I don't know about anyone else here, but when I was in high school, the books that the class was assigned or suggested to read just about bored me to tears. Shakespeare was alright (after all, it helped me understand spoofs better), Dickens made me beg for sparknotes, The Scarlet Letter was okay but forgettable, The Once and Future King was not nearly as exciting as the movies, and try as I might, I could never get past the 100-page mark of a Jane Austen novel. For a while, I pretty much gave up on the "classics" that everyone's supposed to know as boring, but necessary.

However, midway through, I had a computer class and, with some spare time on my hands (and an impressive school firewall), I ended up on a website with some short stories old enough to be in the public domain, and I read "The Lady or the Tiger" by Frank Stockton(1882) and FELL IN LOVE! That story always sends chills down my spine. Later, I ended up reading Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1958) and could not put it down. I read those over and over again for years. Then this summer, after listening to a podcast about Oscar Wilde, I ended up reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, then read it again, twice!

I have my three favorites, but I'd love to expand my collection of older books. I wanted to see if you guys have some favorite books or short stories from the 19th/early 20th centuries that you'd recommend.

Jane Austin bored me to tears...most classics do lol

I did love Frankenstein...the imagery and misunderstood background of the book trapped me in it's pages It's a must read at least once...I have several different copies of the book lol

Well, strap yourself in, because I LOVE classics, so I've got a decent list of them.

It's honestly a shame that you don't like Dickens or Jane Austen because "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Pride and Prejudice" are a couple of my favorites.

There's also "The Sound and The Fury" by William Faulkner which is fantastic, but is truthfully a difficult read. If you can figure out the puzzle that is the story, it's really wonderful.

"Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte is a very good book, but I'm not really sure that you would like it as much if you didn't like Jane Austen. It's honestly a lot more interesting then Austen's books, but they're still kind of in the same vein.

Two that I would definitely recommend to anyone are "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee and "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Both are more recent classics, but classics just the same.

"Arabian Nights" is also pretty good so far, but a little hard to get through (what with it being like 1000 pages and all lol). If you've got time, I'd recommend it, or just reading some of the stories within it to get a feel for the book.

Sorry for writing this ridiculously long post. I'm just too much of a book worm! lol

@SessysRose: I can't believe I forgot about Frankenstein!

@jaimesesshy: You can never be too much of a bookworm!
I actually just bought Arabian Nights (B&N has some gorgeous new editions of classics, and I just had to buy it!), so it's definitely on my list of things to read. I've read To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby, and I liked them enough on their own, but it's hard to like a book when you have to write essays about it; one of these days, I'll probably end up going back and reading them again for pleasure. I tried Jane Eyre around the same time as Austen, but I couldn't get into it; very frustrating because I have a few friends that absolutely adore both authors. I know I've heard of The Sound and the Fury, but I can't say I know much else about it; I'll have to check it out. Thanks!

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte
"Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte
"Lady Chatterly's Lover" by D. H. Lawrence

These are just a few. I did like "To Kill A Mockingbird" too. :3 I tried to get into Jane Austen. I took a seminar on her novels and have the collection of her books...but I had to pull teeth in order to write my papers for the class. I'll try again at another point in life.

Oh man, Frankenstein is about the only book from high school that really stands out to me (which says a lot, since I'm an English major). I loved the symbolism in that. The Great Gatsby is okay, but not my favorite. I loved 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (Though depressing, I warn you). If you're looking for something a little different, I would recommend 100 Years of Solitude. Just be ready to sit down to it with an open mind, because it will take you for a ride.

Honestly, I didn't enjoy most classics the first time I read them because I was still in high school and having to write papers on them. My school almost taught me to hate reading. Writing B.S. papers every other night does not instill a love of literature, that's for sure.

So many people here are recommending Frankenstein, and I'm embarrassed to say to say that I've never read it. I know what book I'll be reading next!

Lonelylark wrote:
Oh man, Frankenstein is about the only book from high school that really stands out to me (which says a lot, since I'm an English major). I loved the symbolism in that. The Great Gatsby is okay, but not my favorite. I loved 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (Though depressing, I warn you). If you're looking for something a little different, I would recommend 100 Years of Solitude. Just be ready to sit down to it with an open mind, because it will take you for a ride.


=D Yay for English majors!! I'm also one!

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath...*shudder*
Not a bad book, but I took a seminar on Sylvia Plath. It was one of my tougher semesters. She's really heavy. My teacher is contemplating not teaching it again because of how many of the students were just put off by the whole thing.

I've also never read Frankenstein. That has a lot to do with the curriculum in my high school. lol It was not the best!

Aside from Shakespeare, I rather like Voltaire.. especially Candide and Zadig... Most of the satire likely goes right over my head, but something about the writing style sucks me in

"To kill a Mockingbird" was the first book I read in English, before that mainly Russian stuff. "Frankenstein" is absolutely brilliant, 'I'd like to satiate my ardent curiosity' line got me into attempting to write. Otherwise "Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov, "The Amphibian Man" and "The Island of the Crushed ships" by Belyaev, Shakespeare etc.

Most of my favorites tend to bore people to tears, haha. I loved most of the selections we had in high school. My absolute favorite of all of those was The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Once I got into my second college English class, I ended up choosing Jane Eyre as my selection, and I adored it. It's a bit dry, and if you're not used to reading novels from the era, the language can be a bit of a turnoff, but I adored the romanticism of it.

Some of my other favorite classics: The Count of Monte Cristo, The Grapes of Wrath, anything Oscar Wilde, Wuthering Heights, Dracula (such a fun read!), and Nineteen Eighty Four (Big Brother, baby!).

Another book I fell in love with in high school was a random novel I found on our library's discard cart called The Bastard by John Jakes. There is an entire series of the novels based on the Kent Family, though I've only got that first one. I've looked for the others, but they seem to be a bit hard to find here in our used bookstores and at the flea markets.

Dante's Inferno, I love this book I also really like Huckleberry Finn.

Oh, my--so many books to add to my reading list! I knew I could count on you guys; keep 'em coming!

It seems that the problem you are having with older classics is that someone else was dictating the way you were to read and respond to the books themselves. You can't really respond to great literature (or any literature) that way. As you can see from all the posts in this thread, everyone likes something different because the stories speak to everyone differently.

My suggestion to you would be to pick up a book with a completely open mind and try reading it. You will find that it speaks to you or not, and then move on. Most likely you will find yourself responding to something in the book that you did not anticipate. You will never be disappointed with classic literature. I find myself picking up books again and again and enjoying them just as much as I did the first time I read them.

You could try Oscar Wilde for humor and irony. My favorites are; The Importance of Being Earnest and the Portrait of Dorian Gray. Jules Verne for fantasy; 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and the time-traveling one(I can't remember the name). Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes). William Shakespeare (any of them - but my favorite is The Taming of the Shrew because it's just so funny). There are countless others.

Enjoy!

I loved the swashbuckler novels while I was growing up - stuff by Dumas, Sabatini, Orczy, etc. Which led me into the likes of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and Robert Louis Stevenson's Black Arrow. Then there are the wonderful stories of H. G. Wells, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Howard...I'd better stop before I run out of space.

Be proud of your bookwormness. We're great people.

Wow, I must admit I've never been prouder of my bookworminess. It feels so nice to know that I'm not the only person out there that appreciates classics these days lol!

I reread Pride and Prejudice at least a few times a year. I have the BBC movie on DVD with Colin Firth playing Darcy as well. I always watch it around Christmas time every year.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is something I try to reread from time to time also.

I will pretty much read anything by Edgar Allan Poe. His works are just amazing. I'm big into mythology too, so I read a lot of mythology books. I also read The Lord of the Rings at least once a year. I just got a NOOK by Barnes and Noble for Christmas and the first thing I downloaded was that trilogy. My grandfather also got my into Tom Clancy, not so much an older author but I enjoy his works!

OH MY GOD. I can't believe I forgot Sherlock Holmes 0_0 It's absolutely brilliant writing. If you like detection stories, you might want to check out The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. It's considered one of the first English detective novels.

I only ever really like Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Raven' and a handful of his other poems, plus maybe Stephen King's Carrie, and The Green Mile. I did enjoy Shakespeare though, especially his longest play 'Hamlet' that we studied for English class at high school. Tragic but so good! I adore 'Much Ado About Nothing' and I think the other one 'The Shrew', both the plays and the film adaptations are hilarious.

I never really got into the classics like 'Pride and Prejudice' as I was never really interested in period dramas or romances. I preferred Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and the Children of Hurin. I like the Hobbit too but I'd consider that 'younger' reading.

I did like 'Little Women' though, very much. Beth was my favourite character, so was Jo of the sisters too. I can't really recall any others off the top of my head I liked also other than a random series of either Scifi or Fantasy novels *shrugs*.

~ Pyre

Well, some oldies of mine I enjoy is anything from Edgar Allen Poe, some Shakespeare, Grimm Brothers, but for more "recent" oldies my favortie series is the Wrinkle in Time Series by Madeleine L'Engle. They were truly eye catching and a great stimulus for the imagination wheel. I loved them sooo much, and I have lost count on how many times I've read them.

I really love Edgar Allan Poe. His stories are so dark and wonderful.
I also like Jules Verne. My favorite is 'The Mysterious Island'.
Also Jane Austen is among my favorites with 'Persuasion' and 'Pride and Prejudice'
Alexandre Dumas with 'The Count of Monte Cristo' and 'Robin Hood'.
Louisa May Alcott: 'Little Women' and 'Good Wives'
I would also like to recommend some newer books that I think are very good:
'The Naked Sun'(1957) by Isaac Asimov and 'The Name of the Rose'(1983) by Umberto Eco.
The last one is set in a 14th century monastery. It's really great.
And also... Shakespeare, J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, Charlotte Bronte and a rather long list of Romanian writers.(I'm Romanian)
My favorites list could go on for a few pages. I love to read.