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.