The classics -

[Bronchitis that Lingers]

How many have you read? Where did you start? Which do you recommend, and which did you think were an utter waste of time?

Started on the bible because I don't want to sound ignorant when people bring up biblical references. Was not raised in a religious house so I've never read it.

 

[MarineTrainedTard]

I kin reed gud.


I actually read fucking voraciously when I was younger, but it seems to have waned in recent years. Mostly I read shitty pulpy sci-fi, but as far as classics go I really enjoyed The Picture of Dorian Gray.

 

[DuskEngine]

Yeah, I'm mostly into genre now as well. Even when I was getting into reading as a whole, I mostly did so through genre classics (LOTR, Foundation, 1984, Dune, etc.). I'm not even sure what a 'classic' is (in the non-Greek and Roman sense), besides something you can expect to turn up during a lit course sometime.

I like Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, Joseph Heller and Jorge Luis Borges too.

 

[Ariel]

19th Century: Jane Eyre, In Search Of Lost Time, Persuasion, Count of Monte Cristo, Bleak House

20th Century: The Grapes Of Wrath, Slaughterhouse 5, JD Salinger's short stories, Gone With The Wind, Sophie's World

 

[Bronchitis that Lingers]

Yeah, I'm mostly into genre now as well. Even when I was getting into reading as a whole, I mostly did so through genre classics (LOTR, Foundation, 1984, Dune, etc.). I'm not even sure what a 'classic' is (in the non-Greek and Roman sense), besides something you can expect to turn up during a lit course sometime.

I like Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, Joseph Heller and Jorge Luis Borges too.

The 50 that I downloaded are from this link: http://www.ibooknook.com/50-top-free-ebook-classics-in-kindle-and-epub-format.html
but yeah, essentially lit class titles, and then philosophical/religious texts as well.

Genre classics should have been lumped in there as well, though.

 

[Some JERK]

I'd start with Dickens. He was a hilarious motherfucker when he wanted to be.

Oh, and also because he was an awesome writer and stuff. There's a reason why his name appears more than any other on that list you posted.

 

[TheEnforcer]

Although I usually read contemporary or at least mostly 20th century literature there are some classics that are very dear to my heart.
My favourite of the classics would probably be Franz Kafka. He was a master of his craft. The language, the subtleties and the humour he brings to his stories are unmatched in my eyes.
I would also recommend teachers' favourites like Shakespeare or Goethe. There's some great stuff in there and it never hurts to have some of their quotes ready.

I have a soft spot for adventure stories so Treasure Island will always have its place in my heart. Same with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Moby Dick and Heart of Darkness. Those are also the starting points for classics that I would recommend. The good ones always seem like exciting and thrilling tales full of action but you gradually realize that they usually have more to tell about human nature and the can go very deep.
My favourite SciFi classics would be Solaris, Dune and especially Roadside Picnic.

A classic that I really couldn't get into was Catcher in the Rye. I understand its position and everything but it didn't tell me anything relevant.

 

[YI 457]

I'm reading John Milton's Paradise Lost. A nice, old and neat bilungual edition.

 

[sugoi-chan]

As far as classics-classics, a number of the big Greek plays (Medea, Oedipus, a couple others whose names I'm forgetting), Illiad/Odyssey, bits of the Aeniad.

As far as what my English professors would call classics: more than a few Shakespeares, Aereopagitica, Paradise Lost/Regained, Samson Agonistes, Crime and Punishment (<3), most of the books you'd see on a high school reading list (Gatsby, Dalloway, etc), Dracula, Frankenstein. Basically too many and yet still not enough.

 

[*Asterisk*]

I always had trouble reading Mark Twain, but listening to Mark Twain is a blast.

Too bad it's hard to find good audiobooks for cheap, what with them being under copyright and all. Anybody know a good place to find 'em?

 

[DuskEngine]

Too bad it's hard to find good audiobooks for cheap, what with them being under copyright and all. Anybody know a good place to find 'em?

You get like 3 (I think) free books on Audible if you sign up. I only ever used it for those books and nothing else. I think they might expire after a few months, but that's plenty of time to get through three audiobooks.

 

[Dudeofteenage]

Last year I did a thing where I tried to only read literature by highly critically acclaimed authors. It was pretty worthwhile. There were a few duds but overall I think I agree with the thesis that time is the best critic.

 

[Bronchitis that Lingers]

I always had trouble reading Mark Twain, but listening to Mark Twain is a blast.

Too bad it's hard to find good audiobooks for cheap, what with them being under copyright and all. Anybody know a good place to find 'em?

you could take...
other avenues

 

[Holdek]

I always had trouble reading Mark Twain, but listening to Mark Twain is a blast.

Too bad it's hard to find good audiobooks for cheap, what with them being under copyright and all. Anybody know a good place to find 'em?

Your public library may have audiobooks. I've checked out some from mine.

(BTW, Project Gutenberg should have people record audio for their library if they haven't done so already IMO.)

 

[Grand Number of Pounds]

I started out reading the Bible, the Odyssey and Dante's Divine Comedy when I was in 8th grade. Dante is one of my favorites

I listened to Dune on CD's earlier in the year.

In addition to Project Gutenberg, Libri Vox is also a good place to get public domain audio books.

 

[AnimuGinger]

Hemingway made me fall in love with nature. Even if he just shot it all.

 

[Tragi-Chan]

I hated the classics growing up, because at school we always had the most boring teachers who could wring the fun out of anything. Revisiting them as an adult, I've finally understood what all the fuss is about. I love me a bit of Dickens, Thomas Hardy's a good one as well.

I'm a big fan of Jacobean drama, particularly the likes of Webster and Jonson. Actually looking into Elizabethan and Jacobean history has given me a new appreciation for the works of Shakespeare - put into their historical context, you learn that there are a lot of really cheap and filthy jokes in there, which rather endeared me to them. My favourite Jacobean play of all has to be the absurdly OTT The Revenger's Tragedy, which takes all the cliches of contemporary revenge tragedy and turns them up to 11. There's one scene where a guy kisses an acid-smeared skeleton and gets his face melted off. There's another where the Revenger delivers a monologue, only to have another character ask him who he's talking to. It's so stupid it's genius.

 

[Jumpin Jenkins]

My favorite piece of classic literature is "2001: A Space Odyssey"
Good book, the best part was the Clavius Moon Base.

 

[TheProdigalStunna]

I used to be on a big classic literature kick about a year ago. Some of my favorites are Dostoevsky (quite possibly my favorite artist of all time), Goethe, Cervantes, Melville, Tolstoy, Pushkin (helps to know Russian with this one), Eliot, Pound, Joyce, and Knut Hamsun. Much to my own personal chagrin I haven't been reading as much I should recently.

I recently tried tackling Proust, but I didn't get very far in Swann's Way. I think it's obvious why.

 

[pickledance]

Get Anna Karenina if you wanna get fucked. Grapes of Wrath is great if you just go with it, it will make you want to throw it across the room when you're done. Little Women was my first and it's still pretty good if you can swallow the preachiness of it. If you want something a little newer then Kafka is great, I'd recommend his extended works, even if some of them are incomplete they are worth the read for all the surrealism. Lord of the Flies and Gone with the Wind are also good. Gone with the Wind is like Forever Kailyn in the war; it's great even if it's just to get pissy at this idiot bitch that keeps fucking up and making everything about her.

Edit: Forgot Green Mansions, really good book. And if you want to go off the deep end there's Bear by Marian Engel, it's from the 70s and is about a woman who tries to fuck a bear. Exerpts.