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100 classics

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Kveto from Prague
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100 classics

Post by Kveto from Prague » Tue September 1st, 2009, 9:58 am

Im a bit sick so spending more time on the internet. found this list of 100 classics you should read. Im kind of embarrassed but i went through it. I put an X next to ones I have read. and a (X) next to ones i started but didnt finish for whatever reason. 31 out of 100 is not too good. just in case you want to check and see how many you have read.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (X)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible (X)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (X)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (X)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma-Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins X
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov X
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac X
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker X
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson X
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (X)
76 The Inferno – Dante X
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X

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Kveto from Prague
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Post by Kveto from Prague » Tue September 1st, 2009, 10:07 am

Arg! the wife caught me doing this and she went through the list. she cetainly beat me with about 40 of the books to my 31. she told me i had to post it. Sorry. I was a bit surprised. there werent too many books that we had both read. maybe 6-7.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Y
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte Y
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible Y
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte Y
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell Y
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens Y
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott Y
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy Y
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien Y
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger Y
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot Y
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald Y
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens Y
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck Y
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy Y
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens Y
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma-Jane Austen Y
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen Y
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne Y
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell Y
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez Y
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy Y
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding Y
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen Y
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez Y
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck Y
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov Y
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac Y
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy Y
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens Y
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray Y
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens Y
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Y
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad Y
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare Y
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl Y
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo Y

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sweetpotatoboy
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Post by sweetpotatoboy » Tue September 1st, 2009, 10:28 am

I think I've read about 40 of those. But what an odd list. Nice to have some recent books amongst those but I think some of those have been included not because of their intrinsic quality but because they are widely talked about so one "should" read them to be in touch with current talking points.
Plus, there are a number of duplicates there. Why include both "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" and "the Chronicles of Narnia? And both "Hamlet" and "The Complete Works of Shakespeare"?

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Vanessa
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Interest in HF: The first historical novel I read was Katherine by Anya Seton and this sparked off my interest in this genre.
Favourite HF book: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell!
Preferred HF: Any
Location: North Yorkshire, UK

Post by Vanessa » Tue September 1st, 2009, 10:30 am

Red = read
Green = Have read the first one or two books in the series
Blue = on TBR pile
Purple = read some or all at school


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma-Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Last edited by Vanessa on Tue September 1st, 2009, 10:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Books are mirrors, you only see in them what you already have inside you ~ The Shadow of the Wind

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Ludmilla
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Post by Ludmilla » Tue September 1st, 2009, 5:41 pm

I've read half of them. I've sorted them into categories below:

Read
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (one of my favorites)
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (one of my favorites)
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (good)
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (one of my favorites)
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (really need to read this again; only read once when I was 13)
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
Emma-Jane Austen
Persuasion - Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (one of my favorites)
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Dune - Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (really need to read this again; I think the version I read was abridged book club edition, approx 800 pages)
Dracula - Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Inferno – Dante
Possession - AS Byatt (loved it!)
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (a sentimental favorite of mine)
Watership Down - Richard Adams (one of my favorites! Bigwig is one of my favorite supporting characters of all-time!)
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl


Only partially read / DNF
The Bible (only read sections of; did not grow up in religious household)
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (college assignment that I threw at the wall after having to read too many other examples of minimalist fiction for the same class)
Complete Works of Shakespeare (I’ve read maybe 8 or 9 of his plays)
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Animal Farm - George Orwell (started when I was young, but found it too painful; plan to read some day)
Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (read chapters out of it, not whole thing)
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (read a section of it for a school assignment in middle school)
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (read a section of it for a school assignment in middle school)
The Secret History - Donna Tartt (didn’t get past first chapter; but plan on reading some day)
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (gave up in the middle; wanted to strangle Jude!)
Ulysses - James Joyce


Never read, but would like to
Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (in the TBR)
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (in the TBR)
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
Middlemarch - George Eliot
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (in the TBR)
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (in the TBR)
A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (in the TBR)
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Germinal - Emile Zola
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Charlotte’s Web - EB White (in the TBR)
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


Never read, not interested
Bleak House - Charles Dickens (I could change my mind about this one some day)
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

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MLE (Emily Cotton)
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Interest in HF: started in childhood with the classics, which, IMHO are HF even if they were contemporary when written.
Favourite HF book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger
Preferred HF: Currently prefer 1600 and earlier, but I'll read anything that keeps me turning the page.
Location: California Bay Area

Post by MLE (Emily Cotton) » Tue September 1st, 2009, 6:44 pm

I'd argue with a few of the more recent ones. I read the Life of Pi and found it interesting, but would not put it up there as a classics. And although I have not read the Time Traveler's wife, from the description it doesn't sound particularly better or worse than many another passing fad.

If by Classics he means 'current cultural icons', then he's missed quite a few. I guess I'm one of those curmudgeonly people who somply read what they like and doesn't care what definition the 'powers that be' (from moment to moment) put on it.

For the record, I read part of Catcher in the Rye when my teenage son had to read it for his high school English class. He objected, saying it was just a spoiled kid complaining nonstop. When I urged him to finish it and write the report, he challenged me to read the thing. I got to chapter four of spoiled kid-gripes, and it was about as much as I could stomach. When he assured me that by chapter eight it didn't get better, I gave in and helped him write an essay as to why he'd prefer another assignment.

He got 'the Chocolate Wars', which proved to be much the same. So we read Lord of the Flies together instead. Now that was a classic. Was it on the list?

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Kveto from Prague
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Post by Kveto from Prague » Tue September 1st, 2009, 6:57 pm

[quote=""MLE""]I'd argue with a few of the more recent ones. I read the Life of Pi and found it interesting, but would not put it up there as a classics. And although I have not read the Time Traveler's wife, from the description it doesn't sound particularly better or worse than many another passing fad.

If by Classics he means 'current cultural icons', then he's missed quite a few. I guess I'm one of those curmudgeonly people who somply read what they like and doesn't care what definition the 'powers that be' (from moment to moment) put on it.

For the record, I read part of Catcher in the Rye when my teenage son had to read it for his high school English class. He objected, saying it was just a spoiled kid complaining nonstop. When I urged him to finish it and write the report, he challenged me to read the thing. I got to chapter four of spoiled kid-gripes, and it was about as much as I could stomach. When he assured me that by chapter eight it didn't get better, I gave in and helped him write an essay as to why he'd prefer another assignment.

He got 'the Chocolate Wars', which proved to be much the same. So we read Lord of the Flies together instead. Now that was a classic. Was it on the list?[/quote]


Hi MLe,

i dont know what criteria they used for this list. its obviously western biased and tries to include some more modern books. (my best mate would go nuts if he saw a list with no gothe on it) im sure we could come up with a dozen different lists. and why is, say, middlemarch on there but not "silas Mariner"?

lots of times classics are so called for a reason, other times you really wonder.

yes, lord of the flies is on there :-)

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Jack
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Post by Jack » Fri September 4th, 2009, 7:16 pm

An interesting question for the group would be what books would you say are missing from the list? What 5-10 books would you include which they didn't?

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Jack
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Post by Jack » Fri September 4th, 2009, 7:39 pm

Here are a couple that jump up in my mind as I read this list:

OLD MAN AND THE SEA-Hemingway
THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN-E.B. White
ANYTHING WRITTEN BY-Samuel Johnson
CANTERBURY TALES- Chaucer
TREASURY OF GREAT POEMS-Louis Untermeyer
LE MORTE D'ARTHUR-Sir Thomas Mallory
MANFRED-Byron (the only Faust that acted as if he had any stones)
THE PLAGUE-Camus
KIDNAPPED-Stevenson

I'll think a bit more on it and see if I can come up with more. Anyone else out there?

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Miss Moppet
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Post by Miss Moppet » Fri September 4th, 2009, 9:41 pm

I've read 43, so about half - lists of "100 classics" actually vary hugely but usually I have read about half.

I think it's difficult to make a list of this kind at all meaningful. I do have my personal list of classics - ie my favourite books ever - but it's quite idiosyncratic. For instance, if an Edith Wharton is on an "official" list of classics it's usually The House of Mirth or The Age of Innocence but for me The Custom of the Country is the one I'd pick - simply because it meant the most to me and dealt with themes I found fascinating. That's very subjective, but this sort of thing always is.

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