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A Tale of TwoCities...the best!

I really want to recommend The Master and the margarita by Mihail Bulgakov, it's a book about love, about loss and about life. It's one of my favourites classics.

I just finished reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Its the story about a troubled orphan Heathcliff and his love for Catherine Earnshaw. I found this love story depressing, haunting and toxic.

Little Women, Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations are one of the best classics.

One of my favorite books of all time has to be A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In this book he creates a dystopian world where family is deconstructed, pleasure is embraced and suffering is meant to be depleted from the earth by his medicinal remedy.

For me the positive aspects of this book is it's originality. The whole dystopian futuristic type of story was inspired by this book.

Although I think this book is excellent, I would have liked for it to not be as brief. I believe there was room for more exploration, but I have not read the second book of this series.

I especially think this book would be great for scientists and politicians, who are always wondering about what's best for humankind and what kind of laws/scientific advancements are a good idea, and which should best be avoided.

Thanks for sharing a list of classic books to read! I will start one

The old man and the sea by the author Ernest Hemingway

Oliver twist
David copperfield
Tale of two cities
Journey to the center of the earth

Those books we used to study when we were young in the school, we loved them so much.

My top 3 would be:
Lord of The Flies
The Old Man and The Sea
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Though also the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky i.e The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov are quite intriguing

I do adore classical literature.The best writers seem to stem for writers who strove to break the norms of their contemporary soeciety.
Writers such as Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, Franz Kafka, even Chaucer, and Charlotte Bronte. A true and creative favorite of mine are the collective short stories of Kathrine Mansfield: she has a true skilled talent for writing with intent.

I cannot say I find true disregard for classical writers, I;m simple drawn to those who spea best with my soul.

I personally enjoyed Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Normally I don't go for monsters or horror, but I would describe this as very mild horror. I didn't think this book was scary though. I actually felt bad for the monster that Frankenstein created. Other classics I enjoy are Jane Austen, especially Pride and Prejudice.

This thread is very helpful for finding classic books to read and seems to have a mix of "classical" books as taught in schools and books people enjoy! I thought I would add books that were in a World Literature class in case anyone is interested in international literature:
One Thousand and One Nights - a side note that it is a translated collection of stories and isn't necessarily seen as accurate or enjoyable by Arab scholars
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Odyssey and The Illiad by Homer
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
The Lusiads by Luis Vaz de Camões
Candide by Voltaire
Stories from the volume Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
Lu Xun's "Diary of a Madman"
Eileen Chang's "Sealed Off"
Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk

“Great Expectation” by Charles Dickens. An all time favorite. It is about Pip, a sad poor boy who rises from poverty to a great inheritance. He believes that it is a high society lady, Miss Havisham, who sponsors him. The story is typical of the period but so sad. There is a feeling of dejection when he finds out who his real benefactor is. Social class is depicted as impossible to change. His love interest, Estella mistreats him at the instigation of Miss Havisham, who suffers from depression and seeks to revenge against all men. Pip is one such tool. It is a classic and relevant even today. Charles Dickens has authored many classic books. Great ideas.

Three delightful books - somewhat classic - hard(er) to find but VERY much worth the effort.

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (movie also available)

The Little World Of Don Camillo by Giovannino Guareschi (You'll love this one, even the author's introduction will have you LOL.)

The Lilies Of The Field by William Edmund Barrett (movie also available)

All are very easy reading, short, humorous, and excellent palate cleansers between those huge serious books on your list. I can all but promise you that you will love them.

The Crux by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The book is about a group of women who live in a small New England town, where bachelors exceed the number of women. A doctor convinces several single women to come to Colorado with her. She wants her friend, Orella, to buy and run a boarding house, and she says there are ample opportunities for the other women.

The book focuses on STD's, which were running rampant at the time. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's goal was to educate young women about the prevalence of STD's and their horrible side-effects.

It is a lesser-known work and was never popular, so it is difficult to find. It also was not properly edited, so it has a few typos, but that doesn't detract from the story.