Anonymous
05/03/2023 11:08
Subject: I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
That's funny, because The Brothers Karamazov is the only Dostoevsky I've actually succeeded in reading. Whereas I can't count the number of times I've started but not finished The Idiot and Crime And Punishment.
I went to a small private school where they made us read Crime and Punishment for like 3 years in a row. I have never been able to finish it!
Anonymous
05/03/2023 11:03
Subject: I'm going back to read the classics I missed
I'd add Barbara Comyns, Jean Rhys, Nell Dunn, Sylvia Townsend Warner to the list of great female writers (think Virago classics era).
Also can't recommend enough Margaret Laurence, a Canadian who no one seems to know outside Canada but both her novels and her short stories are phenomenal (if very Canadian).
Also can't recommend enough Margaret Laurence, a Canadian who no one seems to know outside Canada but both her novels and her short stories are phenomenal (if very Canadian).
Anonymous
05/01/2023 21:33
Subject: I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Came across Moby Dick today. Realized I have never read it. Am going to start.
What Great Books are missing from your checklist?
I read Moby Dick last year. What a great book. And I know so much about whales now.
You know its not a book about whales, right?
Melville actually goes into a lot of detail about the various types of whales that would be encountered.
But yes, the book is not just about whales.
Anonymous
05/01/2023 21:20
Subject: I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Came across Moby Dick today. Realized I have never read it. Am going to start.
What Great Books are missing from your checklist?
I read Moby Dick last year. What a great book. And I know so much about whales now.
You know its not a book about whales, right?
Anonymous
05/01/2023 19:00
Subject: I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Anonymous wrote:Came across Moby Dick today. Realized I have never read it. Am going to start.
What Great Books are missing from your checklist?
I read Moby Dick last year. What a great book. And I know so much about whales now.
Anonymous
05/01/2023 18:57
Subject: Re:I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Two of my favorite "classics" authors that I haven't seen mentioned yet are Trollope (Victorian author - start with the Barsetshire series) and Zola - Germinal is the most-read.
While it's true that women are often overlooked in the classics canon, or were not supported to remain in publication, there are many more accessible books by women than people realize. Check out both Virago and Persephone publications that publish books mainly by women that are under-published. Admittedly, these are virtually all English-language books.
Here are some of my favorite women authors that I consider "classics" in no particular order, just as they come to mind. Yes, a few are modern, but I consider them classics already:
Jane Austen
Fanny Burney
Virginia Woolf
George Eliot
the Brontës
Willa Cather
Edith Wharton
Barbara Pym
Shirley Jackson
Sigrid Undset
Tove Jansson
Cora Sandel
Selma Lagerlof
Gertrude Stein
Dorothy Canfield-Fisher
Rebecca West
Dorothy Richardson
Mrs. Oliphant
Harriet Martineau
Toni Morrison
Vita Sackville-West
Doris Lessing
Elizabeth Gaskill
Flannery O'Connor
Eudora Welty
Marguerite Duras
Colette
I'm sure there are a ton more that aren't coming to mind at the moment. I'm happy to provide more detailed info or specific reading suggestions for any of the above!
From the list of authors above, what are your 3 "must read" books?
Only 3? Without overthinking, Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West. I tried to pick three that I don't remember being mentioned earlier on the thread.
Anonymous
05/01/2023 15:43
Subject: Re:I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:another woman - Ayn Rand
She wrote philosophy primarily didn't she? Not fiction?
The Fountainhead certainly contained a heavy dose of her philosophy, but I’d still consider it fiction. I never read Atlas Shrugged, but I think it is also a novelization of her philosophy. A lot of classics were written to convey a specific message, sometimes that’s what makes them a classic.
Thanks I have a PhD in English literature. I understand what the classics are and how they are defined. I think boiling this huge quantity of literary works down to just "something to convey a specific message" is a very limited take.
Anonymous
05/01/2023 14:45
Subject: Re:I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:another woman - Ayn Rand
She wrote philosophy primarily didn't she? Not fiction?
The Fountainhead certainly contained a heavy dose of her philosophy, but I’d still consider it fiction. I never read Atlas Shrugged, but I think it is also a novelization of her philosophy. A lot of classics were written to convey a specific message, sometimes that’s what makes them a classic.
Anonymous
05/01/2023 14:38
Subject: Re:I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Anonymous wrote:another woman - Ayn Rand
She wrote philosophy primarily didn't she? Not fiction?
Anonymous
05/01/2023 14:35
Subject: Re:I'm going back to read the classics I missed
another woman - Ayn Rand
Anonymous
05/01/2023 13:01
Subject: Re:I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Anonymous wrote:Two of my favorite "classics" authors that I haven't seen mentioned yet are Trollope (Victorian author - start with the Barsetshire series) and Zola - Germinal is the most-read.
While it's true that women are often overlooked in the classics canon, or were not supported to remain in publication, there are many more accessible books by women than people realize. Check out both Virago and Persephone publications that publish books mainly by women that are under-published. Admittedly, these are virtually all English-language books.
Here are some of my favorite women authors that I consider "classics" in no particular order, just as they come to mind. Yes, a few are modern, but I consider them classics already:
Jane Austen
Fanny Burney
Virginia Woolf
George Eliot
the Brontës
Willa Cather
Edith Wharton
Barbara Pym
Shirley Jackson
Sigrid Undset
Tove Jansson
Cora Sandel
Selma Lagerlof
Gertrude Stein
Dorothy Canfield-Fisher
Rebecca West
Dorothy Richardson
Mrs. Oliphant
Harriet Martineau
Toni Morrison
Vita Sackville-West
Doris Lessing
Elizabeth Gaskill
Flannery O'Connor
Eudora Welty
Marguerite Duras
Colette
I'm sure there are a ton more that aren't coming to mind at the moment. I'm happy to provide more detailed info or specific reading suggestions for any of the above!
Also:
Mary Shelley
Daphne de Maurier
Emily Dickinson
Louisa May Alcott
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Harper Lee
Anonymous
05/01/2023 10:52
Subject: Re:I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Anonymous wrote:Two of my favorite "classics" authors that I haven't seen mentioned yet are Trollope (Victorian author - start with the Barsetshire series) and Zola - Germinal is the most-read.
While it's true that women are often overlooked in the classics canon, or were not supported to remain in publication, there are many more accessible books by women than people realize. Check out both Virago and Persephone publications that publish books mainly by women that are under-published. Admittedly, these are virtually all English-language books.
Here are some of my favorite women authors that I consider "classics" in no particular order, just as they come to mind. Yes, a few are modern, but I consider them classics already:
Jane Austen
Fanny Burney
Virginia Woolf
George Eliot
the Brontës
Willa Cather
Edith Wharton
Barbara Pym
Shirley Jackson
Sigrid Undset
Tove Jansson
Cora Sandel
Selma Lagerlof
Gertrude Stein
Dorothy Canfield-Fisher
Rebecca West
Dorothy Richardson
Mrs. Oliphant
Harriet Martineau
Toni Morrison
Vita Sackville-West
Doris Lessing
Elizabeth Gaskill
Flannery O'Connor
Eudora Welty
Marguerite Duras
Colette
I'm sure there are a ton more that aren't coming to mind at the moment. I'm happy to provide more detailed info or specific reading suggestions for any of the above!
You should take the "modern" classics out and form a separate list. Otherwise this just reads as a list of random favorites to one particular person.
Anonymous
05/01/2023 10:14
Subject: Re:I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Anonymous wrote:Two of my favorite "classics" authors that I haven't seen mentioned yet are Trollope (Victorian author - start with the Barsetshire series) and Zola - Germinal is the most-read.
While it's true that women are often overlooked in the classics canon, or were not supported to remain in publication, there are many more accessible books by women than people realize. Check out both Virago and Persephone publications that publish books mainly by women that are under-published. Admittedly, these are virtually all English-language books.
Here are some of my favorite women authors that I consider "classics" in no particular order, just as they come to mind. Yes, a few are modern, but I consider them classics already:
Jane Austen
Fanny Burney
Virginia Woolf
George Eliot
the Brontës
Willa Cather
Edith Wharton
Barbara Pym
Shirley Jackson
Sigrid Undset
Tove Jansson
Cora Sandel
Selma Lagerlof
Gertrude Stein
Dorothy Canfield-Fisher
Rebecca West
Dorothy Richardson
Mrs. Oliphant
Harriet Martineau
Toni Morrison
Vita Sackville-West
Doris Lessing
Elizabeth Gaskill
Flannery O'Connor
Eudora Welty
Marguerite Duras
Colette
I'm sure there are a ton more that aren't coming to mind at the moment. I'm happy to provide more detailed info or specific reading suggestions for any of the above!
From the list of authors above, what are your 3 "must read" books?
Anonymous
05/01/2023 09:56
Subject: Re:I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Two of my favorite "classics" authors that I haven't seen mentioned yet are Trollope (Victorian author - start with the Barsetshire series) and Zola - Germinal is the most-read.
While it's true that women are often overlooked in the classics canon, or were not supported to remain in publication, there are many more accessible books by women than people realize. Check out both Virago and Persephone publications that publish books mainly by women that are under-published. Admittedly, these are virtually all English-language books.
Here are some of my favorite women authors that I consider "classics" in no particular order, just as they come to mind. Yes, a few are modern, but I consider them classics already:
Jane Austen
Fanny Burney
Virginia Woolf
George Eliot
the Brontës
Willa Cather
Edith Wharton
Barbara Pym
Shirley Jackson
Sigrid Undset
Tove Jansson
Cora Sandel
Selma Lagerlof
Gertrude Stein
Dorothy Canfield-Fisher
Rebecca West
Dorothy Richardson
Mrs. Oliphant
Harriet Martineau
Toni Morrison
Vita Sackville-West
Doris Lessing
Elizabeth Gaskill
Flannery O'Connor
Eudora Welty
Marguerite Duras
Colette
I'm sure there are a ton more that aren't coming to mind at the moment. I'm happy to provide more detailed info or specific reading suggestions for any of the above!
While it's true that women are often overlooked in the classics canon, or were not supported to remain in publication, there are many more accessible books by women than people realize. Check out both Virago and Persephone publications that publish books mainly by women that are under-published. Admittedly, these are virtually all English-language books.
Here are some of my favorite women authors that I consider "classics" in no particular order, just as they come to mind. Yes, a few are modern, but I consider them classics already:
Jane Austen
Fanny Burney
Virginia Woolf
George Eliot
the Brontës
Willa Cather
Edith Wharton
Barbara Pym
Shirley Jackson
Sigrid Undset
Tove Jansson
Cora Sandel
Selma Lagerlof
Gertrude Stein
Dorothy Canfield-Fisher
Rebecca West
Dorothy Richardson
Mrs. Oliphant
Harriet Martineau
Toni Morrison
Vita Sackville-West
Doris Lessing
Elizabeth Gaskill
Flannery O'Connor
Eudora Welty
Marguerite Duras
Colette
I'm sure there are a ton more that aren't coming to mind at the moment. I'm happy to provide more detailed info or specific reading suggestions for any of the above!
Anonymous
04/30/2023 20:30
Subject: I'm going back to read the classics I missed
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't think Little Women is actually a literary classic. I think it's just populist American fiction. And I think it is sentimental and schlocky. There are no hallmarks of a classic text about it at all. Sorry. Who is studying this text at college? No one.
. We aren’t beholden to what old, dead white guys said were classics. Another reader can say Little Women is classic for them and you don’t have to agree. Carry on.
What are your standards for classics?
They aren't my personal standards, but given expectations generally - this wiki page covers it pretty well
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_book