We’re so cool. : )

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings changed my life. As did Invisible Man.

OH and Dr Faustus. I love it. I love that the entire time you read it you’re thinking snarky things about how freaking dumb he is. It’s great.

I’ve read through the other responses, and have some other suggestions that haven’t been mentioned. After TKAM, “The Great Gatsby” is my favorite book, so I definitely recommend that. I also highly recommend “Native Son.” Definitely dark, but a good read given all the racial issues raging right now (and throughout…

Jane Austen! Pride & Prejudice and Persuasion are my favorites. Plus you can watch the miniseries of P&P and the movie of Persuasion guilt-free, because they are “literary.”

You’re welcome! I feel lame now that I see how many other people suggested Anna Karenina haha. East of Eden by John Steinbeck is another favorite classic. Hope you have someone doing library runs for you!!!

Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone, Mrs Dalloway, Villette, The Heart is a Loney Hunter

Time and Again by Jack Finney.

Roughing It by Mark Twain. It is an autobiographical account of his travels West and to Hawaii, and is absolutely hysterical

Anna Karenina. It’s a miracle.

The Cruel Sea. (Does that count as a classic? Only published in 1951, but the author is dead.) follows the Corvette escorts of the WWII convoys in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Jane Eyre. Typical feminist response, I know, but it changed my life in high school.

I am late to the party (AS ALWAYS) but am learning just how excellent she is.

I would also recommend “Snow Country” by Kawabata..

Make Way for Lucia by EF Benson and Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome.

Anna Karenina :) and it’s not a classic-but The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates and Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold are 2 of my favorite books. Fully off track now but I recently read a book that completely captivated me: Girl Underwater by Claire Kells. She’s like a fucking med student or something and apparently just…

I love Middlemarch to eternity but be prepared to have to stick it out around the 100 page middle. It's murderously boring IMO but the majority of it is amazing.

The Stranger by Camus

Anna Karenima (get the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation if you can), Middlemarch, To The Lighthouse (which is shorter than either of those two)...

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. It is by far the book that has most affected my life.