The Best CLASSIC novel of ALL TIME!

[JeremyZ]

This is very subjective, and I haven't read all the classics yet.

But for my part, I would vote The Hobbit.

The Lord of the Rings was originally written as one book. The publishers finally got their way when it was published as a trilogy years after it was started. So I think you could, in all fairness, vote for The Lord of the Rings as your favorite classic book.

I didn't however. It is much harder to read than the Hobbit. At times, it is a bit long-winded and dry, and I didn't get much out of the overly frequent song lyrics. That said, this is my most often re-read book, so that says a lot. It helps that I have the beautifully-illustrated hardcover, which heightens the experience for me.

I also really enjoyed The Count of Monte Cristo, but it too, was a bit more drawn-out than it needed to be at times. Expertly written though. The Three Musketeers is on my list because I liked this one so much.

A Tale of Two Cities was really good too, but not quite Hobbit-good. Not as many periods that were too drawn out in this one. I'm definitely going to read more Dickenson.

[crich70]

Actually it took Prof. Tolkien several years to write the whole thing as I understand it. And the reason it was split into 3 volumes is that it was felt that it would be too expensive back then to have it in one volume. Now days either the costs have come down or people are willing to spend more on a single book (or both) so you can find it in a one volume format.

Originally Posted by JeremyZ

This is very subjective, and I haven't read all the classics yet.

But for my part, I would vote The Hobbit.

The Lord of the Rings was originally written as one book. The publishers finally got their way when it was published as a trilogy years after it was started. So I think you could, in all fairness, vote for The Lord of the Rings as your favorite classic book.

I didn't however. It is much harder to read than the Hobbit. At times, it is a bit long-winded and dry, and I didn't get much out of the overly frequent song lyrics. That said, this is my most often re-read book, so that says a lot. It helps that I have the beautifully-illustrated hardcover, which heightens the experience for me.

[nguirado]

The novelist who seems to have the most enduring appeal to both academics and the common people is Jane Austen. I'd say Pride and Prejudice.

[beppe]

I do not have doubts for the best (obviously for me)
and a score of second bests.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by lost66615

war and peace is my fav book only one that i have in pback and hardback got about 10 different editions and a first english edition

Apparently, Tolstoy himself did not consider War And Peace a novel proper, but something more.

[waxwing]

Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky
Anna Karenina, Tolstoy

But these have already been mentioned. How about:

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov

Personally have never enjoyed any of the British 19th C "classics" such as Dickens, Austen etc.

[jeffcobb]

Its funny but I mentioned in some other thread that I liked Bram Stokers Dracula and last weekend that prompted me to grab it from Gutenberg and start reading (again)..but this is definitely a classic and a great example of the free stuff that is out there....

[MV64]

I've never heard any book published after the 1930s referred to as a classic.

I think everyone in this thread is disagreeing over what classic means. THere's "this is so good it's classic" and then there's "this book is a Classic (as in a semi-genre, a stage of writing).

I don't have a set date, but most of the classics I know of are pre-1910 but obviously a few in the 20s and 30s.

As for my input, I"d have to save Last of the Mohicans, Dracula, or Frankenstein.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I'm not certain you can give the "best" Classical book. Too many great books, and each very different...

I know I can't.

If I can give a series a nod here, I'll give the nod to the Discworld series. I know it's not old classic, but I would class it as modern classic.

[TallMomof2]

My daughter and I are reading Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days for her language art's class. It may not be the best classic but after 140ish years is still readable and enjoyable. It's a great book for teaching vocabulary to a 12yo.

For myself, I've always enjoyed Jules Verne and of course Tolkien. More modern "classics" that I find are wonderful books are Slaughter House Five, Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men.

[Fat Abe]

Originally Posted by elsussman

I once read somewhere that everyone should read Don Quixote 3 times in his life. once as a young man... once in middle age and once when old. I have read it twice but in the interest of holding on am deferring the third go thru for a while

Indeed, an eminently re-readable book.

In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to
mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance
in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for
coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most
nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra
on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it
went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match
for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best
homespun.

Vigorous, full of life. One wonders how lesser, and some might say, overrated novels can compare.

http://listverse.com/2009/02/09/top-...rrated-novels/

Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged are on the list of overrated novels. Don't worry, The Da Vinci Code also made the chopping block.

[OhioCruffler]

Originally Posted by sabredog

It is a shame you find other members choice of what they consider a "classic" amusing. Surely a purely subjective choice to be made by those respondents? I may not necessarily agree but I never find such choices amusing as that would be disrespectful to those respondents choices.

"amusing" is less disrespectful a judgment of subjective reaction than "shameful", I would say.

Pot, kettle, black and all that.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by waxwing

Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky
Anna Karenina, Tolstoy

But these have already been mentioned. How about:

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov

Personally have never enjoyed any of the British 19th C "classics" such as Dickens, Austen etc.

except for lolita our reading hands seem to match quite well.

Did you read Red Cavalry by Isaak Babel? it is not a novel but a collection of short stories.

Spoiler:

Jorge Luis Borges once wrote of Red Cavalry,
The music of its style contrasts with the almost ineffable brutality of certain scenes. One of the stories, -- "Salt" -- enjoys a glory seemingly reserved for poems and rarely attained by prose: many people know it by heart.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I have a little story about this one.

Spoiler:

Instead of reading me she was passing most of her time with her pretty nose in this thick book. One day we were going somewhere and she was driving so I picked up her book and started to read it to her, with the idea that with that out of the scene she would notice how interesting were my features again. (BTW there was something wrong down deep as the story did not have an happy ending). In few minutes I was hooked to the story for good. I was rewarded years later as I was talking a walk with an other one and a couple of friends near the Cataratas do Iguaçu, when I found my head surrounded by a cloud of little yellow butterflies, that followed me for a while. A great moment in my life

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

My daughter and I are reading Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days for her language art's class. It may not be the best classic but after 140ish years is still readable and enjoyable. It's a great book for teaching vocabulary to a 12yo.

Yikes! A school calls a class "language art's"?????

Does nobody know how to use apostrophes any more?

[TGS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yikes! A school calls a class "language art's"?????

Does nobody know how to use apostrophes any more?

Let's be charitable - maybe when the class on language arts is completed the apostrophes will be in the right place.