Printable View
Yes. Yes. Dickens is great. That would be my reccomendation too. Just don't read A Tale of Two Cities. It is boring. The least charateristic of Dickens work. Dosent have many jokes. i would rather wald through a swamp than read that again. But Great Expectations is very good and not as long as David Copperfield.
Kidnapped (sp?) is my favorite stevenson book. He is good. Really fun to read.
meant walk. not wald. sorry write too fast.
If people are recommending Dickens I would say you should start with Oliver Twist. Out of the few I've read it's probably the 'easiest' read, has a lot of humour in, and gets into the plot a lot quicker than the others.
Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
This is a perfect list i guess.well done qimissung.But i think these are more like modern classics.
So as old classics i would also add :
Tolstoy-The Death of Ivan illych
Gogol-The overcoat (Le Manteau)
Colette-Caludine's House
Voltaire-Candid
For a start.Enjoy!
How about The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway?
I love that book, but's not difficult at all...
I agree. Oliver Twist is a good book to read. A Christmas Carol would be a good one too. Anyway with all of the reccomendations she will be swamped in books for years.
You have to read Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It is the most hilarious classic I have ever read!!!
Ovid, Horace, Sophicles, plato, aristotle, marcus aurelius, nietzsche, kierkegaard, dante, huxley, george orwell, hermann hesse, ernest hemmingway, jd salinger,camus, sartre, sun tsu, lao tsu,franz kafka, shakespear, steinbeck
and since everyone is saying steinbeck here are some steinbeck titles i recommend:
Of mice and men,
cannery row,
tortilla flat,
and east of eden was my fav by him
Hmm, of course your taste will have a lot to do with it but I would recommend as follows:
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Crime And Punishment - Dosteovsky
Call of the Wild - Jack London
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
I think you'll find something in there to cater for any level of reading or understanding although I echo the point that nothing need to be understood to be enjoyed.
PS: Catch 22 is fabulous and I recommend it although not sure I it's the kind of classic you are referring to.
I highly recommend
Camile by Dumas Fils...sensational love story
Hunger by Knud Hamsun...a young man's half crazed adventures
The Time Machine..HG Wells
The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer...go back to the beginning of
western literature...great stuff
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane...great war novel
God's Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell...surreal southern life
The Guide by RK Narayan...exotic, mystical Indian novel
I'm not keen on The Time Machine - it seems so implausible now, though it does have some interesting social observation. The film from the 50s recognisd this and changed the motive force of the Morlocks to a nuclear one.
I think there are some great recommendations in the posts.