STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

pollyjean23 · Marc Jacobs

Classic Novels

Mitz · BCBG

I can't think of any right now, but just wanted to say enjoy The Fountainhead...I loved that book!

boobaby · Kate Spade

I have a degree in English lit so I probably read most everything in school or before or after. There are quite a few I wish I hadn't read, but that's a whole other topic (don't kill me, but I think a lot of classics are highly overrated).

If you haven't read EM Forster, I highly recommend it. I just read his entire works last year and I had no idea that these were humorous books. They always seemed dull by the looks of them.

lynnie · Chanel

I have a list of about 60 books i'd like to read in the next couple of years and they are about 80% classics. I adore them. But some that are higher priority:
The Sun Also rises
1984- I want to finish it! I"ve started and put it down twice.
The Fountainhead- ditto to that
Lolita
Moby Dick- read first 100 pages and loved it, but put it down once it got slower. I think it would be worth it to finish it and could become one of my favorites.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Les Miserables
Gone with the Wind
Gravity's Rainbow
Out of Africa

There are also a few Steinbeck, Dickens, Faulkner, and James Joyce novels I'd like to read.
I just finished White Noise by Don Delillo and loved it, despite how detached yet morbid it was. I think I need to alternate some of these post modern writers with more romantic authors. Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books of all time.

ILoveChoo · Hermes

Lynnie- The Sun Also Rises is one of my all time favorites!

halleybird · Hermes

I am getting an English MA, so I've read a lot, too, but there are some I still want to read:

Crime & Punishment
Vanity Fair
The Age of Innocence
The House of Mirth (in progress)
Northanger Abbey
Far From the Madding Crowd
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Villette
Lady Audley's Secret
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Middlemarch

lynnie, you MUST read Gone with the Wind! Probably my favorite book ever, if I absolutely needed to pick a #1. I have read it several times, and I never re-read books.

blubirde · Chanel

halleybird wrote:

I am getting an English MA, so I've read a lot, too, but there are some I still want to read:

Crime & Punishment
Vanity Fair
The Age of Innocence
The House of Mirth (in progress)
Northanger Abbey
Far From the Madding Crowd
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Villette
Lady Audley's Secret
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Middlemarch

lynnie, you MUST read Gone with the Wind! Probably my favorite book ever, if I absolutely needed to pick a #1. I have read it several times, and I never re-read books.

Ah! We probably have the opposite reading lists. Practically everything on yours, HB, is a favorite of mine.

Crime and Punishment is my favorite novel of all time, tied only with P&P. Next comes pretty much anything by Edith Wharton but especially the House of Mirth. Off topic, sort of - did you see the PBS/BBC version of Northanger Abbey a couple of weeks ago? It was the best version I've ever seen, not that I've seen that many. Mansfield Park kinda blew though (the tv version).

For me I think I'd like to read a little more Toni Morrison. I've only read one of her books and it was mesmerizing in a slightly disturbing way (for me).

I'm not into Melville but perhaps I should read Moby Dick?
I've also thought about reading Shelly's Frankenstein but I've never committed.

boobaby · Kate Spade

blubirde wrote:

I'm not into Melville but perhaps I should read Moby Dick?
I've also thought about reading Shelly's Frankenstein but I've never committed.

I found it very difficult to get through Moby Dick. I actually skipped the chapters that dealt with the technical details of whaling. Shameful maybe, but it made it much more enjoyable for me.

One way to get your feet wet with authors is to read short stories first. Then you'll get an idea of their style and whether you want to delve into some meaty tome.

halleybird · Hermes

blubirde wrote:

halleybird wrote:

I am getting an English MA, so I've read a lot, too, but there are some I still want to read:

Crime & Punishment
Vanity Fair
The Age of Innocence
The House of Mirth (in progress)
Northanger Abbey
Far From the Madding Crowd
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Villette
Lady Audley's Secret
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Middlemarch

lynnie, you MUST read Gone with the Wind! Probably my favorite book ever, if I absolutely needed to pick a #1. I have read it several times, and I never re-read books.

Ah! We probably have the opposite reading lists. Practically everything on yours, HB, is a favorite of mine.

Crime and Punishment is my favorite novel of all time, tied only with P&P. Next comes pretty much anything by Edith Wharton but especially the House of Mirth. Off topic, sort of - did you see the PBS/BBC version of Northanger Abbey a couple of weeks ago? It was the best version I've ever seen, not that I've seen that many. Mansfield Park kinda blew though (the tv version).

For me I think I'd like to read a little more Toni Morrison. I've only read one of her books and it was mesmerizing in a slightly disturbing way (for me).

I'm not into Melville but perhaps I should read Moby Dick?
I've also thought about reading Shelly's Frankenstein but I've never committed.

LOL. I think my undergrad basically missed the entire late Victorian/early modernist period.

I tried to read Moby Dick and I found it sort of, I dunno, masculine. If you like American Romanticism (James Fenimore Cooper, etc) you'll probably dig it.

I read Frankenstein last semester and it was very cool, especially if you read up on some biographical info about Shelley first.

Maddie · Coach

Even though I hated hated hated A Farewell to Arms I want to read The Sun Also Rises.

Normally I can't get through classics, but I had a friend with similar literary tastes to mine recommend The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment.

halleybird · Hermes

MADDIE!!! You're back!

Maddie · Coach

Ha, maybe I am. We'll see how my life goes.

XtinaStyles · Marc Jacobs

Good question!

I've always wanted to read Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina

Some of my all-time favorites: Madame Bovary, Metamorphosis, The Red Badge of Courage, The Stranger

cc · Marc Jacobs

I went to a very progressive high school where a lot of the classes focussed on non-canon lit so my list of unread classics is embarrassingly long. I'm all set in certain areas and with certain authors including Russian lit, African-American women's lit, Fitzgerald and Shakespeare but have never read anything by Faulkner, James, Woolf or Steinbeck. In the past few years I've finally tackled Dickens and Austen.

Among the books I hope to read this year are:
Moby Dick
The Sound and the Fury
something by Steinbeck

I have a problem with wanting to read the same books over and over and I sometimes get nutty about reading things in translation and try multiple versions. I'm rereading the Illiad right now and might reread the Aeneid and then move on to Dante if that's not too ambitious.

Does anyone use Goodreads.com? I switched from LibraryThing to Goodreads because more of my friends were on there. If anyone wants to add me as a friend try using this link.

member · Hermes

cc - I'm on goodreads. I just added you as my friend (I'm Kim). Farrah's on my friend list too if you want to add her. Please excuse my page for right now - it's not updated at all.

Kitty · Hermes

I'm on goodreads, too! I don't know how to find people there or how you can find me, either.

bumblebee · Coach

I will look you up on Goodreads, too, cc--I signed up a while ago but I forgot my password so it may take me a few days.

You may end up liking Faulkner--I know that many people do, but he is my absolute least favorite writer. I was an English Lit major but with an emphasis on Modern American Lit, so I think I had to read just about everything he ever wrote :(

So because of the American Lit focus, I missed out on a lot of the greats of world lit. I read Anna Karenina a few years ago and loved it, so I will add Crime and Punishment to my list. I would also like to read 100 Years of Solitude--I read Love in the Time of Cholera many years ago and liked the writing style. Any recs on others in this group that you guys like? There's that Chinua Achebe book that always shows up on "Top 10" lists--anyone have an opinion on that one?

Jahni · Dooney & Bourke

I have a BA in English and had an amazing English teacher in high school who forced us to read every classic ever written (or so it seemed), so by the time I finished undergrad i was severely beaten down with Classic Lit.

But now I reallllllllly want to read Les Mis, except i can't make myself! Everytime I go into Barnes and Noble I pick it up and walk around with it, but can never make myself actually take it to the cash register and buy the damn thing! I think I have a problem.

janey831 · Kate Spade

bumblebee wrote:

I will look you up on Goodreads, too, cc--I signed up a while ago but I forgot my password so it may take me a few days.

You may end up liking Faulkner--I know that many people do, but he is my absolute least favorite writer. I was an English Lit major but with an emphasis on Modern American Lit, so I think I had to read just about everything he ever wrote :(

So because of the American Lit focus, I missed out on a lot of the greats of world lit. I read Anna Karenina a few years ago and loved it, so I will add Crime and Punishment to my list. I would also like to read 100 Years of Solitude--I read Love in the Time of Cholera many years ago and liked the writing style. Any recs on others in this group that you guys like? There's that Chinua Achebe book that always shows up on "Top 10" lists--anyone have an opinion on that one?

One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of my favorites. I'll have to read Love in the Time of Cholera next.

Farrah · Marc Jacobs

Blubirde - I am with you on Toni Morrison. I just read The Bluest Eye for my Modernism/Postmodernism class and it was amazing.

Halleybird - Don't feel bad about missing that whole Victorian/Modernism era. After the class I just took I would like to throw them all out of a window. Perhaps that is because my Prof was the worst EVER! Lucky me, I get to have him ruin another American Lit genre for me next quarter:(.

Bumblebee - May I please join your Faulkner loathing club? That man is so overrated in my opinion.

As for the classics I have yet to read, but would like to: Fahrenheit 451, The Great Gatsby (I am starting this one this weekend), The Sun Also Rises, and A Tale of Two Cities. Last summer I finally read The Count of Monte Cristo and I am so sad that I waited that long: it was marvelous!!