Everyone assumes that I've read the entirety of the classic English literature library. Most people think that studying for a literature degree means reading absolutely everything. Well, it's not true. I have read a lot of classic literature (probably more than I would have liked to), but it seems that some very important books were glanced over in my education.
Today's 8 List features a few books that I have not read. If you have read any of these classics, and you think that I should too, I would love to hear your reasons why.
#1 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
Jane Austen's witty comedy of manners that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues.
#2 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1931)
Far in the future, the World Controllers have finally created the ideal society. In laboratories worldwide, genetic science has brought the human race to perfection. But, in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, Bernard Marx is unhappy. Harbouring an unnatural desire for solitude, feeling only distaste for the endless pleasures of compulsory promiscuity, Bernard has an ill-defined longing to break free.
#3 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1862)
Victor Hugo takes readers deep into the Parisian underworld, immerses them in a battle between good and evil, and carries them onto the barricades during the uprising of 1832 with a breathtaking realism that is unsurpassed in modern prose.
#4 The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1915)
It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man.
#5 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (1937)
The tragic story of the complex bond between two migrant laborers in Central California. They are George Milton and Lennie Small, itinerant ranch hands who dream of one day owning a small farm.
#6 Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (1938)
The reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew.
#7 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868)
The beloved story of the March girls is a classic American feminist novel, reflecting the tension between cultural obligation and artistic and personal freedom. But which of the four March sisters to love best? For every reader must have their favorite. Independent, tomboyish Jo; delicate, loving Beth; pretty, kind Meg; or precocious and beautiful Amy, the baby of the family?
#8 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1877)
In their world frivolous liaisons are commonplace, but Anna and Vronsky’s consuming passion makes them a target for scorn and leads to Anna’s increasing isolation.
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