Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Lists are always fun. Here are two more.

The first one for finding the hidden gems on our shelf. (If you pick a less known book from our shelf, it would be great if you include a line or two about why you picked that). The second one for inspiration on what to nominate.

Here are mine:
Top 3 books from our group book shelf you have read:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Chess Story A stunning book. So condensed every word matter and nerves are vibrating.
Voices from Chernobyl A book is good to me if it has just a single new idea or thought.... something I think about after reading it. This one has several. It has been two years since I last read a book so densely packed.

Top 3 books that you have read and think are missing on our group book shelf:
Ender's Game Two science fiction novels compete for first place in all lists: Dune and Ender's Game. An awesome little book. Even if you know how it ends.
The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe. The first detective story.
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character "here is Feynman's life in all its eccentric—a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah." A non-technical Memoir including his time at Los Alamos. 137,000+ ratings here on Goodread. I haven’t realized it was so widely read, so I will now include it as a classic.

Top 3 on shelf:
The Leopard
Beloved
The Trial
(The Leopard because it's so effortlessly perfect, and the other two because they blew my mind wrt what it was possible to do with words on a page)

Top 3 missing from shelf:
Underworld (DeLillo)
Life: A User's Manual (Perec)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick)
(the first two cos they're just monumental achievements that it shouldn't be possible a human being constructed, and the PKD cos was having a hard time picking a third so decided to just go for a Sci-Fi, and Blade Runner is the most glaring omission, although I personally prefer 3 Stigmata and A Scanner Darkly by PKD)

The first question is Incredibly difficult because I tend to feel profound affection for books I've loved and don't want to choose between them. But I'm listing three that are close to my heart for various reasons. Maybe not the most "high-brow" of books, but I like them.

Top 3 books from our group book shelf you have read:
Anna Karenina
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Lord of the Rings

As for things I'd add... there are many. Here are three:

Top 3 books that you have read and think are missing on our group book shelf:
Buried Child - Pulitzer-winning play by Sam Shepard, one of the most important American playwrights of the 20th century
Live or Die - A haunting book of Pulitzer-winning poetry by Anne Sexton.
The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic - I've thought about nominating it, but I doubt it would even make the polls. A shame, too, because it's an important Indian epic from around -400, and I feel like we're lacking in that area. I somewhat arbitrarily linked to the prose version, because it is very accessible. I've used it with my students. Here is the verse version: Ramayana. If I were to nominate it, I would nominate the verse version.

I also agree with Darren's choice of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. PDK really should be on our shelf. This one, to me, has the farthest reach in terms of influence.

Top 3 on shelf:
The Sound and the Fury
The Trial
Crime and Punishment

Top 3 missing from shelf:
Wise Blood
A Confederacy of Dunces
Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

Top 3 on shelf:
Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Beloved - Toni Morrison

Top 3 missing from shelf:
The Tale of Genji - Murasaki Shikibu
Epitaph of a Small Winner - Machado de Assis
Kristin Lavransdatter - Sigrid Undset

I agree with Kristin Lavransdatter, but series of books are not allowed on the shelf, and it makes no sense to just pick one of the three, so this masterpiece of 20th century literature would have to win 3 separate polls to get onto the shelf in its entirety!

Darren wrote: "I agree with Kristin Lavransdatter, but series of books are not allowed on the shelf, and it makes no sense to just pick one of the three"

They better get rid of 'Lord of the Rings' then.

With the caveat that I have read pathetically few from the group bookshelf (why I joined this group), my top 3 are:
Anna Karenina
The Remains of the Day
The Secret History

The second part is even harder, since I mostly read new books that don't qualify.
The World According to Garp or A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
I can't think of any others right now.

There are some truly great books on the shelf, after all.

I will pick:

1. The Divine Comedy (and what Joyce called Daunty, Gouty and Shopkeeper- also include Faust and Twelfth Night, etc.)

2. Mansfield Park (and everything else by J to the A)

3. The Idiot

And favorite books not on the shelf:

1. The Small House at Allington

2, The Temptation of St. Antony

3. Prater Violet

Shelf books
1. Wuthering Heights
2. Return of the soldier
3. Flowers for Algernon

Books missing from shelf
1. Niels Lyhne
2. Twenty thousand streets under the sky
3. Hedda Gabler

On list;
The End of the Affair, Graham Greene: Hopefully, more Greene to come to the list.
Shirley, Charlotte Brontë: I still think this is an underrated Classic perhaps because the opening pages where she very effectively describes how boring being a country parson’s daughter can be ... is very boring. Flaubert’s another writer good enough to bore you to tears.😜
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett: Its very dear to me to have Hammett on the list. I’d suggest going to Jim Thomson, Elmore Leonard and James Ellroy after this but only having read all of Hammett’s novels (to tune your ear for the tone😜).

Future ..erm.. necessities;
The Rainbow; DH Lawrence; This is prose with the beautiful power of poetry. It had more emotional effect on me than any book I’ve read recently.
Therese Raquin; Emile Zola; On the other hand the thought of anyone following my recommendation to read this; makes me smile at the thought of the mounting horror clawing it’s way up your thr... 🤪
A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood; Remarkable for what it does in 150 pages/ one day; a strong argument for tolerance that sits with James Baldwin and neither should be needed today.

Great idea--it's so hard to narrow it down to three!

My top favorites from the shelf are all well-known, so in the interest of finding lesser-known gems, here are three from the shelf that no one should miss trying:
The Haunting of Hill House
Giovanni’s Room
Mansfield Park (a not as popular Austen that became my favorite)

As for the missing ones, I have to second Kristen Lavransdatter. So if we can't do a series, I'm going to say
The Wreath. I waited several years before reading the second one, and thought The Wreath was fabulous on its own.

I'll add to that two of my favorites, because they are wonderfully magical and uplifting:
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Dandelion Wine

I'd go with The Divine Comedy as well
plus
The Plague by Albert Camus

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

As for what's missing:

I'd go with Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West too,

and

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski

and

The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth

From the shelf:

Ulysses - loved this book. It's difficult to make one's way through the first time but the essence of an everyman's life is wonderfully portrayed. Joyce manages to show that each man has an inner life that we cannot know about and that makes him deep & rich and remarkable.
Lonesome Dove - such a terrific epic saga.
Around the World in Eighty Days - so much fun to read. A really fun romp around the world.

Books to be added:
A book by Willa Cather, either O Pioneers!, My Ántonia or Death Comes for the Archbishop

A book by John Wyndham, especially The Chrysalids or Chocky

The Monk - rollicking, gothic fun.

My shelf favorites:
Bleak House - Quintessential Dickens whose books I love
All Quiet on the Western Front - should be required reading to understand war
Lonesome Dove - an amazing and fun read

Missing from the shelves:
Bastard Out of Carolina - stunning and raw
A Lesson Before Dying - essential to understanding black men wrongly convicted of crimes
The Bluest Eye - my favorite by Toni Morrison so far

Top three books from bookshelf:
The Stand
Flowers for Algernon
The Remains of the Day

Three not on shelf - so hard to narrow it down!
Just So Stories
Brideshead Revisited
The Hotel New Hampshire

I like seeing Blood Meridien and Toni Morrison on these suggestions; especially when the determination of when a book becomes a classic is moot in the face of the quality of these 80s stories.

Difficult to choose, but I would say:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1984
War and Peace

It's difficult to choose just three though, and I would have liked to include some of my beloved Shakespeare or Charles Dickens on that list!

It's hard to choose missing books as I feel most classics are already on the bookshelves. Some possible additions are:
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The Shipping News
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

It's probable that I would answer differently next year, but for now my three favorite from the Group Bookshelf are:

1. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
3. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

My favorite books not on the Group bookshelf:
1. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
2. All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot
3. The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Milena you said you had not read many books from the bookshelf yet, but the three you picked are so good. I rated each of those 5 stars. I also really liked The World According to Garp.

Julie, I made my list before looking at anyone else's posts. I see that you also put Brideshead Revisited.

Picking a top 3 from the shelf is almost impossible so I'm including ones that aren't on every must-read list, like Don QDon Quixote and The Count of Monte Cristo. My lesser-known or underappreciated that are among my favorites are:

1. Doctor Zhivago (underappreciated)
2. The Woman in White
3.Gilgamesh: A New English Version

Three favorites that should be on our shelves

1. Their Eyes Were Watching God besides being one of my favorite books ever, it was also on The Great American Read list.
2. The Sun Also Rises also on the Great American Read list
3. Meditations I wish everyone in the world were forced to read this. It's filled with great ancient wisdom that is still completely relevant today

Lynn wrote: "Milena you said you had not read many books from the bookshelf yet, but the three you picked are so good. I rated each of those 5 stars. I also really liked The World According to Garp...."

I love Evelyn Waugh and we don't have any of his on our list do we? I haven't read Brideshead yet.

Thank you, Lynn. I did read Brideshead Revisited earlier this year and really liked it.

How do you pick only 3?

🤔🤯😥

Then pick four if you absolutely must. It is just fun to see. I also realized that I must read Lonesome Dove, since two people mention it on their top 3.

I have not read Brideshead Revisited. But the two people who have it as their top 3 books probably is not going to nominate it. So maybe I should?

J_BlueFlower wrote: "Then pick four if you absolutely must. It is just fun to see. I also realized that I must read Lonesome Dove, since two people mention it on their top 3.

I have not read Brideshead Revisited. But ..."

Lonesome Dove is not in my top 3 of all time, but it is so very good.

My top three books that are on the group bookshelf:


One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey


The Secret History by Donna Tartt


The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien

My top three books that are not on the group bookshelves:


Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze


Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy


Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Honorable Mention (my way of cheating and listing more than three):

A Game of Thrones/A Clash of Kings/A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Terror by Dan Simmons
March Violets by Philip Kerr
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie Jr.
The Man in the High Castle or A Scanner Darkly or Ubik by Philip K. Dick
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
Provinces of Night by William Gay
The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow

This is a fun thread!

On the List:
1. Catch-22
2. The Count of Monte Cristo
3. The Great Gatsby

Not on the List:
1. Howl’s Moving Castle
2. The Man in the Brown Suit (and basically any other Agatha Christie book)
3. The Masque of the Red Death

It feels good to read trough this tread and see all the "books missing from our shelf" that we have read since then:

Ender's Game
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Dandelion Wine
Brideshead Revisited
The Call of the Wild
Meditations

I was thinking the same about the books being added to the shelf.

I was thinking about that as I read through the responses. So neat!

A Tale of Two Cities
Catch-22
Siddhartha

I answered the questions almost two years ago now. This is how I would answer it today.

1. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
2. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
3. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Honorable mention Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
I deleted Wuthering Heights.

My favorite books not on the Group bookshelf. Two of my previous choices were added to the shelf (Call of the Wild and Brideshead Revisited) so:

1. Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
2. All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot
3. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

It’s fun to see how opinions change over time!

All Quiet on the Western Front is such a powerful read. I read it in high school but still remember exactly how it made me feel. It’s one I’d like to read again but can’t quite work up to. I’m not sure I have it in me to emotionally go through it again.

Already on the group bookshelf:

Flowers for Algernon (it's a personal top 10 fave of mine)

Black Beauty (first book about animal abuse to gain fame)

Jane Eyre (my #1 of all time)

Three to add that I have read:

Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds

Seventeenth Summer considered one of the first YA romances.

anything by Edna Ferber I don't see any Ferbers on the list!

Jillian - I read the Little House series over and over and over again when I was young. I have to admit I read one of them a couple years ago and I did not love it as much as an adult. 😅 I would definitely read them again with our group, though.

Cindy - I LOVE Jane Eyre as well. It’s definitely in my top ten fave books of all time.

It's so painful to chose only three but I'll give it a try nevertheless =).

The Top Three on the Shelf:

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

and

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Top Three not on the shelf:

Bel-Ami de Guy de Maupassant

Barabbas by Pär Lagerkvist

and

The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo


Top Three not on the shelf and not yet considered international classics:

Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo

Mirror in the Mirror by Michael Ende

Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred by Carl-Johan Vallgren

CindySR wrote: "Already on the group bookshelf:

Flowers for Algernon (it's a personal top 10 fave of mine)

Black Beauty (first book about animal abuse to gain fame)

[book:Jane Eyre|1..."

I really loved Flowers for Algernon Cindy. I read it in one sitting, crying for the last hour. I had read the short story, but the full novel is amazing.

Jillian ❀‿❀ wrote: "🌸 Top 3 books from our group book shelf you have read:
➳ Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. PURE THUNDER.
➳ Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: This is my favorite novel. x
➳ Peter Pan by J.M...."

Jillian you could try nominating Little House on the Prairie for the New School category. We have mentioned children's lit as a category in the past, but honestly there are so many books to keep up with already it was decided not to. I do not know if the votes would be there for a children's book, but The Giver recently won a poll, so maybe.

Lynn wrote: "I really loved Flowers for Algernon Cindy. I read it in one sitting, crying for the last hour. I had read the short story, but the full novel is amazing."

The movie is great, too, Cliff Robertson plays Charly.