Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Classic Books

HAPPY CANADA DAY!  Hope all my Canadian readers are enjoying the celebrations!

There, now that my patriotic enthusiasm is out of the way, we'll move on to another Top Ten Tuesday, hosted as usual by The Broke and the Bookish.  This week was a topic right up my alley; we are talking about our favourite classic books.  If you have been here a while, you know that I read a lot of classics and love them.  This week, the hardest part wasn't filling in the list, but narrowing it down.  I've limited myself to books written before 1900, just because I was running wayyy over 10, and have tried not to use too many by the same author.

1.  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen:  Duh.  It's no secret how much I love this one.

2.  Persuasion by Jane Austen:  One of Austen's most adult works... and by adult, I mean more mature and not "adult-themed", of course. ;)

3.  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë:  I love Jane.  She's so smart, and feisty, and she stands up for herself.  I could read this book a hundred times.

4.  Bleak House by Charles Dickens:  To be honest, I don't remember much of the plot, other than the fact that I loved it, and it is so far my favourite Dickens.  (My sister-in-law hotly disputes this and says Bleak House was the one Dickens she wanted to throw in the recycling bin after reading, so I guess it's an acquired taste.)

5.  Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy:  I thought this would depress me, but I loved it.  I was probably helped by the fact that I read it in Russia (though not in Russian, because I'd still be reading it now, 11 years later).  I fell in love with Constantine Levin.

6.  North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell:  It's a lot like Pride and Prejudice:  Feisty, thinking heroine meets stubborn and misunderstood man, but with different social issues thrown in.  Loved it.

7.  Middlemarch by George Eliot:  I loved reading a classic book that didn't end once the couples got married, so you could actually see the trials of married life.

8.  Silas Marner by George Eliot:  I bought this book for like $0.50 at a thrift store, and was surprised to find it short, but so touching.  A beautiful story of an unlikely father and daughter.

9.  Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz:  A sweeping story set in first century Rome.

10.  Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy:  I can't remember the whole plot any more, but I adored spirited Bathsheba and gentle Gabriel.  Sadly, this book made me excited to read Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Tess left me wanting to throw things at the wall.  Oh well!

That's all for today.  I'm off to enjoy a rare day off with my husband by watching soccer and being incredibly lazy. :)