The best English novel ever?

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Hylean

Lord of The Rings by JRR Tolkien.

you know what? Whilst I can appreciate the acheivement of these books and their brilliance - I found them such hard reading. Painful, in some respects.

Reply 21

BJack

RyanT

English language novel?

Anna Karenia?

Anna Karenina is Russian. >_>

Reply 22

Char_Devon

Pride and Prejudice - I'll second that

Reply 23

Hylean

ramzwj

you know what? Whilst I can appreciate the acheivement of these books and their brilliance - I found them such hard reading. Painful, in some respects.

Lol, just to nit-pick, technically Lord of The Rings is one book, but there you go.

To be fair, nearly all the "greats" and those that belong to the "Canon" I find to be terribly hard to read. Books by Conrad, Shelley, Stoker, Dickens, etc. all of them are exceptionally hard reads.

Don't even get me started on Laxness, whether in Icelandic or English, cause he's just a nightmare, really.

Reply 24

RyanT

BJack

Anna Karenina is Russian. >_>

Yes and there's an English translation. He asked for English novels, ie novels written in English. If OP wanted novels of English origin I'm sure he would of said so.

Also after a bit more thought OP might want to consider something by shakespeare as its a non-controversial choice and the examiner is more likely to be familiar with it.

Reply 25

s_k

The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald because it captures America of the time so,so well.

or

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde because its just great!

Reply 26

BJack

RyanT

Well since he said that he'd been reading mostly Russian and French authors recently, I think we can conclude that he's after something by somebody who isn't Russian at the very least.

Also, Shakespeare didn't write novels.

Reply 27

username210636

Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) - feminist novel with Gothic hints, spiritual connotations all in a great Romantic love story that is anything but stereotypical.

Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) Read this years ago, compelling read, a more modern version of the Romantic novel but with a very exciting plot.

Ulysses (James Joyce) Very stylish prose and talented, mature writing.

Pride and Prejucide if you fancy a real classic :tongue:

On a more modern note, Dan Brown (American I know) is absolutely unforgettable.

Hope this helps :biggrin:

Reply 28

Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye :p:

Reply 29

Simon117

zoe1989

I did The Handmaid's Tale and 1984, really good if you want something easy to compare (and from a history nerds perspective :smile:

)

I don't do lit, but I did just read 1984 (I'm do History and Politics so I'm interested in that kind of thing) for fun and I was incredibily let down. I suppose it was because I like books with thick plots whereas 1984 didn't really have a plot, I found it very boring and it took like a week for me to finish the thing as I didn't have any motivation to read it. I did however find it interesting and intruiging in terms of the points he was making which was obviously the point of the book (the excert from Goldstein's book went on for 5-10 pages and was just an excuse to literally ignore all plot and make points lol.)

My sister reccomended Brave New World instead?