I'm going back to read the classics I missed

[Anonymous]

fyi Books on Tape--very fun in the car and PP, you can get through War and Peace that way.

All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Things Wild and Wonderful. I listened to the first from my iPhone downloaded from iTunes while I walked on a treadmill. So visual; I could see the green grass and puffy clouds with the contented sheep grazing on the hillside.

[Anonymous]

Great recommendations here! Over the last few years, I've been listening to quite a few classics on CD in my car. Have especially loved hearing Dickens' books and others read aloud with British, French, etc accents and sound effects like horses pulling a carriage and bells tolling. Really makes them come alive.

[Anonymous]

I think it's great that people are listening to the classics while driving. But LISTENING to a book is not the same as reading it. Different cognitive processes. If you have the time, do yourself a favor and actually read a novel that's been on your list.

[Anonymous]

All quiet on the western front holds up. My kid couldn't get into it, but I think he isn't ready.

Steinbeck is still great.

The challenge I have with the older classics is that they really don't work inthe metro. Can't read in short bursts. Since that is most of my reading time, it is challenging to read those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's great that people are listening to the classics while driving. But LISTENING to a book is not the same as reading it. Different cognitive processes. If you have the time, do yourself a favor and actually read a novel that's been on your list.

8:49 here. I appreciate what you've said, but it's the time factor! Although I've been an avid reader all my life and attended a high school whose English teachers had extensive required reading assignments that included an amazing number of classics, I'm running out of time and want to read/hear so many more books than I'm able to read the traditional way.

[Anonymous]

How about the Odyssey, Middlemarch, Huck Finn, the Master and Margarita, or Don Quixote...? Anything by Jane Austen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's great that people are listening to the classics while driving. But LISTENING to a book is not the same as reading it. Different cognitive processes. If you have the time, do yourself a favor and actually read a novel that's been on your list.

I'm a super fast reader because I want to get to the plot developments in a story. I want to know what happens and I want to know now. So, for me, listening to a book slows me down and helps me appreciate the language of a book all the more.

[Anonymous]

"Lighter" list:

Emma, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Vanity Fair, Middlemarch, Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, Billy Budd, As I Lay Dying, Lolita, Nineteen Eighty-Four


Heavy Duty List:

The Brothers Karamazov, War and Peace, The Castle, The Magic Mountain, Absalom, Absalom!,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read Moby Dick recently. It's actually pretty funny in places, surprisingly. Lots of whale lore tucked into separate chapters, but you can skip these if you want.

Yes, I really enjoyed reading Moby Dick.

[Anonymous]

Catcher in the Rye...this seemed to be required reading for every school but mine

[Anonymous]

I love Main Street. I am surprised how few people read it. It's an easy read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't finish Little Women or Anne Frank.

I know that for Little Women it is that I don't like that Jo turns down Laurie. I thought maybe that when I grew up a bit and reread it as an adult I might see things differently but no...the book falls apart for me then.

I'd like to read more Hemingway. I read the Old Man and the Sea and that was it.

I went to a small college prep high school and we were assigned authors but not titles usually. Of course we went and found the shortest "classic" by each author. So I've read Tale of Two Cities but nothing else by Dickens. Typee but not Moby Dick. Of Mice and Men but not Grapes of Wrath. Etc...

Never mind that for "light" reading, I plowed through all of Herman Wouk's books, Gone with The Wind, and countless other massive tomes.

The short stories and then A Moveable Feast are good places to start.

[Anonymous]

Far from the Maddening Crowd and Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

[Anonymous]

Oops Far From the Madding Crowd. Free on kindle btw

[Anonymous]

If you are contemplating reading Dostoyevsky for the first time, don't start with karamazovs. Start with Idiot or Crime and punishment. You have to ease into it.