Just bought 100 classic books! What should I read first?

[CaptainCanada]

I really have to suggest Turn of the Screw by Henry James. It's one of my favorite books. It's just such a good read, and it's not too long, so you can probably get through it pretty quick.

I actually liked The Aspern Papers more than Turn, but that's probably partly because I'm an historian. Though I'm not a huge Henry James fan.

 

[auntiehill]

For Halloween, I would read Bram Stoker's Dracula or Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles. You can't go wrong with a little Sherlock Holmes.

 

[Dream]

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys! I'll be sure to check out the books mentioned here first!

I just finished reading H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, I really wanted to check it out. It was great like I thought. Kind of disappointed only one of his books is here. I guess I'll read his other three big novels the old fashioned way.

I noticed there are a few 1000 plus page novels included, but I don't mind. Stephen King's The Stand is one of my favorite books and it's over 1100 pages.

I'm planning on reading Les Misérables next. After that I'll check out, Turn of the Screw, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and The Woman in White. Jules Verne's books also seem like something I'd really be interested in.

One really cool feature this game has is that it has a ranking system that takes the scores from other players online and ranks the Top 100 overall. It can also rank them by Category (Scary, Romanctic, Exciting...). Seems like it'll be useful in the future.

Here is the Top 12 books right now. It'll take me too long to put down all 100...

Spoiler: Top 12

Lord Jim
The Man in the Iron Mask
The Scarlet Letter
Lorna Doone
The Man Who Was Thrusday
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Othell
The Red Badge of Courage
Jane Eyre
Les Misérables
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Hound of the Baskervilles

Spoiler: Top Books by Category (Just first place)

Touching: Little Woman
Romantic: Romeo and Juliet
Funny: The Diary of a Nobdy
Exciting: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Sad: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Scary/Shocking: Turn of the Screw
Happy: Little Lord Fauntleroy
Profound: Rights of Man
Bizarre: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I have no idea how accurate those lists are, but I'm guessing most of the players that voted were kids/teens.

Turn of the Screw is ranked at the top of the list for Scary Novel, beating out Dracula and Frankenstein! It must really be freaky.

 

[J.T.B.]

And is there anybody here who's read Moby Dick? I was supposed to read that for school once, I don't know if my teacher just wanted to punish me or something, but it's ridiculously verbose and boring; one of the few books I started but didn't finish. Honestly, just watch the movie.

I love Moby Dick and read it probably every one to three years. It's got adventure, obsession, revenge, religion, philosophy, history, science... what more could you want? I love the power of the Biblical dialogue and the wonderfully defined characters. I like non-fiction and history so those chapters read as good as the narrative ones. No film version has ever caught the essence of the book, to me.

--Justin

 

[DevilEyes]

Hm, there are some I definitely wouldn't want to waste my time reading, starting with Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Hawthorne and Austen, and I would have to feel very motivated to tackle Tolstoy also. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure its literatary value is very high and all that, but come on... Isn't reading fiction supposed to be somewhat entertaining?

Dickens and Austen not entertaining? For shame, Sir!

Dostoyevsky not entertaining?

The only trouble I had with him is that he is so damn heavy and dark and heart-wrenching... But I literally couldn't put any of his novels down till I've read them. Really! I think none of them took me more than a week, sometimes 4-5 days, and that included staying the whole night reading...

 

[Joy]

Anything by Mark Twain. (Tom Sawyer before Huck Finn, though, of course)

This. I am biased in that I was raised in Missouri and Mark Twain was shoved down our throats in school at every opportunity.

I was born in California and lived there for 6 of my first 8 years (a 2 year stint in Colorado near the beginning of my life). My favorite movie as a child was the 1985 Adventures of Mark Twain claymation by Will Vinton and my favorite book was the Children's Illustrated Classics version of Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

I think I've been a Missourian at heart before I ever knew the word.

 

[Sky]

I recently picked up 100 Classic Books for the DS. It's really cool, since it has 100 classic books that I can read off the DS, plus another 10 that I downloaded off Wi-fi. I've only read a handful of them in the past, but that is going to change now I have this game. Which of these books should I check out first?

My personal favorites from that list are Anna Karenina, Wuthering Heights, Heart of Darkness, The Brothers Karamazov, Moby Dick, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Picture of Dorian Gray and definitely The Three Musketeers.

Have fun!