Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

100 books every man should read over the course of his lifetime. It’s a library that centers not on sheer enjoyment (though you’ll find that too), but on the books that expand mind and soul, build new mental models, and allow you to become more culturally literate and thus better able to participate in the Great Conversation. These are the books you’ll keep thinking about long after you’ve finished the last page (even when, or perhaps especially when, you disagree with their ideas), providing cognitive leftovers you’ll be chewing on for years, and decades, to come.

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
3. Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose
4. The Republic by Plato
5. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
6. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
7. Theodore Roosevelt Trilogy by Edmund Morris
8. 1984 by George Orwell
9. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
10. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
11. Roman Honor by Carlin Barton
12. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
13. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
14. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
15. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
16. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
17. Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
18. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
19. The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
20. The Iliad & The Odyssey by Homer
21. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
22. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
23. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
24. The Boy Scout Handbook (1st Edition)
25. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
26. King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
27. A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean
28. The Autobiography of Malcolm X
29. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
30. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
31. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
32. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
33. Lives by Plutarch
34. The Bible
35. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
36. After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre
37. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
38. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
39. The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
40. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
41. The Histories by Herodotus
42. From Here to Eternity by James Jones
43. The Thin Red Line by James Jones
44. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
45. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
46. Self-Reliance & Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
47. Ulysses by James Joyce
48. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
49. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
50. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
51. The Book of Deeds of Arms and Chivalry by Christine de Pizan
52. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
53. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
54. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
55. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
56. Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
57. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
58. The Last Lion Trilogy by William Manchester
59. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
60. This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff
61. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
62. Resilience by Eric Greitens
63. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
64. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
65. The Federalist Papers
66. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
67. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
68. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
69. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
70. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
71. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
72. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
73. The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
74. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
75. The Stranger by Albert Camus
76. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
77. The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey
78. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
79. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
80. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
81. Native Son by Richard Wright
82. The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
83. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
84. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
85. Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L’Amour
86. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
87. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
88. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
89. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
90. Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield
91. Paradise Lost by John Milton
92. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
93. Oil! by Upton Sinclair
94. Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
95. The Code of Man by Waller Newell
96. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
97. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
98. The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
99. With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge
100. Self-Control: Its Kingship and Majesty by William George Jordan

Men or Women have you read one on the list that lingered?

I've read about 25 of them and the one that has most lingered with me - since I read it in high school so many years ago now - is A Separate Peace by John Knowles. It is on my list to reread but I am so afraid that I won't find it as - I'm not even sure what the word is here - dramatic? impactful? good? heart-wrenching? Was it high school angst that made it such a memorable read? Maybe I should just leave well enough alone?

Many of the others I've read were also five star reads but very few books have ever struck me the same way A Separate Peace did.

I reckon I've read about 37 of them, and at least seven of those continue to linger, with at least 15 that I've read more than once.

The difficulty of any list like this is that no two people will agree with the contents, and I'm sure we'd all want to add/remove some. (These lists are always a great way of prompting discussion - where did this one come from Lesle?)

But Ayn Rand??????

I've read 39 of them. I only read Revolutionary Road just before the movie came out and I can't believe it isn't more popular than it is. The other one that I really love is Lonesome Dove, though I think the other three books in that series are superior.

John wrote: "(These lists are always a great way of prompting discussion - where did this one come from Lesle?)..."

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articl...

This one I think is the same list.
https://www.listchallenges.com/100-bo...

Alicia wrote: "The other one that I really love is Lonesome Dove, though I..."

Alicia it is one of my favorites as well! Love the series just as much.

Kind of odd that the Bible comes right before Lonesome Dove.

I wondered about a few of the books I had not heard of like number 62. Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens

But I think it might be interesting anyways as I really learned a lot from Chris Kyle's American Sniper

This one is about a Navy Seal helping another with PTSD.

I've read 40. At this time I have too many in front of the remainder to get at the rest of the list.

I've read just over half (at least the ones I remember reading) at 52.

There are a lot of books here that I have yet to read. Among those I have read, though, my favourite might be 'Call of the Wild', although I read it such a long time ago that it's probably due a re-read by now. That said, I remember enjoying 'White Fang' even more.

Interesting that 'Pride and Prejudice' is on a recommended list for men. Times have changed since I was at school, when the girls were fed on a diet of Austen and the Brontes, while adventure stories were considered more suitable for boys.

Karen wrote: "I've read about 25 of them and the one that has most lingered with me - since I read it in high school so many years ago now - is A Separate Peace by John Knowles. It is on my list to reread but I ..."

oh yes, I agree, but have re-read it many times x

How to Win Friends and Influence People at #10? Seriously?

Well, if it worked for Charles Manson...

Pillsonista wrote: "How to Win Friends and Influence People at #10? Seriously?

Well, if it worked for Charles Manson..."

No way!

Helen wrote: "Interesting that 'Pride and Prejudice' is on a recommended list for men. ..."

I thought that as well but I know several male members have read it!

A book that stands out for me is Fahrenheit 451.

I’ve only read 15 from that list, 16 if we count Tolkien’s works separately.

Fahrenheit 452 and its lessons have stuck with me since I read it a handful or so years ago. The Outsiders remains one that resonates with me due to the harsh realities portrayed in the story.

I've read 26 but two of them are doubles. Illiad/Odyssey and Hobbit/LOTR.
The ones that linger the most to me are 1984 and, when I was younger, Lord of the Flies.

I am by no means an expert on this subject, it is an admirable list, I am just sorry to see a few well known titles missing... but thank you anyway, I feel like I have a decisive bearing to approach my adventure in "The Classics" with.

Cphe wrote: "Have read 36 to date but lists are so subjective. Having said that I do try and read several books a year from the Boxall 1000 books (combined editions) to read before you die. Also some books from..."

I think it is good to mix it up. Try to get in a few classics that everyone raves about, but also try to find some obscure forgotten titles that can become "yours"

Andy wrote: "I think it is good to mix it up. Try to get in a few classics that everyone raves about, but also try to find some obscure forgotten titles that can become "yours"..."

Thank you Andy! I am glad you brought that up.
Enjoying forgotten titles or Authors are very important!

Cphe wrote: "Have read 36 to date but lists are so subjective. Having said that I do try and read several books a year from the Boxall 1000 books (combined editions) to read before you die. Also some books from..."

Impressive Cphe!

haha it can feel special and rewarding to find some rabbitholes that no one has recommended to you :D

I've read 36 so far too. Definitely a lot more on my TBR, and I agree it's useful to find those titles that haven't come to my attention yet.

I think my most favorite one have been Lonesome Dove and the Count of Monte Christo, both of which I only read last year. Austen is one of my favorites too.

Liane wrote: "I think my most favorite one have been Lonesome Dove ..."

I totally agree Liane!

What about the women?

Actually Bernard I was thinking of that.
Would like to compare for sure.

Bernard wrote: "What about the women?"

It says I can't post a link even though there are some links in this thread already but here's one: modernmrsdarcydotcom/must-read-classics-women/


I only have four on this list.

If you're looking for women on a must read , you could look up some early novelists from: Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen by Dale Spender.

When I try to post a link I get

1 error prohibited this comment from being saved:
For the safety of our members, links to other sites are not allowed in comments. Please edit your comment and try again.

Lesle wrote: "Actually Bernard I was thinking of that.
Would like to compare for sure."

Although many books are read and enjoyed by both men and women, I believe there are different tastes. I would hate for female members to be disadvantaged!

Sadly, I've only read 8 on the list. However, I have started a nice collect of classics that I am beginning to dive into and have already accumulated about 75% of this list :) The one that I have read that really has stuck with me is The Call of the Wild. I don't know what is was about that story, but it just resonated within me. So beautifully written, and captured the time period and the mind of Buck perfectly.

It is challenging. The Modern Mrs Darcy list includes only female authors, which isn’t the same concept as the “men’s” list, which includes both male and female authors, but is intended (presumably) to indicate what men would benefit from having read.

I’ve read 14 of Mrs. Darcy’s list of 24 “must reads”. Despite having read it several times myself as a teen, I wouldn’t include Corrie Ten Boom’s “The Hiding Place” as one of the only 24 books that all women should read, particularly with Anne Frank already on the list. Many of the “men’s” list have value equally for women.

Book Nerd not being able to post outside links is what this thread is about:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Goodreads has implemented many changes trying to stop spam.

Tony wrote: "Sadly, I've only read 8 on the list. However, I have started a nice collect of classics that I am beginning to dive into and have already accumulated about 75% of this list :) The one that I have r..."

Tony it sounds like you got a good start in your library!
Make sure you check out 2022 Genre Classic Suggestions so that you can share some of those Classics sitting on your shelf!!

Was not successful at finding a least of a 100 for women. Took about 6 or 7 different list for women and this is the best I can come up with. First is the Men and second is the Women. No real order either. Hopefully I didnt repeat any:

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 1. To Kill A Mockingbird
2. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli 2. The Secret Garden
3. Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose 3. Anne of Green Gables
4. The Republic by Plato 4. Pride and Prejudice
5. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith 5.The Feminine Mystique
6. The Call of the Wild by Jack London 6. My Antonia
7. Theodore Roosevelt Trilogy by Edmund Morris 7. Kristin Lavransdatter
8. 1984 by George Orwell 8. The Diary of a Young Girl
9. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 9. The Hiding Place
10. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie 10. The Bell Jar
11. Roman Honor by Carlin Barton 11. A Room of One's Own
12. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 12. Gaudy Night
13. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 13. Little Women
14. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky 14. A Circle of Quiet
15. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway 15. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
16. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway 16. Jane Eyre
17. Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss 17. Rebecca
18. On the Road by Jack Kerouac 18. Middlemarch
19. The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac 19. The Age of Innocence
20. The Iliad & The Odyssey by Homer 20. The Catcher in the Rye
21. Walden by Henry David Thoreau 21. Anna Karenina
22. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding 22. Gone With The Wind
23. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand 23. The Great Gatsby
24. The Boy Scout Handbook (1st Edition) 24. Lord of The Flies
25. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer 25. Peter Pan
26. King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard 26. The French Lieutenant's Woman
27. A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean 27. Watership Down
28. The Autobiography of Malcolm X 28. Wuthering Heights
29. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas 29. Romeo and Juliet
30. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 30. I Capture the Castle
31. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen 31. The Outsiders
32. The Art of War by Sun Tzu 32. The Driver's Seat
33. Lives by Plutarch 33. To the Lighthouse
34. The Bible 34. Bible
35. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry 35. Their Eyes Were Watching God
36. After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre 36. And Then There Were None
37. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett 37. In This House of Brede
38. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee 38. The Bridge of Years
39. The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara 39. Matilda
40. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin 40. Picnic at Hanging Rock
41. The Histories by Herodotus 41. The Good Earth
42. From Here to Eternity by James Jones 42. Mrs. Dalloway
43. The Thin Red Line by James Jones 43. Here Lies: The Collected Stories of Dorothy Parker
44. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig 44. The THorn Birds
45. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler 45. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
46. Self-Reliance & Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson 46. The Golden Notebook
47. Ulysses by James Joyce 47. We Have Always Lived in a Castle
48. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 48. The Hour of the Star
49. The Road by Cormac McCarthy 49. Pale Horse, Pale Rider
50. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse 50. Mansfield Park
51. The Book of Deeds of Arms and Chivalry by Christine de Pizan 51. The Awakening
52. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes 52. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
53. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 53. Sense and Sensiblilty
54. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 54. The Mysterious Affair at Styles
55. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes 55. Good Morning, Midnight
56. Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle 56. North and South
57. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand 57. The Mill on the Floss
58. The Last Lion Trilogy by William Manchester 58. A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
59. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer 59. The Yellow Wallpaper
60. This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff 60. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
61. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen 61. The Little Princess
62. Resilience by Eric Greitens 62. The Scarlet Pimpernel
63. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs 63. A Girl of the Limberlost
64. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche 64. The Custom of the Country
65. The Federalist Papers 65. Oh Pioneers
66. The Godfather by Mario Puzo 66. The Enchanted April
67. Moby Dick by Herman Melville 67. The Well of Loneliness
68. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 68. Passing
69. Hamlet by William Shakespeare 69. The Wine of Solitude
70. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 70. After Midnight
71. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates 71. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
72. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri 72. The Bird in the Tree
73. The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn 73. Half a Lifelong Romance
74. A Separate Peace by John Knowles 74. My Cousin Rachel
75. The Stranger by Albert Camus 75. Nectar in a Sieve
76. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe 76. A Raisin in the Sun
77. The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey 77. The Householder
78. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck 78. Wide Sargasso Sea
79. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson 79. Little Dorrit
80. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole 80. The Scarlet Letter
81. Native Son by Richard Wright 81. Madame Bovary
82. The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux 82. Tess of the d'Urbervilles
83. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper 83. The Portrait of a Lady
84. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 84. Lady Chatterley's Lover
85. Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L’Amour 85. Indiana
86. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 86. The Beggar Maid
87. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl 87. Cheri
88. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton 88. The Artificial Silk Girl
89. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 89. Eugene Onegin
90. Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield 90. Memoirs of Hadrian
91. Paradise Lost by John Milton 91. The Forstye Saga
92. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 92. One Hundred Years of Solitude
93. Oil! by Upton Sinclair 93. Buddenbrooks
94. Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard 94. The Grapes of Wrath
95. The Code of Man by Waller Newell 95. The Code of the Woosters
96. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 96. Brideshead Revisited
97. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 97. The Female Quixote
98. The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien 98. Belinda
99. With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge 99. The Wanderer
100. Self-Control: Its Kingship and Majesty by William George Jordan 100. The Romance of the Forest

I've only read eight of those.

Think I’ve read 49 of the women’s list. Including Pilgrim at Tinker Creek just this weekend. It was particularly awesome while driving around Shenandoah National Park.

the little prince

Liane wrote: "Think I’ve read 49 of the women’s list. Including Pilgrim at Tinker Creek just this weekend. It was particularly awesome while driving around Shenandoah National Park."

That one I put in my wish list.
There are actually quite a few I have added.

Lesle, we listened to it using our library’s audiobook system - Hoopla. So thankful for this free (well, paid by property taxes) resource. But the audiobook narrator, Barbara Rosenblat, brings extra depth to Dillard’s essays. I am not sure I would have sat and read that whole book.

Because of our experience, I’ve started compiling a list of other related drive reads. For example, driving up to northern NY, The Last of the Mohicans. And on our next NE national park trip, Walden. Caveat is that they have to be interesting enough not to put the driver to sleep! (The Iliad didn’t pass that test.)

I've read 37 of the Women's list as opposed to 25 of the Men's. Too many to choose just one that stayed with me.

I've read:

Men's List - 44
Women's List - 59

More Women's than Men's books??
I won't be on here that much for a while. I'll be busy drinking more beer and watching more football.

Brian wrote: "I won't be on here that much for a while. I'll be busy drinking more beer and watching more football."

I get it Brian!
Brayden and Landen are playing football on different teams and Grandma goes on Wed, Sat for Brayden and Thurs and Sundays for Landen!

And I do not normally watch Football professionals, but you cant not go to Grandson's games!

13 and I don’t think I will bother with Atlas Shrugged. I’ve tried reading For whom the bell tolls 3 times and found it too depressing.

Ahh a women’s list too… wonderful idea! I’ve read 20 of those. Atlas shrugged in this list too…well ok no harm in challenging myself with something I think might be boring.

You never know, Vinita. I read Atlas Shrugged a lot time ago, but it did take me a while to finish it.

Challenging yourself with different types of reads helps us grow for sure as readers. I am trying to read a few in Fantasy next year.

Best wishes with your personal challenge!

I've read 11 of the men's and 9 of the women's, counting North & South as read as I'm currently reading it. Perhaps more telling is that I have already purchased 18 more of the men's and 14 of the women's but not read them yet. There are several more on each list that have previously caught my eye but I'm trying not to buy more books until I read several of the already purchased.

I keep telling myself not to buy any more books, but I have slowed down. My weakness is used book stores-and classics!