Happy Tuesday, reading friends, and welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, thanks to That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is Books Written Before I Was Born, and I’ve decided to do a TBR take on the topic. For the purposes of this post, let’s just say I’m a child of the late-seventies and leave it at that. 😉 All of the books I’ve listed below were written well before that time anyway, so the precise year of my birth doesn’t matter.
As I’ve made it one of my goals to read more Shakespeare this year, I could have been boring and just listed ten of his plays, but I also have a long list of classics that I want to read (I often have a classic on the go at the same time as a modern novel), so it wasn’t too difficult to come up with my ten this week. And most of them are fairly well-known novels, so I’d love to know if you’ve read any of them!
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Tess of the D’Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
You haven’t read The Scarlet Letter? Admittedly, I studied it at school. It was a pivotal read for me in many ways.
Have you ever considered joining The Classics Club? Here’s a link to it so you can find out a bit more: https://theclassicsclubblog.wordpress.com/. I have been encouraged there to read lots of classics.
Of Mice and Men was really good.
It took me a bit to get into The Scarlet Letter due to a somewhat slow beginning and unfamiliar words, but I’d recommend that one as well. It’s also a great read.
My post.
I love Gaskell’s writing myself! appy reading! 😀 My TTT https://readwithstefani.com/books-written-before-i-was-born-the-classics-edition/
I love her writing too! And I’m proud to say I loved N&S before it became synonymous with Richard Armitage 😂
I have read the first three and read a Manga version of The Scarlet Letter. Nice list.
Not really? I have a couple of children’s classics from the 40s and 50s that I’d like to read at some point, but I do tend to focus more on modern books.
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2021/02/02/top-ten-tuesday-301/
Daddy Long Legs was one of my favorite book experiences last year!! It’s delightful.
I LOVE Tess of the d’Ubervilles!
i have also read zero of these …. i feel better admitting it now that I’m not alone LOL
There’s safety in numbers 😁
I have read almost nothing from this list, but I love The Scarlet Letter. I think I’m one of the only people in my high school OR college class where it was assigned that actually enjoyed it, but it’s one of my favorite classics. I was so bummed I didn’t have room for an entire course the college offered based on said novel (and books with similar themes/inspired by it).
Do I have novels from before I was born on my TBR? Let’s just say I have many and they are exactly as obscure as as the books I’ve chosen to highlight this week.
–RS