Best classic novels

[Emelee]

There are many top lists when you Google, but many titles can be found on them all.

Which classic novels are your favourites? How would your top list look like? (Here I don't expect anyone to make a top 100 list, a top 5 or a top 20 for example is enough!)

Here are some of the top lists out there:

According to Penguin's readers:
https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2018/100-must-read-classic-books.html

According to The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/12/features.fiction

According to Time Magazine:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2681.Time_Magazine_s_All_Time_100_Novels

According to Book Depository:
https://www.listchallenges.com/top-100-most-popular-classic-books-according

 

[Willie Oleson]

East Of Eden for me.

 

[Emelee]

Anyone else?
I am still contemplating my top 10.

 

[Monzo]

War & Peace. I started reading when I was quite young and didn't get very far. I still had the bookmark in there, years later I read on and was finally open to and loving it.

 

[Long Lashes]

1. To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee (1960)
I first fell in love with this when we read it at school.

2. Jane Ayre – Charlotte Brontë (1847)
I finally read this during lockdown, a beautiful and well written story.

3. Kes – Barry Hines (1968)
This one broke my heart. It’s about a boy growing up in northern England who befriends a kestrel.

4. Animal Farm – George Orwell (1945)
Another lockdown read .... ”four legs good, two legs bad”

5. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (1950)

6. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley (1823)

7. The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien (1954)
I enjoyed this book, but strangely couldn’t get along with the films.

8. The Time Machine - H. G. Wells (1895)

 

[Willie Oleson]

I enjoyed this book, but strangely couldn’t get along with the films.

I don't think I had heard that before. Most RING-fans seem to like the movies?
But then again, reading is a very personal experience and your reading of the novel is 100% unique.

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley (1823)

I'd love to try that one sometime.

 

[Toni]

- Wuthering Heights
- Brideshead Revisited
- Age of Innocence
- The Lord of the Rings
- The Hobbit

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

Just curious
How old does a work have to be to be classic?

 

[darkshadows38]

i dunno but anyone SHOULD really read The Thin Man the (1934) i think? novel i can't remember if the book came out the same year as the 1st film did but i read that a few years ago and i f... loved it! once you get used to how differently it was written compared to how books are written now it's one of the best books out there and honestly the film is pretty faithful to the novel they just toned down some of the book when they made it into a feature film back than and while it doesn't anger me like it can it also i don't think hurts it either. since The Hays's code was going to Effect in (1934) it's understandable but it still sucks that they were forced to do it at all

 

[tommie]

I wouldn't consider The Thin Man a "classic" as such, maybe in its own genre.

"Crime and Punishment" is definitively one that I tend to end up re-visiting time and again. For a "modern" classic I'd say Auster's New York Triology is a good one. Hjalmar Söderberg's Doctor Glas and Pär Lagerqvist's The Dwarf are two Swedish classics I'd recommend. Doris Lessing's The Diary of a Good Neighbour is a bit underappreciated I feel and usually overshadowed by her Children of Violence series or The Fifth Child.

 

[Willie Oleson]

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

An observation

Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is basically man playing God.
The same basic theme is in Jurassic Park
And in both cases, the creator couldn't control events and outcomes.

I realize JP isn't classic literature (Yet?/never?), but it is one of my favorite books of all time.
If you have only seen the movie(s), please realize that Both Jurassic Park and The Lost World are more detailed,
more thought provoking, more informative, and more science based, Michael Crichton having a science background.
Chaos Theory, Evolution, Botany, Systems Analysis, Biology are just some of the Studies that are examined.
Characters are also much different, with more depth than in the movie.

 

[darkshadows38]

Tori Spelling? oh hell no i watched the entire Smallville series recently i just finished it Monday night sadly. i didn't want it to end! anyways, she was on 2 episodes and though she was about 1% better than her 1st episode where she was Painfully so bad that it was painful to watch that's how bad she was. i have read the Jurassic Park books i can tell his heart wasn't in The Lost World cause it wasn't that great of a book. i think The Thin Man is a classic but the film and the book i think some of the McBain books are too by Ed McBain some of those are i think

 

[Emelee]

Just curious
How old does a work have to be to be classic?

I don't think there is a number, just that a couple of generations must have been born after the novel's release. A classic is a book that resonates with more than just one generation, say 20 year olds. So if a book is released today, then those currently aged 20 must have read it, their kids needs to have first reached 20 before reading it, and I would say that their kids too have to reach 20 and read it before it can be called a classic. So grandparent - parent - child. At least 40-50 years. Anything more recent can only be called a "modern classic".

That is at least my view. Let's see what Google tells us.......

Expresses Artistic Quality
Classic literature is an expression of life, truth, and beauty. It must be of high artistic quality, at least for the time in which it was written. Although different styles will come and go, a classic can be appreciated for its construction and literary art. It may not be a bestseller today due to pacing and dated language, but you can learn from it and be inspired by its prose.

Stands the Test of Time​

In classic literature, a work is usually considered to be a representation of the period in which it was written—and it merits lasting recognition. In other words, if the book was published in the recent past, it is not a classic; while the term "modern classic" may apply to books written after World War II, they need longevity to achieve the designation of a simple "classic." A book of recent vintage that is of high quality, acclaim, and influence needs a few generations to determine whether it deserves to be called a classic.

Has Universal Appeal​

Great works of literature touch readers to their very core, partly because they integrate themes that are understood by readers from a wide range of backgrounds and levels of experience. Themes of love, hate, death, life, and faith, for example, touch upon some of our most basic emotional responses. You can read classics from Jane Austen and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and relate to the characters and situations despite the difference in era. In fact, a classic can alter your view of history to see how little has changed in our basic human makeup.

Makes Connections​

You can study a classic and discover influences from other writers and other great works of literature. Of course, this is partly related to the universal appeal of a classic. Still, classics are always informed by the history of ideas and literature, whether unconsciously or specifically worked into the text.
Likewise, classics will inspire other writers who come afterward, and you can trace how they influenced works in their own time and down through the following decades and even centuries.

Is Relevant to Multiple Generations​

By covering themes universal to the human condition and doing so in a way that stands the test of time, classics remain relevant to all. Because of the high quality of the characters, story, and writing, people can read classics in their youth and gather a basic understanding of the author's themes, and then they can read them later in life and see additional layers of truth that they missed previously. The quality enables the work to communicate to multiple age groups throughout time.

 

[Emelee]

I wouldn't consider The Thin Man a "classic" as such, maybe in its own genre.

"Crime and Punishment" is definitively one that I tend to end up re-visiting time and again. For a "modern" classic I'd say Auster's New York Triology is a good one. Hjalmar Söderberg's Doctor Glas and Pär Lagerqvist's The Dwarf are two Swedish classics I'd recommend. Doris Lessing's The Diary of a Good Neighbour is a bit underappreciated I feel and usually overshadowed by her Children of Violence series or The Fifth Child.

Crime and Punishment is absolutely terrific. Did you know what Peter Falk was inspired by the police officer Petrovich in this novel for his iconic character Columbo?

I also love pretty much everything by Hjalmar Söderberg.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I love Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I adore the Chronicles of Narnia.

I'm a big fan of the American mystery books of The Three Investigators.

Robert C. O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh is a childhood favourite of mine.

I love the Target imprint Doctor Who books, as well as the later Virgin and BBC books of the show.

I used to be a massive fan of Enid Blyton's books. The Famous Five, Secret Seven, the Five Find-Outers etc. Lovely books, I still have all of them.

Hard for me to pin down a very favourite book but I guess I'll plump for Lord of the Rings as I have about fifteen different hardback editions of it.

 

[pete lashmar]

I realize JP isn't classic literature (Yet?/never?), but it is one of my favorite books of all time.
If you have only seen the movie(s), please realize that Both Jurassic Park and The Lost World are more detailed,
more thought provoking, more informative, and more science based, Michael Crichton having a science background.
Chaos Theory, Evolution, Botany, Systems Analysis, Biology are just some of the Studies that are examined.
Characters are also much different, with more depth than in the movie.

I read JP when it first came out and saw the film on the first day of release. I was simply stunned by how different the film was. I absolutely loved it and the FX were incredible.

But the book is just SO different. It's horrific at times and I remember so clearly reading about the raptors, trying to picture them in my head and although I love them in the films they're simply not as I imagined.

The book is also far more adult, it's not the "family" adventure that the film gave us.

The biggest difference though is the character of John Hammond (Richard Attenborough's character in the film). I won't give out spoilers because if anyone reads the book they'll have quite a shock.

But I would classify it as a classic - I've read it 3 times to date and still get pulled in and gripped by it. The Lost World not so much, it was a sequel that was going to happen so Crighton may as well write a novel on it, but not a patch on JP.

My other classic book would be Great Expectations. I read it at school for O'Lovel English and just fell in love with it. It's my favourite Dicken's novel by far, full of brilliant characters and has a great plot that follows right through.

 

[Mo Mouse]

I like all 51 of The Hardy Boys novel. My fovourite is probably The Clue Of The Screeching Owl.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I dunno if this is classic or not but I recently re-read my Target Doctor Who book The Abominable Snowmen in preparation for my animated Blu-ray of the story coming in the post. My copy is the first edition from 1974. I've had it since I was a nipper. I consider the story a classic.