Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/meme created by The Broke and the Bookish.
This week is a freebie week which means I get to pick any topic to make a list for! I'm going to step away from YA lit for a moment and do my ten favorite classics. As I was an English major in college, I've read many books that are outside of my normal YA/NA reads. I have a fairly broad sense of the word "classic" so some of these might not be your normal "classic" in the normal sense.
Again these are in no particular order. They're just in the order in which I remember them. Any time I sit down to write a TTT, I feel like my memory flies out the window and my mind starts screaming, "I haven't read anything!!!" Thank goodness Goodreads remembers everything I've read for me.
Top Ten Favorite Classic Books
1. A Midsummer's Night Dream by William Shakespeare - This was the first work of Shakespeare that I read. I read it as a freshman in high school and I've loved it ever since. Plus, it has Puck. Who doesn't love Puck? He's a mischievous faun and probably one of my favorite characters.
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte - Gothic literature! Heathcliff!! My copy of this book probably has more notes and highlights written in the margins than any other book.
3. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien - I've read this book at least three times now and it has never failed me to be just a plain fun read. The dwarves are hilarious (and I love their names). It's probably my favorite Tolkien just because it's a lighter read than any of his other works.
4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - I've written many papers for various classes on this book. One of which was a Freudian psychoanalysis of Plath using her writing (a lot of which was semi-autobiographical). I'm probably the only non-psychology major who would find that fun to do.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - I remember trying to read this in fourth grade because my mom liked it and one of my teachers said it was his favorite book. I didn't get it at all back then but rereading it again when I was older made it much more poignant. By the way, I love the idea of the name Scout. It's so cute.
6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - Until I actually read this, I was under the impression Frankenstein was the monster. I had a definite mindblown moment when I discovered he wasn't. No one screams, "It's alive!!" either. Great read nonetheless.
7. The Once and Future King by T. H. White - Admittedly, it took me a long time to get into this book - the whole first part actually. I'm a huge fan of King Arthur myths but not so much of when he was still Wart.
8. Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The foundation for my love of the show Sherlock is my love of the original stories. I haven't read all of them though but I will at some point.
9. The Odyssey by Homer - Poor Odysseus. He can't get a break. I should really read the Iliad.
10. Fairytales! Any of them! I the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen are my two favorites but there's a bunch more! And, yes, I do consider fairytales as classics...
6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - Until I actually read this, I was under the impression Frankenstein was the monster. I had a definite mindblown moment when I discovered he wasn't. No one screams, "It's alive!!" either. Great read nonetheless.
7. The Once and Future King by T. H. White - Admittedly, it took me a long time to get into this book - the whole first part actually. I'm a huge fan of King Arthur myths but not so much of when he was still Wart.
8. Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The foundation for my love of the show Sherlock is my love of the original stories. I haven't read all of them though but I will at some point.
9. The Odyssey by Homer - Poor Odysseus. He can't get a break. I should really read the Iliad.
10. Fairytales! Any of them! I the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen are my two favorites but there's a bunch more! And, yes, I do consider fairytales as classics...
See? I don't only read YA. That's just what I mostly read.
Have you read any of these? What are your favorite classics?
To Kill A Mockingbird is a really good book! And I've been wanting to read The Hobbit before, but LOTR isn't for me which is a little frustrating haha! Wuthering Heights is said to be really good so I can't say anything bad about it (I mean, Stephenie Meyer mentioned it A LOT of times in Twilight). I'm surprised you don't have Jane Austen though! Have you read Pride and Prejudice? If not, then you should because it's one of my most favorite classics! :)
ReplyDeleteGreat list! New follower by the way :D
Jillian @ Jillian's Books
To Kill a Mockingbird is definitely a great book! Haha no worries I feel the same way about LOTR. I love it, don't get me wrong, but it's rather long winded and slow sometimes. The Hobbit doesn't read like that at all. It's funnier and way more fast-paced. Wuthering Heights is probably my favorite classic book - Edward doesn't hold a candle to Heathcliff in the mysterious brooding department. I was thinking about putting Pride and Prejudice on here but I've only read it once and even though I liked it, it isn't one of my favorites. That's the only Austen I've read though. I want to read Persuasion just so I can understand the basis behind For the Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Petrefreund which is on my TBR and based on Persuasion.
DeleteThanks! Awesome! I'm following you too. Thanks for stopping by =)