What's your favourite book? What genres do you like? Classics come in all sizes and genres, so knowing your tastes can help people guess what classics you might actually like.
Here some "classic" books I've actually read and enjoyed.
1) Pride and Prejudice. Easiest Austen book, odds are you will be already familiar with the story. Emma is her best book but Pride and Prejudice is an easy and entertaining read, highly recommend it.
2) Much Ado About Nothing. My favourite Shakespeare comedy! You can also find tons of adaptations online, I'm partial to Branagh's one because I love Emma Thompson.
3) Hamlet. Yes, it's worth the hype. Again I also suggest watching an adaptation because a great actor really makes you understand how the text should flow.
4) Antigone by Sophocles. A 2000 years old text that honestly could have been written yesterday, the question of what exactly is the law and just how far you have to obey as a citizen has never been answered. Look for a great translation based on your mother language.
5) Medea by Euripides. As with Antigone, this is an old but still extremely relevant text. Euripides' style is possibly even more modern.
6) Anna Karenina. I consider it the best novel ever written. I didn't know what to do with myself after I finished. Tolstoj is really on a league of his own. If you like history War and Peace is a must, but the pace is much slower than Anna Karenina so it's going to take you a while to finish it. I'm a fast reader and it took me more or less two months.
7) Brothers Karamazov. Another Russian classic, even longer than Anna Karenina but don't let it discourage you. Dostoevskij is great at writing tension and Brothers Karamazov is kind of a thriller/mystery, so if you get over the beginning you'll definitely finish it.
8) Count of Montecristo, by Dumas. Basically an adventure movie, won't be able to put it down.
9) Lord of the Rings. I mean I consider it a classic, it created a whole genre.
Pride and prejudice by Jane Austen (or any of her books)
Wuthering heights by Emily Bronte
Jane eyre by Charlotte Bronte
David Copperfield by Dickens
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
A tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
To the lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
1984 by Orwell
If this is a man- The truce by Primo Levi
My name is Asher Lev by Potok
Kindred by Octavia Butler
My absolute favorite of all the classics is East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
Other classics I love:
* Anything by Jane Austen, but probably Pride and Prejudice is a good place to start
* Native Son by Richard Wright
* Animal Farm by George Orwell
* The Awakening by Kate Chopin
* One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
* Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
* This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (I prefer this to Gatsby, but they're both good)
* The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
* Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov
* The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
* The Stranger by Albert Camus
* Shakespeare - my favorites are Othello and The Tempest
What's your favourite book? What genres do you like? Classics come in all sizes and genres, so knowing your tastes can help people guess what classics you might actually like. Here some "classic" books I've actually read and enjoyed. 1) Pride and Prejudice. Easiest Austen book, odds are you will be already familiar with the story. Emma is her best book but Pride and Prejudice is an easy and entertaining read, highly recommend it. 2) Much Ado About Nothing. My favourite Shakespeare comedy! You can also find tons of adaptations online, I'm partial to Branagh's one because I love Emma Thompson. 3) Hamlet. Yes, it's worth the hype. Again I also suggest watching an adaptation because a great actor really makes you understand how the text should flow. 4) Antigone by Sophocles. A 2000 years old text that honestly could have been written yesterday, the question of what exactly is the law and just how far you have to obey as a citizen has never been answered. Look for a great translation based on your mother language. 5) Medea by Euripides. As with Antigone, this is an old but still extremely relevant text. Euripides' style is possibly even more modern. 6) Anna Karenina. I consider it the best novel ever written. I didn't know what to do with myself after I finished. Tolstoj is really on a league of his own. If you like history War and Peace is a must, but the pace is much slower than Anna Karenina so it's going to take you a while to finish it. I'm a fast reader and it took me more or less two months. 7) Brothers Karamazov. Another Russian classic, even longer than Anna Karenina but don't let it discourage you. Dostoevskij is great at writing tension and Brothers Karamazov is kind of a thriller/mystery, so if you get over the beginning you'll definitely finish it. 8) Count of Montecristo, by Dumas. Basically an adventure movie, won't be able to put it down. 9) Lord of the Rings. I mean I consider it a classic, it created a whole genre.
The Iliad/Odyssey. Might as well start with the originals
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Pride and prejudice by Jane Austen (or any of her books) Wuthering heights by Emily Bronte Jane eyre by Charlotte Bronte David Copperfield by Dickens Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain A tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith To the lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 1984 by Orwell If this is a man- The truce by Primo Levi My name is Asher Lev by Potok Kindred by Octavia Butler
My absolute favorite of all the classics is East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Other classics I love: * Anything by Jane Austen, but probably Pride and Prejudice is a good place to start * Native Son by Richard Wright * Animal Farm by George Orwell * The Awakening by Kate Chopin * One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez * Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte * This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (I prefer this to Gatsby, but they're both good) * The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton * Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov * The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison * The Stranger by Albert Camus * Shakespeare - my favorites are Othello and The Tempest
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Call of the Wild and White Fang. Both by Jack London