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Best Classic Books: 10 Classics That Won't Put You To Sleep

10 Classics That Won't Put You To Sleep
Kirkus Reviews
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Originally published on Kirkus:

Starting in early June, Kirkus is going to publish our best bets for the new fiction and nonfiction that will delight you this summer. But summer isn’t just for reading new books that have the most buzz; hot days give us time to waft in and out of the books we know we’re supposed to have read but never got around to. During this magazine’s 80-year history, our critics have had an enviable track record of knowing which books would become classics when those books were first published. So before we divulge 2013’s hot summer reading titles, this week we give you 10 classics to catch up on.

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Classics That Won't Put You To Sleep
THE COLOR PURPLE by Alice Walker(01 of10)
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Walker (In Love and Trouble, Meridian) has set herself the task of an epistolary novel—and she scores strongly with it. Read full book review >
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey(02 of10)
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This is a book which courts the dangers of two extremes. Read full book review >
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee(03 of10)
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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. Read full book review >
THINGS FALL APART by Chinua Achebe(04 of10)
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Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre. Read full book review >
LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding(05 of10)
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A fantasy is a singular - and singularly - believable spellbinder, and within the framework of its premises achieves a tremendous impetus and impact. Read full book review >
INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison(06 of10)
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An extremely powerful story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three years of college to his life in Harlem. Read full book review >
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS by Ernest Hemingway(07 of10)
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This is good Hemingway. Read full book review >
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neale Hurston(08 of10)
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I loved Jonah's Gourd Vine — thought some of her short stories very fine — and feel that this measures up to the promise of the early books. Read full book review >
GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell(09 of10)
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Don't sell this as primarily a novel of the Civil War. Sell it rather as a novel in human emotions against the background of the Civil War and its aftermath. Read full book review >
TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald(10 of10)
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Again an author who has built up a more or less established market, and his non appearance (in book form) over a period of several years, has stimulated interest in this first full length work since the publication of The Great Gatsby. Read full book review >

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