Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Top Ten Tuesday (on Wednesday): My 10 Classics

Another great TTT topic that I missed yesterday on The Broke & The Bookish dang it! Oh well, I'm doing it anyway. :) Thanks to my goal/resolution for the past 3 years to read a classic book each month, it was pretty easy to pick my favorites! I have read some amazing books in that time and I am so glad I have continued doing it each year. I'm going to split it up to my top 5 favorites though and then the top 5 I want to read in the coming months. Did I include your favorite classic in my list? What should be on my to-read shelf that isn't already?

My Top 5 Favorites:
1. Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery. From my review: By page 11, I was giggling out loud, thanks to this quote: "Matthew dreaded all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel; he had an uncomfortable feeling that the mysterious creatures were secretly laughing at him." By like page 33, I was telling my sister it was the best book ever. And when I reached the ending, I was crying and wondering why no one had ever made me read this before.

2. Cannery Row & Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck. How could I not have at least 2 books from my favorite classic writer??? From my review of Cannery Row:  Read it. Enjoy the lyrical ups and downs of the words. Highlight the parts that grab you, the passages you can taste and smell and feel. Although this book is nothing like The Book Thief, it has that same hold on me; its words have been embedded in my heart. And the beauty of Sweet Thursday is its simplicity: it's a story about normal men and women living a normal life. There's nothing special about the town or the time. It's like reading a story about your family. You know that one crazy uncle that always gets drunk and throws raucous parties but has the best of intentions? That's Mack & the boys. Or your grandfather who could go on for days about the intricacies of octopi and how they are highly emotional animals and sometimes they get so mad they collapse and die of something that parallels apoplexy. Well, that's Doc. And that sister that runs the local whorehouse and does astrology on the side? Okay, we don't talk about her (hah!) but that's Fauna.


3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. My review: Simply put: I loved it. Hands down, my favorite classic so far that I've read.

4. The Outsiders by SE Hinton. My 13 year old sister told me I had to read this one because it was amazing and she was right. The fact that it was written by a 17 year old girl still blows my mind.

5. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. “I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young. They’re still princesses.” (My review)


My 5 To-Reads:
1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I've been hearing a lot about this one lately in different places, so I figured it was time I got around to it. I'll probably read this for July.

2. Emma by Jane Austen. The 3 classics that I've read by Austen so far have all been decent and on the verge of being excellent, maybe after a reread or two. I've seen many people say this was their favorite of her books; I'm looking forward to seeing if it tips the scale for me too.

3. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. This will probably be my October classic but I hope it's a little scarier than Frankenstein.

4. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. This is one of the first books that I remember really making me cry as I read it. I hope it stands up to the memory.

5. Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren. Because you need some fun in life. ;)

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