Classics for Beginners discussion

Authors.

Who to adore? Who to ignore?

Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins. There are many more that I love, but I'll just mention those 2 right now. Am reading The Dead Secret by Collins now & it's all that I love -- a secret hidden away in an old mansion, mysterious characters, love story and possibly a ghost!! Wonderful read!!

Jane Austen YES!

I haven't heard of Wilkie Collins but the book you are currently reading sounds interesting and jam packed full.

I first read The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. It is wonderful. A little slow in the beginning, but a great mystery with probably the best villian in all of literature!! I highly recommend it. After this and the one I'm reading now, I will definitely be reading more of his work.

I've just found a list of his books on Project Gutenberg free to download; so I've downloaded The Woman in White. I will get to it eventually!

How many books do you have downloaded?

About 6 classics. =]

Oh, which ones? How many books overall as you downloaded modern ones too haven't you?

Computer reckons 578. Lol!

Dracula, The Secret Garden, Frankenstein, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Pride and Prejudice, The Woman in White and Peter Pan.

Guess it's a few more than 6.
I'm not going to sit and write out the modern ones though!

Ok, that is ALOT though! If I enjoyed reading from screens I would borrow some but no matter how hard I try my eyes glaze over after a while and I get headaches...*sad face* but never mind, how many have you read of those so far?

About 27, since October. I couldn't read from a screen either. You should look into the amazon kindle. It looks exactly like paper =]
Look on amazon.co.uk. It's not back lit and is easy on the eyes like a book. You can read in direct sunlight it's brilliant.

Charlotte Bronte
MR James
CS Lewis
Manly Wade Wellman
Bram Stoker
F. Marion Chambers
Oscar Wilde
Louisa May Alcott

Just to name a few....

Love love love Charlotte Bronte and Louisa May Alcott!

I love Charlotte Bronte! Even though Jane Eyre is her only book I've read.

Same here, Shelia!

Me too! I'm not sure what other book of hers to read, maybe one of her sisters.

She has these to read, all free on Amazon Kindle:

The Professor
Villette
Shirley

The Bronte Sisters. I have yet to find Anne's works, but Emily and Charlotte are/were both fantastic writers.

Which of Emily's have you read?

Raindropmelody wrote: "About 27, since October. I couldn't read from a screen either. You should look into the amazon kindle. It looks exactly like paper =]
Look on amazon.co.uk. It's not back lit and is easy on the eye..."

I have the Kindle also and it is wonderful.

I'm a picky reader I'm afraid. I've yet to find an author whom I've enjoy reading from every single time.

Jane Austen: I like P&P and Northanger Abbey but abhorred Mansfield Park and Sense & Sensibility

Emily Bronte: liked her style, hated the plot. I personally think she doesn't know what she's talking about (she died a virgin spinster who had always stayed close to home and very much inside her head) and that I've never read two more unsympathetic characters.

Charlotte Bronte: only read Jane Eyre, which, after reading Wuthering Heights, I vastly preferred.

I've never read (but is definitely planning to) Anne's works, in particular: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Apparently, her style & topics are decidedly different from her sisters and is actually considered to be one of the first true feminist writers.

Elizabeth Glaskell: love North & South. hate Wives & Daughters.

Charles Dickens: great style, characterization and plot but unfortunately, his mercantile sense interferes too often with his writing sense (ie. words for the sake of a word count!)

etc. etc.

I agree with Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte.

Bronte(s)
Austen
Dickens
Hemingway
Shakespeare

Bronte(s(, Austen, Dickens, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Shakespeare, L Frank Baum, LM Montgomery, and Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe, Anton Chekhov, C.S.Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien as more contemporary classic authors; Jules Verne, H.G.Wells and also Shakespeare head my list of favourite classics authors. I could really add Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley for Dracula and Frankenstein also. I've enjoyed a few of Oscar Wilde's plays.

I personally avoid Thomas Hardy due to finding his work rather dry and lacking. Good stories though...so I will probably give him another chance.

Thomas Hardy...a beauty!

How does one list favorite authors... there are so many authors I love, all for different reasons, all at different times.

Well, truth is, Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky never lets me down!I don't think I have read any other author so much, over and over. Crime and Punishment, Demons and The Idiot are my favorites, but I have loved everything.

For some reason, the other author I have always adored - from childhood - is Tolstoj. Go figure.... two Russians... but two VERY different Russians...

Recently, the best time I had reading was in a very different stream - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Umberto Eco, Salman Rushdie, Louis de Bernieres, Orhan Pamuk.

I'm currently on a French authors streak. I really like Honoré de Balzac and I've recently become a fan of Émile Zola. For Balzac's Comedie Humaine, all of the novels stand alone and can be read in any order. For Zola, while the novels stand alone, Zola himself had a recommended reading order, which is not the recommended order listed in his Les Rougons-Macquart series here on GR.

Both of these 19th Century French authors are very readable.

I feel so ignorant! I have never heard of any of those. I'm going to look them up now, thanks Alaska.

Well I have Thérèse Raquin by Zola on my to-read already but none from Balzac. Could you recommend a good place to start with Balzac?

Nicolle wrote: "I feel so ignorant! I have never heard of any of those. I'm going to look them up now, thanks Alaska."

No to your feeling ignorant! As I look at the 1001 List, I see many authors that are completely new to me. We just add pieces of knowledge bit by bit. There are so many wonderful books out there, we'll never have time to explore them all.

I have loved all of Anthony Trollope's books. I'm told some of his first books weren't very good, but I haven't read those yet.

☯Emily wrote: "I have loved all of Anthony Trollope's books. I'm told some of his first books weren't very good, but I haven't read those yet."

I agree. Trollope is terrific.

Perhaps my least favorite "classic" author is Mark Twain. I can't pinpoint why, but everything I've read by him was torture to complete.

Jane Austen is an author I tried for the first time this year and I can safely say I won't be reading anything else by her. I read Pride and Prejudice and I found it overrated (though it was expertly paced.)

I do like Henry James and I am becoming fond of Dickens.

I love Jane Austen, the Bronte Sisters, John Wyndham, H.G. Wells... I'm sure I'll think of more

This category also covers authors to ignore, so I am selecting Herman Melville, best known for Moby Dick. This is one of the most overrated books written.

I've heard mixed views over Moby Dick and to be honest with the vague knowledge of the plot I know I'm not going to be picking this book up for at least a couple of decades.

Eh, I didn't think Moby Dick was awful. But I likewise didn't think it was particularly good either. Mostly it's just long.

☯Emily wrote: "This category also covers authors to ignore, so I am selecting Herman Melville, best known for Moby Dick. This is one of the most overrated books written."

I couldn't get past chapter three in MOby Dick -- and still somehow managed to get an 'A' on the paper for it. Have no desire to attempt it again. *shudders*

My review of Moby Dick is one of my favorites: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I will only list two of my least favorite classics (published over 50 years ago): The Crucible by Arthur Miller and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Others such as Don Quixote and Northanger Abbey, I didn't particularly hate but I did not really enjoy them either.

I'm beginning to really, really love Salman Rushdie.

I love Steinbeck, Eliot, and Alexandre Dumas pere.

One of my least favorites is Dostoyevsky. I read Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, so I gave him a chance.

Nobody talks about Graham Greene. Wow, I love his writing.

Phil wrote: "Nobody talks about Graham Greene. Wow, I love his writing."

Phil, I've never read any of Greene's work. Is there one that you would recommend as a first read?

I've only read The Power and the Glory, but it was absolutely magnificent. I gave it 5 stars. I'm still in awe over:

"I don't know a thing about the mercy of God. I don't know how awful the human heart looks to him."

Unforgettable.

The Power and the Glory is my favorite non-sci fi book of all time. Some people prefer The Quiet American or The Third Man.

Hi Susan, I totally agree with you. I read Crime & Punishment and really really disliked it. I have The Brothers Karamazov but at this point I really don't think I will read it (we will see).

I love Richard North Patterson and Jeffrey Archer. I dislike very much James Patterson!

Add J.D.Salinger to my list of least favorite "classic" authors.

Elizabeth George Speare, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Charles Dickens