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Your very favorite classic novel…
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I’m looking for fresh inspiration for something to read…what is your absolute favorite classic novel? (This is for me…not for the kiddos). Preferably something I could download to my Kindle for free…and not by Jane Austen or Elizabeth Gaskell because I’ve recently read a bunch of those. =)
Thanks. =)
Jen
Bookworm,
My 14 year old daughter would like you to elaborate on why David Copperfield is so amazing. She is making her literature list for next year and I told her you could be trusted 🙂
Heather
Dang…Austen and Gaskell were my recs. So…..I’ll have to go with Tale of Two Cities. Or Les Mis. Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs is free right now – that’s CLASSIC literature.
Well, Dickens is a master of the novel anyway, and David Copperfield is his best-designed, best-executed and most approachable full-length novel. The characters are delightful, he avoids going off on political tangents or overly sappy death scenes. The pathos in this one is restrained, the comedic moments are intelligently funny. I find myself comparing every novel I read to it, and they all come up short, some painfully so. I’m currently reading it aloud to make sure all 3 boys get at least one exposure to it. I’d tell her it’s a don’t-miss for high school years, but if the length is deterring, IMO the second-best is Great Expectations. 🙂
How do you compare Dickens’ Bleak House to David Copperfield or Gr. Expectaions? I was reading that Bleak House is considired one of his best novels by many (though maybe too much politics for you, considering it’s about the Chancery abuses?). I just finished watching the 2005 BBC version w/Gillian Anderson-it was very good. Now I may have to read the book.
As for the OP question-can’t narrow it down to one, sorry.
Actually, my problem with Bleak House is the interminable legal passages. It may very well be a well-designed novel but I find the legal passages so deadly dull I haven’t made it to the end yet. It’s sitting in my Towering Stack with a stickie in it from a couple years ago–I’ve made it to about page 300 and haven’t talked myself back into trying it again yet.
Hopefully the film adaptation cut some of that out in the interest of not killing the audience, lol. My favorite Dickens novels are David Copperfield, Great Expectations and Nicholas Nickleby, in that order. I haven’t read David Copperfield. I guess if I’m going to hang out here I’ll have to read it. Loved Great Expectations too.
Okay, You don’t want Austen or Gaskell and others have already suggested Dickens. I’m going to suggest a few books that thoroughly intrigued me even though some of them are actually intended for children. I don’t think these would be considered classics, but you might enjoy them as I did.
Tuck Everlasting (Would you really want to live forever?)
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (This is an Adventure on the High Seas)
Seven Sons for Seven Daughters (Arabian Legend)
Cotillion by Georgette Heyer (novel that I read recently that was on kindle)
King of the Castle by Victoria Holt. (However, I would not recommend other titles by this same author. King of the Castle, if I remember, is set in France after the Revolution. The story is of a young lady who goes to live in a castle where her job is to restore the painting that had been damaged in the revolution. She is also governess of the naughty little daughter of the house.)
Besides the classics that everyone knows a great deal about, these are some of the most enjoyable books I have ever read.
Hopefully the film adaptation cut some of that out in the interest of not killing the audience, lol. My favorite Dickens novels are David Copperfield, Great Expectations and Nicholas Nickleby, in that order. 
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