Hagen95 said:

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Unless you really, really, really like whaling, I don't recommend reading Melville's Moby Dick.

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Disagree. Monby Dick started my love of nautical books, both non-fiction and Aubrey-Maturin

The sperm whale will stand no nonsense.


Moby dick was a tough one for me.

My favorite novel of all time is A Confederacy of Dunces. I have read it every ten years since college. Such a tragedy the author died before it was published and we lost out on what should have been many more classics.

The book will make you laugh out loud on almost every page and I have never seen a more colorful group of characters in a novel. The author really nails New Orleans in the early 60s.

Haven't seen Stoner mentioned, which is widely held as a favorite classic. It was a darling last year with most of the book influencers (not sure why it became popular with them) and often lauded as people's favorite books ever up there with Lonesome Dove. I read it last year and enjoyed it as a lazy read on the beach type thing. Far from favorite books ever ever. Yes, the prose are outstanding and the story is told clearly by an expert, but the story itself is about as basic as you can get. Maybe that is why it is so heralded, he wrote a story about nothing that you don't mind reading.

As someone above said, I try to squeeze in a classic every so often. Count of Monte Cristo is next for me. Son read Crime and Punishment recently and made me add to my tbr list. Otherwise I've read most of the others sometime in my longer than should be life.

The Marksman said:

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I will forever stand by the truth that Charles Dickens is the greatest author of all time. Anything written by him is a must-read.

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Inclusive of The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit? Because I've heard a lot of bad things about that particular 'novel'

I tried to read Crime and Punishment several years ago, but the literal translation between Russian and English was rough. Wound up watching an old black and white movie adaptation and it turned out to be a pretty great story. If you can fight through the translation awkwardness, it's worth it.

Haven't seen Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man mentioned here. Read it in high school and it had a profound impact on me then. Jumped at the chance to teach it when I began teaching AP English. Might be a little self-indulgent in a couple places, but Ellison's style is gorgeous and its last line kills me every time.

Quad Dog said:

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Thanks for the recommendation. Just finished Tale of Two Cities. Really enjoyed it
I read everyday, but for some reason I've always struggled linking character names to the character. I'm terrible in real life with manners too. This is a very heavy character book with random characters will pop in for a chapter, then disappear for a while. So I had to put more effort into character than I normally do.
It was funnier than I expected in moments. I don't think I've ever marveled at sentence structure or word choice like I have reading this.

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Glad you enjoyed it!

Well, now you can answer Final Jeopardy:

"Both the first line & the last line of this 1859 novel begin with 'It.'"


In the '70s I took a graduate class at Texas in The Victorian Novel and we all agreed that the best Dickens books are the ones that used to be taught in high school. (Not so any more!)

If you haven't read Great Expectations, you would probably enjoy it.