

Ask HN: classic literature recommendations? - keiferski

Any suggestions on "classic" literature? I'm not too strict on the definition; I'm reading Kafka now and would probably consider it classic.
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dmlorenzetti
Somebody posted "100 greatest books of all time" to HN just a day or two ago:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_Best_Books_of_All_Time>

From that list I would personally recommend a number of titles, but I would
also run away screaming from a few. Can you give more information about what
interests you? For example, with Kafka, are you reading the shorter stuff, or
"The Trial"? Do you like it or not? What are you looking for?

By the way, if you find something on there you like, then go give an upvote to
ekm2: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4955541>

From that list, I would recommend the following to anybody: (Achebe - Things
Fall Apart), (Austin - Pride and Prejudice), (Laxness - Independent People),
(Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera), (Gogol - Dead Souls [translation by
MacAndrew is the most fun one I've read]), (Twain - Huck Finn).

From that list, I would recommend the following only if I knew the person's
tastes better: (Cervantes - Don Quixote), (Dostoevsky - The Idiot), (Kafka -
The Trial), (Orwell - 1984), (Rushdie - Midnight's Children)

There are many other books I love that aren't on that list, but whether they
would float your boat is anybody's guess. Personally I would read a shopping
list written by Per Olov Enquist, but he seems to be an acquired taste,
because nobody else I know digs him as much as I do (and only his "Royal
Physician's Visit" seems likely to achieve "classic" status).

If you only know "The Three Musketeers" (Dumas) from movies, then you don't
know them at all; the book is, for me, central to the idea of reading. If you
liked "The Three Musketeers" then you might also like "Kidnapped" (Stevenson)
and "Watership Down" (Adams)-- although probably few would consider that a
classic.

"Catch-22" (Heller), "Mother Night" and "Slaughterhouse Five" (Vonnegut), and
"The Little Prince" (Exupery) are all "classic" books I've read many times
over. I was not a huge fan of "Les Miserables" (Hugo) before I read it out
loud with my wife about a year ago, and it really grew on me then. To Orwell's
"1984" I would add "Animal Farm". "My Antonia" (Cather) has something great in
it, though many probably would consider it slow. "To Kill a Mockingbird" (Lee)
deserves a call-out on any list of classics, especially if you're American. If
you like Mark Twain, and want to read something really different by him, then
have a look at "Joan of Arc."

~~~
caw
If you enjoy Mark Twain, you might want to take a look at his lesser works and
short stories. Some of them are quite good.
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1420931210/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1420931210/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=caw02-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1420931210)

I remember "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and "The Million
Pound Bank Note" in particular, though it's been a few years since I read
them.

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nhebb
Looking at my GoodReads favorites that qualify as classics, these are the ones
that I enjoyed the most:

    
    
      - Anything by Jack London
      - Anything by Ernest Hemingway
      - *One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich* by Solzhenitsyn
      - *The Fixer* by Barnard Malamud
      - *Northwest Passage* by Kenneth Roberts
      - *To Kill a Mockingbird* by Harper Lee
      - Anything by Nikolai Gogol
      - Short stories by Guy de Maupassant
      - Most of John Steinbeck's works
      - *Lord of the Flies* by William Golding
      - *The Great Gatsby* F. Scott Fitzgerald
    

Also, if you're reading Kafka, _In the Penal Colony_ is a short story I
enjoyed that I don't see mentioned much.

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1123581321
Any list will vary some. You'll do well to read and listen to the works in
this list: <http://home.comcast.net/~antaylor1/greatbooksstjohns.htm>

If you have the time and the interest I recommend learning Greek and Latin and
reading the books in their original languages.

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yolesaber
I would highly recommend a subscription to Lapham's Quarterly if you want to
get a wide taste of the "classic" cannon. Essentially, it is a collection of
writings and art revolving around an overarching theme (The last two issues,
for example, were "Politics" and "Intoxication"). The content includes
fiction, poetry, letters, journal entries, biographies et al. It is all very
high-quality stuff and I've been using it as a proxy for what to read next
i.e. I'll read a really great excerpt and then I'll order the whole book on
Amazon.

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tagawa
Oh, it has to be Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky). Blew me away.
<http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2554>

For lighter reading, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle). <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1661>

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_delirium
_Brave New World_ by Aldous Huxley and _1984_ by George Orwell lay out two
different visions of dystopian futures, if you're into that.

 _Candide_ by Voltaire is a classic satirical novel that still works fairly
well imo, though it can be a bit un-subtle by the standards of modern literary
satire.

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dirktheman
"Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsig. I read it
this summer (as well as Der Prozess by Kafka, also recommended!) and I was
constantly re-reading sections, finding new insights. The book really changed
the way I look at some things in life.

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bartonfink
The Open Boat, by Stephen Crane. Ecclesiastes. Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse.
All would be considered "classics", all have much to recommend them, and none
is so long that you'd lose interest.

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waxjar
Pretty much everything in the Penguin (Modern) Classics series.

