#ClassicsCommunity 2021 Reading Challenge discussion

Before we begin the #ClassicsCommunity 2020 Reading Challenge in the new year, I'd love to know: what have been the best classics you've read in 2019?

Jane Eyre, read it this year and it became my all time favorite book ❤️

Hi all. Read many classics this year especially during “Victober”. Have definitely fallen in love with Anthony Trollope and am currently 4 volumes into the Barsetshire Chronicles. In 2020 I intend to finish that series and to discover more of his stand alone works. Also looking forward to rereading Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre which I read many years ago. Of course I intend to finish this year with Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol 😉

So many! Anna Karenina, Jamaica Inn, Under the Greenwood Tree, The Return of the Native, The Hound of the Baskervilles... Currently reading Bleak House and very much enjoying it.

My absolute favourite classic that I read this year was Gone With the Wind. It became one of my favourite books I have read to date. It was such a rich text! To all of you who are adding it to your 2020 TBR - you have an exciting time ahead of you. It's wonderful.

McKenzie wrote: "My absolute favourite classic that I read this year was Gone With the Wind. It became one of my favourite books I have read to date. It was such a rich text! To all of you who are adding it to your..."
I love Gone with the Wind too. My favorites this year were Crime and Punishment, The Importance of Being Earnest, Wuthering Heights, Summer, and Rebecca.

So many but my favourites of 2019 include Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome, E. M. Forster's Howards End and Wilkie Collins' Poor Miss Finch.

My first time favourites (ones that weren't rereads) were 1984 by Orwell and Brave New World by Huxley.

My absolute favourite was Effi Briest! I've never read anything by Fontane and the cover was REALLY pretty so I thought it wouldn't matter if I didn't like it that much because at least it'll look good on my shelf and then I ended up liking it soooo much! I basically haven't stopped thinking about it ever since and now I'm on my fifth Fontane novel already. I also loved A Streetcar Named Desire and quite recently I've finished Rebecca and competely fallen in love.

Little Women without a doubt!

My favourites without a doubt have been The Mill on the Floss and Wives and Daughters which I read in Victober.

The Wind in the Willows, hands down one of the best books I have had the pleasure of reading.

It's not my favourite book ever, but this year I've had the pleasure of discovering Thomas Hardy's "Far from the madding crowd".
Years ago (well, last century), I attempted reading "The mayor of Casterbridge" and I don't remember why, because I've always loved British classics, but I never finished it, couldn't get into it. I retained the idea of a severe, stern author and I was proven wrong by Far from the madding crowd.

I'm still being proven wrong as I'm reading The trumpet-major.

In no particular order:
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier
Le premier accroc coûte deux cents francs by Elsa Triolet (not sure an English translation is still available, unfortunately).

I read lots of great classics in 2019. But these are my favourites, I think :) Hoping 2020 will bring about more amazing books!

My favourite classics I read in 2019:

An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood by Elspeth Huxley

The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose

Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas

My favourites have been War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Silas Marner by George Eliot, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and King Lear by William Shakespeare.

Louise wrote: "Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë and Hester by Margaret Oliphant (although I still have a few chapters left on it)"

Have you read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? I think Anne would have been more recognised than Charlotte if she had lived longer.

Gösta Berling´s saga by Selma Lagerlöf. It´s no wonder that she became the first woman to get a nobel prize for literature.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte definitely

My favourite book that I've read this year is Les Misérables. It’s the kind of book that needs time and patience but the experience is definitely rewarding! Victor Hugo’s writing is incredibly beautiful, even when he goes on a very long tangent! He has a way of capturing the reality of social injustice and how the people in power, be it religious or political, treat the common people.

hi I am Vera and I really liked North and South!!!

Hi I’m Amanda from Hampshire, UK (Jane Austen Country).

I adored The Secret Garden this year.....until I followed it by this book One of Your Own: The Life and Death of Myra Hindley only to learn it was her favourite book and being set on the moors....with children as the main characters....

Ugh, it’s lost it’s appeal for me which is a real shame; it’s a beautiful children’s read...

Elizabeth Gaskell was a new author to me this year and I loved North and South and Wives and daughters. Also read some Steinbeck, Du Maurier and Oscar Wilde. Re read Wuthering Heights which is still one of my favourites of all time.

Little women has been my favorite I am also currently reading Rebecca and loving it.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell are two of my favourite classics I read this year.

My favourite this year thanks to your recommendation Lucy, was The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy, the gentleness and dedication of both Giles and Marty to their respective unrequited loves touched me quite a lot. Lisa

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper.

My favorites of the year are The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and Candide by Voltaire. I am also currently reading Les Misérablesby Victor Hugo and I really love it. I have about 400 pages left but I know it will be one of my favorites of the year.

Some of my favorites from this year have been The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit, A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Melendy series by Elizabeth Enright, and North and South.

Definitely The Secret Garden!

My new favorites this year were Shirley by Charlotte Bronte, Agnes Gray by Anne Bronte, The Blue Castle by L M Montgomery and Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope. My favorite classic reread was Little Women & Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott.

I think my favorite classics of 2019 were Siddharta and the Lord of the Rings trilogy

My favourites in 2019 have been: Bleak House and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë.
Interestingly, these are all books I’ve read AFTER seeing a film or tv adaptation. Like many people, I normally prefer to read the book first but was very pleased that, even though I’d watched them first, I still loved reading them.

Two books that kept me thinking about them long after I’d finished them were My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier and The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy.

The Blue Castle, by L.M Montgomery is probably my most favourite and memorable classic of 2019. Definitely one of her lesser known novels, and the only one written for adults. Definitely would recommend!

My favorite classics of 2019 are:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Othello by William Shakespeare
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Such a legend!! That book is soooo dramatic and I loved it!!!

Read some fabulous classics in 2019: particularly loved Ragtime (Doctorow), The Glass Castle (Walls), We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Jackson), The Big Sleep (Chandler), Dracula (Stoker) and North and South (Gaskell)

Read Jane Eyre for the first time and fell in love. I now plan to devour all the Bronte sister’s works. Also really enjoyed Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie and Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy.
Any suggestions for what Hardy I should read next? ☺️

Jackie wrote: "McKenzie wrote: "My absolute favourite classic that I read this year was Gone With the Wind. It became one of my favourite books I have read to date. It was such a rich text! To all of you who are ..."

Gone with The Wind is my absolute favorite book!

My favorite classic for 2019 was War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Absolutely loved it and already want to reread it. It was my second Tolstoy, but while Anna Karenina was a bit of a chore for me, War & Peace just really kept me enthralled.

I read only a handful of classics in 2019, but GREAT EXPECTATIONS was definitely my favorite. I love Pip and I missed him so much when the story ended. I picked up David Copperfield not long after finishing Pip but I already can't imagine that he would replace Pip as a favorite.

In 2019 I finally read The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera, it was brilliant and fascinating, I think everyone should read it!

Hi ! Mine was North and south! Yew i read it because i loved the series with Richard Armitage . It was surprisingly very good! Gaskell exposes the strugles of the working class and the desperate need of a young woman for a purpose in her life!

the best classic I read in 2019 was Les miserables, it was the first time I read a classic soo big and I was a little scare but in the end I love it

My favorite classic of 2019 was Crime and Punishment. I started in 2018, but finished in the beginning of 2019. I'm pretty sure it was the timing of the reading, because I'm not sure if I would have loved this a few years ago.

Jackie wrote: "My favorite classic of 2019 was Crime and Punishment. I started in 2018, but finished in the beginning of 2019. I'm pretty sure it was the timing of the reading, because I'm not sure if I would hav..."

Crime and Punishment is so good. I would highly recommend Demons and, if you're really into Big D, his opus The Brothers Karamazov. I also recommend the translations by Pevear and Volokhonsky; I've read other translations of both works and Pevear and Volokhonsky really do a good job.

My absolute favourite classic of 2019 would have to be Anna Karenina. It blew me away and Tolstoy’s writing is magnificent!

Dan wrote: "Jackie wrote: "My favorite classic of 2019 was Crime and Punishment. I started in 2018, but finished in the beginning of 2019. I'm pretty sure it was the timing of the reading, because I'm not sure..."
I just bought Brothers Karamazov 2020, but I haven't bought Demons, though I almost did. I try to narrow down how many books I buy when I do and I had too many choices.

I loved North and South and Cranford both by Gaskell and I can't wait to read more this year