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The Classics

February 4th, 2015

I enjoy reading The Classics, though recently I’ve been reading quick read paperbacks. That didn’t last too long until I felt the need to revisit a few books written long ago. I’m working on rereading some that I haven’t read in a long time and a few that I have somehow missed reading in my lifetime. It is at times hard to remember what one read in high school and college.
grapes from wrath
hemingway book
I just finished Pride and Prejudice and Emma by Jane Austen. I’m currently reading Jane Eyre, next on the list will probably be My Antonia, which I haven’t read. Perhaps I’ll crack open my Hemingway book next as I love his collection of short stories. Something by John Steinbeck is also on my list, he’s my all-time favorite author and I have been collecting copies of his books for a while. It’s been a while since I’ve read Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row, which are both fantastic.
my library shelf
I’ve looked up lists of classics to see which ones I should add to my list, but figured it was best to ask you.

So….what are your favorite classics?

18 Comments to “The Classics”
  1. Sherri on February 4, 2015 at 7:25 am

    Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. I read it in college and revisit it every so often

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  2. Corrie on February 4, 2015 at 8:30 am

    The Virginian, by Owen Wister. Such a colorful portrait of the American West. I also love Travels with Charley.

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  3. PennyAshevilleNC on February 4, 2015 at 9:30 am

    I re-read Jane Eyre often. Growing up, my Mom read it to me and really made it come alive!

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  4. Nebraska Dave on February 4, 2015 at 9:38 am

    Susy, being a young lad that loved to run through the woods finding adventure in shallow creeks and climbing trees, my best classics would have to be “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and ” Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain. I expect these classics are so politically incorrect that copies of them wouldn’t even be allowed any where near a school today. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe was not really a favorite of mine but another classic that would not be allowed in the classroom. Another favorite of mine was “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson. I find it a little amusing that “The Catcher in the Rye” is now considered a classic and required reading in High School. I haven’t read it but when my daughter had to read it, she said it was a disgusting book and could hardly get through it.

    I’m not sure just how many of the true classics are required reading in the public schools these days. I didn’t really appreciate the classics when I read them in middle school but have been considering reading them again. At the mature age that I am now and with the pressure to hurry up and get it done eliminated, I just may enjoy them a little more than when I was 14.

    Have a great classic book reading day.

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  5. Jill on February 4, 2015 at 9:45 am

    I also love Steinbeck and Hemingway; The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck is my favourite all-time book. I reread my Alice Munro short stories every few years. It seems that as I get older the stories mean something different every time I revisit them. I finally read some more Virginia Woolf last summer. She’s another favourite but I’ve owned Mrs. Dalloway for 10 years and hadn’t cracked it :) I am a big fan of Russian literature. If you haven’t read Chekhov’s short stories I think you would enjoy them. A great Canadian author is Ann-Marie MacDonald and I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. Last winter I read all of the Little House series in about 2 weeks. How I had never read them before is beyond me. It was probably the happiest reading experience of my life, and I love to read :) happy reading!

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  6. Sierra Hampl on February 4, 2015 at 10:01 am

    I loved My Antonia. Also, Mrs. Dalloway and A Room of One’s Own, both by Virginia Woolf. A fun mystery is The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (he was friends with Dickens). Wuthering Heights is a definite favorite of mine. Travels With Charlie just became available on my iPod, so thanks for the recommendation!

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  7. Brittany P. on February 4, 2015 at 11:23 am

    Anna Karenina and Wuthering Heights are two great classics.

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  8. Samantha on February 4, 2015 at 12:58 pm

    Little Women (really, anything by Louisa May Allcott)! I’m rereading it now, and I always forget how much I love it.

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  9. N Good on February 4, 2015 at 1:44 pm

    John Steinbeck is also my favorite classic author and The Pearl is my favorite book of his. However, my favorite classic book is The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper. I’ve read it three times! Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is another. I just have so many favorites…

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  10. Rachel on February 4, 2015 at 4:42 pm

    I began reading classics in my early teens. Lesser known titles such as The Professor by Charlotte Bronte, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, and A Long Fatal Love Chase by L M Alcott became my favorites.

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  11. Trish on February 4, 2015 at 5:37 pm

    Middlemarch is such a great novel. and I love Jane Austen so much. don’t neglect the other Bronté sisters; Anne wrote a book I enjoy very much called Agnes Gray. and I also love Trollope’s works, particularly the Barchester novels. Jane Eyre is such a delightful read. I came across another book, a prequel to Jane Eyre called Wide Sargasso Sea, which offered insight into Mr. Rochester’s other wife, Berthe. Very touching. and while not maybe considered classic, Barbara Pym’s books are my favorites. Excellent Women is a good one to start with.

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  12. Charlie@Seattle Trekker on February 4, 2015 at 5:56 pm

    John Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors. When I was in high school I read Travels With Charlie and then all of his books. When I was 19 I took a bus to San Francisco and toured the entire coast before they tore down the canary. It was pretty amazing to walk the same paths, to see the same sights that were there when he wrote.

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  13. Kristen on February 4, 2015 at 6:14 pm

    I tend toward children’s classics: Anne of Green Gables by Montgomery, The Chronicles of Narnia by Lewis and even some of Alcott’s lesser known books like Eight Cousins, A Blue Sword by McKinley and A Wrinkle in Time by L’Engle. I confess that I own a copy of Jane Eyre that I’ve never picked up. Maybe this is the month to try it!

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  14. Kathi Cook on February 4, 2015 at 8:55 pm

    To Kill A Mockingbird ,all ot The Anne of green Gables series, and East of Eden

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  15. Maybelline on February 5, 2015 at 2:36 am

    Grapes of Wrath
    I’m in Kern County where the Okies landed and settled to make my home what it is and I love it here. Even though the movie is good, the book (as usual) is much better. Whenever I come down into the valley from the surrounding mountains, I think of the Joads finally making it. Everytime I think of them.

    The local history of this book being burned and banned is quite interesting too.

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  16. Jennifer on February 5, 2015 at 6:23 am

    I am a total bookworm/reading geek- I love My Antonia and O Pioneers! Another favorite is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I read it every summer, and Little Women every year at Christmastime. Also love the Little House books and the All-of-A-Kind Family series. I love reading the favorite books of my childhood- they are like old friends!!

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  17. Tommy on February 5, 2015 at 2:36 pm

    I also love reading the classics—my favorite author is Hemingway, followed closely by Steinbeck. I love the simplicity and beauty of Hemingway–To Have and Have Not is such an absolutely perfect story. Also love For Whom the Bell Tolls is something I usually re-read every 4 or 5 years.
    Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and Tortilla Flats are great, and I also love The Winter of our Discontent.
    My kids have just recently read Catcher in the Rye for High School, and so I re-read it with them. What a great book about Teen Angst and growing up.

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  18. mandie on March 26, 2015 at 3:28 pm

    I see someone already mentioned Little Women, one of my absolute favorites. Another is The Girl of the Limberlost, I’m looking to get a new copy because mine has no cover, is in two pieces and is held together with rubberbands!

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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