

1984 by orwell...kinda scary how true that can be.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

46. I enjoyed reading Tess of the D'urbervilles my senior year n/t

[ceile]

51. Me too!

I liked it so much, I went out and read The Mayor of Casterbridge and Jude the Obscure. Love his work.

[GCP]

64. One of the all-time best novels ever written

I only read it for the first time a few months ago and regret that I'd never read it when I was younger.

[bertha katzenengel]

47. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith n/t

[ceile]

53. Wuthering Heights, Enchanted April, Mayor of Casterbridge

The Wind in the Willows, Alie in Wonderland, Slaughterhouse 5.

[fed_up_mother]

110. I just started Enchanted April!

[Aristus]

54. "All Quiet On The Western Front" is one of my favorites, too.

The common humanity in the book that overcomes the expressions of the "But the Germans were the BAD guys!" mentality.

The last paragraph still gives me goosebumps and causes me to well up.

Here it is from memory:

'He fell in October, on a day that was so silent and still that the Army report for that day confined itself to the single sentence: "All quiet on the Western Front". He had fallen forward. Turning him over, one could see that he could not have suffered long; his face was calm and peaceful, as if almost glad the end had come at last.'

That's an astonishing, moving piece of writing.

[Cant trust em]

55. The Catcher in the Rye.

The first book I read that I personally identified with.

[SCantiGOP]

56. Les Miserables

I remember an item in a New Yorker years ago. A small town newspaper was interviewing the head of the local theater group. Near the end it said that he hoped to stage a play the next year called "Lame is Rob."

[montanto]

57. Heart of Darkness n/t

[Rhythm]

58. delete, oops

[Lyric]

60. Anna Karenina, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Three Musketeers,

Wuthering Heights, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, practically anything by a woman with the last name of Bronte or Austen.

I didn't like The Great Gatsby, though. :P

[dolo amber]

61. Maugham - "Razor's Edge" and Tolstoy - "Anna Karenina"

[PassingFair]

115. Yep, two of the best!

My first choice would be Dickens, however...

either "David Coppperfield" or
"Our Mutual Friend".

Have you read the novel Atonement?
It's kind of Maughamish....

[lunatica]

63. The Remains of the Day, War and Peace, Gone With the Wind nt

[SKKY]

65. "1984"

I've read it probably 30 times.

[Perry Logan]

66. Moby Dick, Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby, & Great Expectations are the monsters in my closet.

[triguy46]

71. Good call on the big fish story. A wonderful read.

[Perry Logan]

85. I think Moby Dick is still the greatest American novel.

[mitchum]

67. Madame Bovary

[BurtWorm]

92. I'm reading it now in French.

It are hard. :crazy:

[seemunkee]

68. The Sound and the Fury

Not sure how many times I have read it, probably a half dozen. I like it more each time.

[Critters2]

69. _O Pioneers!!_ I love that book! nt

[triguy46]

70. "The Good Soldier" by Ford Madox Ford

Think of it as a very long chat by the fireside. Conceptually it introduces the concept of an unreliable narrator. Ford was active during the same period as Conrad and James, though they both found him boorish at times.

[triguy46]

72. Anyone here read V.S. Naipaul? "A House for Mr. Biswas" is prob best book I've ever read.

[Xipe Totec]

73. Mikhail Bulgakov - Master and Margarita

Read it in English first, not trying to read it in the original Russian.

[yellowdogintexas]

94. I read that years ago, I think I need to read it again. I liked it. nt

[Ivan Sputnik]

74. For pure entertainment value

The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins. The original page-turner and one of the best of that genre.

[yellowdogintexas]

95. that is a good book, and so is "The Moonstone" same author. nt

[5LeavesLeft]

75. Does Confederacy of Dunces count?

Ignatius J. Reilly is a personal hero of mine.

[fed_up_mother]

116. Ooh, I think that should have been on the cult classics list!

Or was it?

[quiet.american]

76. The Counterfeiters. nt

[Catsbrains]

77. Lord of the Flies

[lost-in-nj]

89. I loved/hated this book

it disturbs me.....

I am an underdog person.... so of course piggy was my hero

:hug:

lost

[TimeChaser]

79. "One Flew Over the Coo-koo's Nest"

[riverdeep]

81. Frankenstein.

SO different from the movies. Agonizing tale that calls out to the modern world in its questioning of the wisdom of reshaping our world on our immediate whims.

[hellbound-liberal]

84. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

It's described as an "inquiry into values" which it is but it is also a very good story about a man's search for meaning in his life. It was a truly life-changing book for me.

[lost-in-nj]

90. I LOVED Homer's

the Illiad and the Odyssey

loved it

along with

Lord of the flies


lost


1984 was disturbing

[Lavender Brown]

91. Wives and Daughters and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

I can't really choose between all my favorite novels.

[fed_up_mother]

112. I saw the British mini-series of Wives and Daughters years ago

Now I'm thinking I need to read that book. Thanks for the reminder. :)

[Lavender Brown]

119. You should, it is wonderful

(so was the adaptation). But as a warning: the book has no ending, as Gaskell died when she was writing the last chapters. :(

The miniseries of North and South is really good too. :)

[BurtWorm]

93. I don't have a single favorite. I'm kind of promiscuous.

:blush:

I can start listing a few that I fell in love with while reading, but it would be kind of pointless, because I'm sure to leave many out.

Oh... all right:


Frankenstein
Middlemarch
Tropic of Cancer
Moby Dick
Huckleberry Finn
Candide
Tom Jones
Grapes of Wrath
Lolita
Ada
Berlin Alexanderplatz
Fathers and Sons
Madame Bovary
Vanity Fair
Naomi
The Awakening
Moll Flanders

Etc., etc., etc...

[yellowdogintexas]

96. as in the kind that is often required reading?

Jane Eyre
To Kill A Mockingbird
Huckleberry Finn

would be my favorites. I maintain no home library is complete without these, the complete works of Shakespeare, Gone With the Wind and The Godfather.

I don't consider GWTW and Godfather classic novels as much as just romping good reading.

[Ava]

98. the stranger

[TZ]

117. Thats very good but VERY disturbing.

Have you read The Plague by Camus? Also very good but very disturbing

[Ava]

121. nope, but i've been meaning to for a very long time

i'll have to make time for it :hi:

[WinkyDink]

102. For sheer brilliance, "Wuthering Heights". For its humanity, "Of Mice and Men". For its sociology,

"Lord of the Flies".

[harmonicon]

103. oh, geez.... depends on what counts as "classic" and what counts as a "novel"

I love Kafka's novels.

I also love 'Tristram Shandy' - that is maybe the only one that I'm crazy about that I would count as 'classic' - I'm not sure if anything from the past 100 years is old enough to be a proven classic. If so, yeah, Kafka. Someone else mentioned 'To Kill a Mockingbird', which I think is great, but I'm not sure that it's really a novel - maybe a novella? 'Gravity's Rainbow' may now be a classic, but 'Mason & Dixon' is better, though probably not a classic.

It doesn't matter anyway, because I forgot how to read.

[KSinTX]

105. Thomas Hardy's 'Return of the Native'

So vivid I was ON Egdon Heath!

[crim son]

106. War and Peace

Tolstoy. Having read a helluva lot of Tolstoy, and his biography several times, and his wife's biography, it makes the tale all that much more fascinating.

[fed_up_mother]

111. A Tale of Two Cities

Haven't read it in years and years, though. I need to go back and read it again.

[MichiganVote]

120. Rebecca, Jane Eyre, Tree Grows in Brooklyn, For Whom the Bell Tolls,

I never can decide and I have at least 10 more....