Which books should I read to educate myself? What are the true classics in this sense?

Question

The ones that will bring me to a new level of understanding the world and myself..

Answer 1

THIS SHOULD COVER IT!
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
King Lear, Shakespeare
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,, Ken Kesey
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
A Tale of two cities, Charles Dickins
The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence

Answer 2

All of the James Joyce books especially 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' and 'Ulysses' Joyce was an author way before his time. He writes in plain English but its a little like reading Shakespeare. Oftentimes, the reader is forced to stop and think about what they have read.

Fyodor Dostoevsky (sp) - Crime & Punishment
Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
Charles Dickens
Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe
Mark Twain
CS Lewis
J.R.R. Tolkien
Alexander Dumas
HG Wells.
Edgar Allen Poe
Jules Verne
Daniel Quinn - Ishmael
Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes creator. Great entertainment when you want to put the more rigid authors down for a spell.

Get a collection of Classic Short Stories as well. There are some great writers that wrote short stories as the majority of their work.
(Saki)
And don't forget to mix in some Poetry! (Robert Frost, Poe)

A classics book search on the net should get you a great list, but if you are really serious about what you ask, then go to your nearest public library, pick a book off the shelf in the classics section and read the first few chapters right there before borrowing the book. :)

You have much to do - Get To It!

Answer 3

If by "classics", you mean a list of novels, such as," Wuthering Heights, A Christmas Carol, To Kill a Mockingbird,War and Peace ,etc etc? If so, reading "classics" will do little to improve your education, they will simple make you a person who has read a lot of "classics". You will receive many lists of "must reads"; and there is nothing wrong with reading as wide a range of literature as possible. I am sure however that the greater range of educational literature is non-fiction, and Encyclopedia Britannica is more "educational" than any amount of fiction! You would also need an insight into Poetry via, Milton , Homer,Spike Milligan; the Sciences via, Newton, Darwin, David Eick, and the autobiographies of the interesting and forgotten. Good Luck - start at `A` !

Answer 4

Oooh tough one. Read George Orwell (esp.1984) you'll be shocked how Orwellian Western politics has become - a real eye opener. Dicken's wrote great novels and can offer you a real insight into victorian times. Even better read some history books, at times more interesting than any novel. But even in these factual books don't believe everything they say - read Josephine Tey's 'Daughter of Time' to see what I mean.
For spiritual enlightenment try some Paulo Coehlo. For fantasy mixed with S.American politics Isabel Allende. To make youreslf feel uneasy Martin Amis. For a beautiful love story 'The Time Travellers Wife'. Look out for the political ideology in Watership Down.
And then of course there's always The Bible. The list could go on......

Answer 5

Reading ANY book will help educate you- its the easiest way to learn new words, correct grammar (assuming you do read a 'classic') and basic articulation. You can ALWAYS tell someone who is well read by their ability to string a sentence together!! So ANYTHING would help!

Having said that, along with all the classics already mentioned, I would suggest trying to research the era they were written. For example, the Feminist write Mary Wollenstonecraft wrote around the same time as Jane Austen and the women she disparages are clearly evident in Austen's work. Likewise, Mary Shelly, who wrote Frankenstein, another classic, was Wollenstonecraft daughter- it would be interesting to see if her mothers feminism presented itself within her novel.

Dickens was a great social commentator on events during the Industrial Revolution. Reading along side a historical factual write such as Emsley would help put his work into context.

Similarly, in the second preface to Jane Eyre (another classic), Charlotte Bronte dedicates it to Thackery (Vanity Fair), citing him a true social commentator of the time!

They're all interwoven!

Social theorists are also good to give you an alternative view... Marx is a must (the communist manifesto) as is Michel Foucault (discipline and punish) and Zygmunt Bauman (anything- liquid love etc).

But without a doubt JUST READ!! And read for enjoyment! A library card is a wonderful thing!

Answer 6

HI, I have read all the other answers and can't find one that is satisfying to me. I love reading and was in much the same situation as you though not necessarily trying to educate myself just broaden my horizons slightly. Try logging onto the BBC website and look up the 'big read' list. The beeb did a national survey of the Britain's best loved books and it ranges from War and Peace to Winnie the Pooh, from Alice in Wonderland to LOTR. A great variety with loads of 'classics' thrown in. I have only just started, I've done LOTR (no1) and am working my way down through Pride and Prejudice, now on number 3, the His Dark Materials trilogy. Whatever you do enjoy it and good luck.

Answer 7

Any book will educate you in some way although there are some which are better than others. Being "educated" is not just knowing your Dickens characters or being able to name all of Jane Austen's characters, it's having an awareness and understanding of what is going on around you.

I'm not against these older novels, however, for all round education, try to read modern books too. Life didn't stop in Jane Austen's / The Bronte sister's day!

Answer 8

The Bible, the Quaran, Shakespeare, The Origin of the Species, Aristotle, Plato, the Illiad , the Odessey, Gilgamesh, A cross section of world novelists, such as Steinbeck, Swift, Joyce, Lawrence, Fitzgerald, Dante, Cervantes, etc. Classic works about History. Learn Several Great Artists and artistic styles. Know the history of Music and be able to identify several great classical artists.

Answer 9

Some good suggestions here.

I don't think Dostoyevsky has been included though. It would be a glaring omission to not read "The Brothers Karamazov" & "Crime & Punishment."

To read fully through literature is like travelling. As such, many people find a guide is helpful. Fulfilling this role I would nominate Harold Bloom, specifically his book "The Western Canon." It will gently give you direction through the fullness of three millenia of words. If you have that, it will help you for years after this thread has dissolved into the ether.

Good luck with the journey!

Answer 10

This is the exact question i was going to ask.

Using other peoples answers and my knowledge of other classic books, I have decided to read the following books.

1) Pride and Prejudice. -Jane Austen.
2) Great Expectations.-Charles Dickens
3) Gone with the Wind.- Margaret Mitchell
4) Jane Eyre.-Charlotte Bronte.
5) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
6) Little Women .- Louisa May Alcott
7) Utopia.-Thomas Moore.
8) Wuthering Heights.- Emily Bronte.
9) The Hunchback of Notre Dame.-Victor Hugo
10) Tess of the d'Urbervilles.- Thomas Hardy

Even though I aspire to read these books, i don't know whether they are obtainable. So I'm going to try to find them anyway. It's so weird you asked this question, thank goodness you asked it becasue i wasn't sure how to word it.