Friday, May 1, 2009

Classics

A FEW CLASSICS FROM MY OWN SHELF


I recently found the following list of Top Ten Greatest Books (according to one person):

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
7. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
9. The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
10. Middlemarch by George Eliot

Books added by my readers:

11. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (added by Barbara)

12. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (added by Joanne)

13. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury (added by Joanne)

14. The Brother's Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Literary Nut)

15. Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder (Literary Nut)

16. Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (Kathleen)

17. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (Kathleen)

***How many on this list have you read (remember this is only one person's list), and is there one or more you would like to add? (I'll add them as your suggestions come in.)

12 comments:

Angie Ledbetter said...

Sadly only four.

Barb Davis said...

Angie- Four is good.

Joanne said...

I'd like to add two - Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier and especially Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, a timeless story of summer and childhood and I guess life itself. I would've added Jane Eyre, but you beat me to it! Probably my favorite.

Barb Davis said...

Joanne- I've added them to our list. Thank you!

Susan Blake said...

I've read 8 of them - a few more to go I guess. I've never met a book I didn't like (except Ulysses) so my recommendation list would be insane. Since I now gravitate to books that make me think, most of today's "modern" fiction gets little attention from me. "Too little time, too many books" applies.

Anita said...

I've read about 9 of them and I'm so glad that you added Dandelion Wine...it's actually one of my all time favorite books! I would add The Brother's Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky...it's also one of my favorites. There is another that I would add and even though it's actually a history of philosphy, it's written as literature. It's called Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder and it's been something that really got me thinking.

Barb Davis said...

SuZen- The classics are great for the brain...I need it at my age! You're right, "Too little time, too many books" but I'm giving it all I got! lol

Barb Davis said...

Literary Nut- I'm going to look up Dandelion Wine since it has so many good reviews here. Thanks for your recommendations.

Kathleen said...

Oh ... we must not forget Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak , and also War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy, and David Copperfield by Dickens.

I can't believe I had little interest in the classics when I was young, but they grip me with age.

Love it!

Barb Davis said...

Kathleen- I'm, also, finding that I love them more as I age. I think there's a constant beauty about them. There is universal truth that isn't found so much in today's writing. I'm reading Jane Eyre now, and I how I wish everyone, young and old, would read it.

heather said...

HOW is Jane Austen NOT on that list!?

I've read Hamlet. That's it. From that list anyway.

Anonymous said...

I've read 15 of the 17. Somehow have missed "In Search of Lost Time" and "Sophie's World." I'll have to add those two to my list.

Probably should add a Jane Austen.