"Classics" worth reading?

Question

I really liked Great Expectations, Jane Eyre and Tess of the d'Urbervilles, but other books are tough to get through. Any suggestions?

"A classic is a book everyone wants to have read but nobody wants to read" - Mark Twain.

Answer 1

I love Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo is a brilliant tale of betrayal, obsession, love and revenge. The Three Musketeers is also great fun.

Answer 2

are you asking for recommendations on classics to read or suggestions on how to read the ones that are not as much fun to read?

If you are required to read classics that put you to sleep five minutes after you start the book (I suffered thru books like this in college), theres a couple of things you can do.
You can view the story as a movie before you read the book - this is really good for Shakespeare's works. Because of seeing it as a movie you have a better idea of whats going on, who's who, the tone and body language, etc. So when you go back to read the book you can see those scenes in your mind as your reading. This helped me emmensly with several books!

The other thing you can do is get cliff notes for the book and review the chapter there before you read it in its classic form. Or if its something like Oddessy, pick up a book that has the original text on one side and the standard English (today's language) on the other side. This is also really helpful.

If you were asking for recommendations I think you've gotten some good suggestions already. I didn't see Robet Louis Stevenson listed though, you have to read Robinson Corusoe (sorry I probably spelled that wrong)

And Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland.

Answer 3

in school I had a powerfuble Latin instructor yet a instructor of French who replaced right into a finished loss, so I had to study the language after I left. I chosen a prolific, exciting yet no longer literary author, viz. Georges Simenon and examine his books solely till i ought to benefit this conveniently (each author has his personal type and vocabulary), then I upgraded my reading to someone a touch extra tricky. I made it a rule under no circumstances to search for a be conscious till it had bugged me so commonly that (a) it replaced into already implanted in my head, and (b) it replaced into obviously a understand quite well-known use. That way I ensured that after I did look it up, I remembered it. I also examine an excellent type of overseas newspapers on the web: one many times is conscious what present day information products are about. i'm now fluent at reading French (cutting-side and medieval, with some skill in previous French), and can make myself understood in France, Belgium, the Suisse Romande and Québec, yet I nevertheless have issue in eavesdropping on human beings's communique or in following quick colloquial speech interior the line, on the air or in action pictures.

Answer 4

The Grapes of Wrath
Treasure Island
Anne of Green Gables
Pollyanna
The Scarlett Letter
Christy

Answer 5

Everything by Jane Austen is good. Also, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is nothing short of amazing. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is good, and the best of the best is Middlemarch by George Eliot. These are all easy to read, no slow reading or stumbling involved - just great reads.

Answer 6

Have you tried anything by Edgar Allen Poe? His stories are great, and not hard to get into. Also anything by Louisa May Alcott - Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys and all those are great reads. Most of the classics are well worth the time, although I will admit to having trouble with Hemingway and Faulkner.

Answer 7

There are over 17,000 free ebooks that you can download at the link below....all of the classics are there;
I suggest works by Sir Walter Scott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, David Henry Thoreau, Voltaire, William Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe....oh, and a couple other Charles Dickens books you might like are "A Christmas Carol" and "David Copperfield".

Jack London and Alfred Lord Tennyson are light reading, scroll down to their names and click on them and you'll get a list of their books....download a couple and try them...if too heavy a going, delete and download another. A childhood fav of mine was Tennyson's "The Jungle Book" and "Call of the Wild" by London. Later on I really enjoyed "Ivanhoe" by Sir Walter Scott.

Answer 8

For books everyone wants to have read and no one wants to read, try Thomas Pynchon. His latest came out today.

I'm a Fyodor Dostoevsky fan, and I'm in the middle of Dickens' "Bleak House," which I'm really enjoying. Others I've enjoyed are "Tristan" by Gottfried Von Strassburg and, more recently "Paradise Lost."

Answer 9

Yes I liked Great Expectations too. Try Moby Dick by Herman Melville (it is worth reading through slowly), or The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Answer 10

I would reccomend you read a Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. It is a little difficult to get through the beginning, but it is worth it because the rest is great.