Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Top 10 Tuesday (2)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.


Favorite Classics

Christina's Pick
1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
    This was the first "classic" that I ever read and it made me realize that classics could be awesome! I remember Sarah and I read the first 6 or so chapters out loud to help me get started and I was laughing through most of it. I love this book *sigh*.

2. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
     Sarah told me to read this after she read it in a class and it was the first classic that wasn't Jane Austen that I fell in love with. If I hadn't read Austen first Collins might have been my favorite classic author.

3. Persuasion by Jane Austen
    Next to P&P I feel that this is Austen's best book. I just love reading it. It's more serious than her other novels and I just adore Anne and Captain Wentworth's story!

4. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
    Benedick and Beatrice. Need I say more?

5. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
    I used this book for a paper I wrote last semester and I just love how dark it is. It really goes into the consequences of uncontrolled science, I believe that it is a novel that's message is true for all eras. Plus, it's so cool that a 19 year old Victorian lady wrote one of the best horror novels in literature.

Sarah's Pick
1. The Complete Works of Jane Austen
This can count as one right? I LOVE Jane Austen so much I can hardly pick a favorite (but it's most likely P&P.) 
2. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
 I first read this in a Victorian Lit class and just fell in love. The message it gives is so powerful, the story it tells so moving and I'm a big fan of Christmas so that helps as well.lol
3. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Also read for Victorian Lit, this was one of the easiest classics I've ever read. It was such a page-turner I could hardly put it down. The characters came to life in a way that I hardly see classics do.
4. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
I just read this a couple months ago (although my parents said we read this outloud years ago) and loved it! Pirates, treasure, and Long John Silver, where could you go wrong! Although I could only understand about half of what they were saying.lol
5. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
I grew up with the mini-series so I was already a fan of Anne when I read the book. I love the scraps she gets in and how vivid her imagination is. And Gilbert Blythe is so adorable!

Classics to Read

Christina's Pick

1. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
    I wanted to read this after my family and I spent two whole days snowed in watching this mini-series. I started the book more than a month ago and I really got into it, but I haven't picked it up since.
2. Lady Susan by Jane Austen
    I've read all of Austen's completed works, but I haven't read any of her unfinished novels. I feel like this is the next step to being a Janeite.
3. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy
     After reading Under the Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund I knew I had to read this book to find out what the original story is.
4. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
    I read 400 pages a couple of years ago, but the knowledge that I wasn't even close to being half done was daunting so I never got around to picking it up again.
5. Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincey
    I read an excerpt of this for a Brit Lit class and I thought it was fantastic. A lot of writers (and people) during the Victorian era were dealing with the effects of opium and opiates, so having a first hand account of De Quincey's personal experience helped me to understand the times a bit better.
 
Sarah's Picks

1. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
I've been trying to read this for years, ever since I read the Moonstone, because everyone keeps telling me it's so amazing. I've even started it three times but never got farther than a couple chapters. This summer I WILL read it.
2. Hounds of the Baskerville by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Something else I've been wanting to read since Sherlock Holmes got big again. I think I've read the first couple pages about four times.lol Although, when I was a kid, the Wishbone episode really freaked me out.
3. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
I am not a Bronte fan. I took a class on Charlotte Bronte, read every one of her books and disliked/hated them all. Right after I said I would never read Wuthering Heights (after Christina couldn't even finish it) I saw a gorgeous copy at the library booksale and couldn't help but buy it. Now I have to read it.
4. No Name by Wilkie Collins
The Summary sounds incredible and I trust that I'll like/love anything by Wilkie Collins.
5. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
I saw the mini-series and thought it was great. I've heard that the book isn't as good but I still want to read it.

5 comments:

  1. Ah, Shakespheare. I forgot about him when I came up with my own list. Ooops. :) I haven't actually heard of some of these books before, but I will have to look into them.

    Dreams @ Once Upon A Dream Books

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  2. Much Ado About Nothing! I love that play so much (crazy Shakespeare fan over here). I've read a whole heap of the books on these lists, and I want to read so many more. The sheer size of Les Mis has put me off it for the moment sadly. I do want to read it some day, but maybe I'll have to work up to it with an abridged version. My sister has read the whole thing, and it took her months. Poor uni student doesn't have that much time to devote to a single book.

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  3. I definitely need to add The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins to my TBR now! And I completely forgot about The Scarlet Pimpernel! That was such a good classic. Thanks for stopping by our Top Ten.

    Amber R. @ Bibliophilia, Please

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  4. Wuthering Heights is a book that I want to finish one day--I read half of it while I was in HS but never finished it! One day.....
    Thanks for stoppin' by! Have a great week!

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  5. I love P&P too. I wasn't that big a fan of Persuasion, but it's been a long time since I read it. I read it before I read P&P, and maybe my opinion has changed, I must reread it and see! There are so many books on your list I haven't read yet, great lists =)

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