Someone asked: “I want a classic that isn't boring.”
Classics that aren't boring.
The trick with classics is to start with the ones that were popular for a reason: murder, obsession, revenge, scandal. These are the books we hand to people who were put off at school.
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Rebecca
Daphne du Maurier · 1938
A nameless narrator, a house full of someone else's memories and one of the best opening lines ever written. It reads like a thriller because it is one.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde · 1890
Short, wicked and quotable on every page. Wilde's only novel is a horror story dressed up as a society comedy.
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck · 1937
You can read it in an afternoon and you'll carry it for years. Proof that a classic can be both simple and devastating.
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1920
Parties, money, lies and a car crash, in under 200 pages. If you only read it at school, it's a different book now.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas · 1920
The original revenge epic: prison escape, hidden treasure, a decades-long plan. Long, yes, but it moves like a box set.
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley · 1818
Nothing like the films. A strange, sad book about ambition and loneliness, written by a teenager on a dare.
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë · 1847
A heroine with a spine, a house with a secret, and a narrator who talks straight to you. Still startlingly modern.
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Patricia Highsmith · 1955
A modern classic that makes you root for a murderer on the Italian coast. Dangerously easy to read.
Not quite it?
Tell the bookseller what you've already read and what you're in the mood for. We'll narrow it down.