# Share your favourite / least favourite classic books **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 3, 2009, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165 "2009-05-03T11:51:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![hroark2112](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6a8cbe/32.png) [@hroark2112](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hroark2112)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165/41 "2009-05-04T20:27:50Z")
All time favorites: The Fountainhead (not for it’s political/sociological aspect, I genuinely like the book), all 5 books of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, and Lord of the Rings. Least favorite: that goofy “Left Behind” series (they really should have put a warning on the cover!) and Atlas Shrugged (about 500 less pages and it would have been better!). ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165/42 "2009-05-04T20:49:41Z")
Not prepared to defend what constitutes a ‘classic,’ but: Favorites: **Crime and Punishment, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, East of Eden**. Least favorites: \*\*Lord Jim \*\*(did I miss something?), **House of the Seven Gables** (it’s Hawthorne - noone to blame for reading it but myself), **Fahrenheit 451** (which bravely taught the world that book burning is bad), **Lord of the Rings** (magical solutions are much more interesting than guts and character). ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165/43 "2009-05-04T21:04:59Z")
Favorites: **Everything by Jane Austen Vanity Fair Jean de Florette Nicholas Nickleby Villette A Tale of Two Cities** Hate 'em: **The Great Gatsby Les Miserables Return of the Native Everything by Hemingway and Faulkner** I used to adore almost everything written by John Steinbeck, but now I find him misogynistic and soaked with booze. ---
**Author:** ![Claire\_Beauchamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ec9cab/32.png) [@Claire\_Beauchamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claire_Beauchamp)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165/44 "2009-05-04T22:40:45Z")
Like a Lot: The Master and Margarita, Confederacy of Dunces, Lord of the Flies (was assigned it in high school English and had finished reading it before I went to bed that night – it horrified me), To Kill a Mockingbird, Hamlet Can’t Stand: In high school my English teacher gave me extra things to read in lieu of my school having any kind of advanced program. I remember that when she gave me back my book report on _A Catcher in the Rye_ she said, “Well, you didn’t like Holden Caulfield, did you?” ---
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165/45 "2009-05-05T00:30:43Z")
I hated _Heart of Darkness_ so badly I could be considered a one-person crusade against its publishing. I hated it SO BAD. If it hadn’t been inside a Norton’s Anthology, I would have burned it. I hated it that much. I also hated _Catcher in the Rye_. I could not stand anything about that book. Not one thing. However, I love _To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride and Prejudice,_ most Russian literature, and _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ is my favorite book of all time. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165/46 "2009-05-05T00:48:36Z")
Favorites (in no particular order): _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ and _Cap’n Stormfield {etc.}_ (Twain) _The Good Earth_ (Buck)\* _1984_ Several of Shakespeare’s histories (Henry IV i and ii, Henry IV, Richard III) _The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin_ _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_ If plays and short stories count there are several I could add by Bierce, Hemingway, Borges, Hawthorne, Faulkner, Capote, others. LEAST FAVORITE (again no particular order) _Look Homeward Angel_ by Thomas Wolfe (I _love_ some of the prose… but it needs to lose at least 300 pages) _Moby Dick_- I think I may have liked it better if I hadn’t had a professor who drove all the love of it away (I’m convinced it’s the only book he ever read and so he had to pound every inch of it in lectures) _Romeo & Juliet_ (if it counts since it’s a play)- some of the most beautiful lines of English lit but I can’t stand the play itself. \*I’ve always wanted to read the sequels to _The Good Earth_ (\*Sons \*and _A House Divided_) and they’re finally back in print. Has anybody read them. ---
**Author:** ![Nightingale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecae2f/32.png) [@Nightingale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightingale)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165/47 "2009-05-05T00:56:23Z")
Favorite: _To Kill A Mockingbird_ Least Favorite: _The Scarlet Letter_ ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165/48 "2009-05-05T01:42:24Z")
Favorite: Probably _Moby-Dick_ Least favorite: without a doubt, _The Last of the Mohicans_ ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165/49 "2009-05-05T02:06:26Z")
Favorite: _War and Peace_–having a list of characters and how they’re related to each other in the front of the book helped me enjoy this a lot more than I probably would have otherwise. Least favorite: _Moby Dick_–very very boring. ---
**Author:** ![Between\_the\_Bars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@Between\_the\_Bars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Between_the_Bars)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165/50 "2009-05-05T07:56:37Z")
1984: Awesome! Atlas Shrugged: Kill me now! ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165/51 "2009-05-05T14:25:42Z")
**Favorites:** _Ivanhoe_, _To Kill a Mockingbird_, _Dracula_, _Moby Dick_, _Crime and Punishment_. **Least Favorites:** _The Catcher in the Rye_, _The Great Gatsby_, _Madame Bovary_ ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165/52 "2009-05-05T14:35:58Z")
When I was in jr. high and high school, I was required to read a bunch of classics. Hated every friggin’ one of them. Later, I went back and re-read them. Once I no longer “had” to read them, I changed my tune. Moby Dick, Count of Monte Cristo, 1984 and several others became favorites. But some didn’t. Frankenstein and Dracula - it still amazes me how two total shitclumps like those managed to spawn some excellent horror movies. But the worst of the bunch was Great Expectations. Oh, OG - my stomach is turning just typing the title. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favourite-least-favourite-classic-books/495165.md?page=2)