I think the last classic I read was The Razor's Edge by W Somerset Maugham. I saw the movie first and liked it. The book was pretty good. Most of my reading recently has been newer stuff.

The last classic I read was Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.  Absolutely fabulous, I coulnd't put it down.

hey. another limited member. I haven't seen a lot of other limiteds, There seems to be an overwhelming number of standard members. Where I live there isn't much to do but read. We have sleet and ice and freezing rain. I have 2 books to mail but I'm not sure I will get out of the house today. Stay warm.

I just finished The Grapes of Wrath for the first time and it was as good as advertised. I was afraid I would find it "slow" like Cannery Row but not at all. 

I mentioned on another thread how much I liked An Ideal Husband by Wilde. That play has reinvigorated my reading. 

I quite enjoyed And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov, a suggestion I picked off someone else's list last year for this year's challenge.  It's long but so very interesting.  And, I'm glad to hear that you, Charles, enjoyed W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge.  I have it on one of my reading challenges this year because the copy I have was originally purchased by my wonderful father-in-law when it first came out.  It's a copy I treasure because I loved and cherished this wonderful man.

There is a very slim book by Jean Rhys called The Wide Sargasso Sea. In this book Rhys imagines a sort of prequel to Jane Eyre.

I just read Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead.

Not sure if you all consider a nonfiction book classic, but as an anthropology student, this is one of mine.

Am now reading The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead by Derek Freeman. Hard to read but very important.

Leslie

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. lots of murder in this. An operative from a detective agency is assigned a job. He solves the original case but is then asked to do something to clean up a group of gangsters who control the city.

Red Harvest is great. I'm reading "The travels of Jaime McPheeters" been on my shelf for years, enjoying it so far. 

Well, I hope nonfiction more than 50 years old is considered game for this challenge because I will read or have read: Magic and Mystery in Tibet – Alexandra David-Neel as classic translation, Hoaxes – Curtis Daniel MacDougall for classic journalism, The Naturalist in LaPlata – W.H. Hudson for classic travel, and A Writer at War: A Soviet Journalist with the Red Army, 1941-1945 -- Vasily Grossman as classic war reportage.

Red Harvest was a rocker, someday I will re-read it, it's on my shelf. In one copy I read a previous reader wrote on the back inside cover, "Too complicated." One reader's meat, another's poison, as usual. Hammett's thesis is that crime and crime-stopping can be just as complex as any other (un)organized endeavor in life.

Robert Lewis Taylor, author of Jaime, also wrote a bio of W.C. Fields, which is a classic. Though it won a Pulitzer Prize, Jaime is pretty neglected these days.

I have several W H Hudson books wish listed. Not much hope of any of them appearing, but ...

Yesterday I began The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane.  I'm only about 3 chapters in and still on the fence about it.  It hasn't grabbed me as I'd hoped, but I will continue.  Anybody have a review for me, good or bad?

The Red Badge of Courage. If you haven't read A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway try reading that book after you finish the Crane book. There is a section in Farewell that is sometimes compared with Red.

just about to the end of 2001:a Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke. I'm not much of a sci-fi reader but Clarke is an exception. I think Childhood's End is one of the best books I have read.

Well!  I finished War and Peace!  The entire thing, no skipping sections.  It took me 7 months, about 40 pages per week according to a Goodreads group schedule (and even the moderator gave up on this one).  Course, I was also reading other things and spent a fair amount of time reading about Napoleon in Russia as background, along with Russian politics in the 19th century. 

I began it once in my misspent youth, but couldn't get into the "war" parts.  A lifetime of Horatio Hornblower, Master and Commander, and even Jane Austen, along with my son's European History textbooks in school, and I was more interested in the war than the peace.

Is it worth  it?  Yes, if you enjoy Russian literature and Tolstoy, who in 1869 is very different from the Tolstoy of 1889. I don't know if I will ever get the chance to re-read it, but it was definitely worth doing.  Tolstoy's philosophy of history and historians was thought -provoking.

Briggs translation along with an inexpensive Kindle Penguin edition for travel.  They were very similar.

congrats. That is quite an accomplishment. I would think a bottle of champagne might be in order.

Finally, I read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath which I gave five stars.   Don't know why I didn't read it earlier.  It's a wonderful read.

2001 was good. Just read "the city and the stars" but couldn't get into it. I'm currently trying to read books that have been on my shelves the longest (city and the stars), "the two ocean war" by Samuel Morison has been an easier read than expected through the first 100 pages. 

reading now A Lost Lady by Willa Cather. in the early part the story seems similar to The Sea of Grass by Conrad Richter.

I'm on to "the three musketeers" now. Great stuff, too bad it sat on my shelf for over a year. 

The Log of the Sea of Cortez by J Steinbeck. just starting. I have wanted to read this for a while. Just found this book in a thrift store. It's old but I don't think it has ever been read. a Penquin mass market.

I liked Lost Lady.  I've read much of what Cather wrote and am now rereading some of them.  Be interested in what you think about Steinbeck's book.  I had not heard of that one.

Original Sin by George Tabari. I think I may have spelled his name wrong. very slow developing book. boring beginning. about half way before plot begins to take shape. Set in Cairo. wind and sand and heat prominent.

Tabari has an interesting bio on wikipedia.

I looked it up. His name is Tabori.

every time I read a book by Cather I think I should read some other of her books that I have not read. I just read My Antonia about a year or two ago. My second time. I have a feeling I have read O Pioneers but can't remember. I had to read The Professor's House for a college course. We read the book because it happened to be a favorite of the teacher. I didn't care for it much. I thought it was a little too scattered for me and I think she pared the language down too much. I remember liking Death Comes for the Archbishop but it has been so long ago that I read it I hardly remember it. I think I may have read Paul's Case several times. That story has been anthologized dozens of times in academic readers for colleges.