Classic Novels That Even Hesitant Readers Love Novels & Stories

I struggled to choose what book to read to him, since it occurred to me, belatedly, that I have no idea what my Master reads for pleasure. I try to choose something classic instead, something appropriate; but ´Wuthering Heights´, with Cathy, Heathcliff and Edgar, and their doomed love triangle, isn´t right. Neither is ´Gone with the Wind´, with Scarlett, Rhett and Ashley. ´Pride and Prejudice´, ´Jane Eyre´, ´Anna Karenina´, all dwell on the failure of three lovers to make their situation work. In the end, I choose something very different, ´Time Enough for Love´, an old 1970´s Sci-fi novel, in which the characters make their polyamorous family work.

“Only because it’s an emergency.” Elmo rubbed his eyes, and blinked away fatigue. As his vision cleared he found himself looking at Lucas’ bookshelf, and his heart sank as he surveyed the spines of books his friend loved so much. There were copies of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, The Three Investigators and The Secret Seven, as well as modern mystery thrillers by authors such as Lee Child and James Patterson. But there were also older novels that Elmo recalled as movies on TCM but had never read. He saw Treasure Island and Ivanhoe, Tom Sawyer and Robinson Crusoe.

’ Claudia felt a pang of sympathy for poor old Sister Bernadette, who’d tried so hard to make them all enthusiastic about literature - ‘It’s really terribly amusing, girls, if you can just get over these silly prejudices about nineteenth- century language. ‘Not at first,’ she admitted. ‘I thought it was the most boring thing since watching eggs boiling.’ ‘But you liked it in the end.’ I knew you would , her tone said. Because you’re on the other side of the great divide between Still-at-School and Escaped. Claudia could still remember when she’d actually started to enjoy the book. The villainess of the piece had suddenly reminded her vividly of that cow Emma Cartwright who’d pinched her boyf

She stopped abruptly, then turned to me, “What are your favourites? I mean, apart from Pride and Prejudice. I tilted my head, “You want to know?” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and I wished I had noticed it first. “Tolstoy, Fitzgerald, and Baldwin.” “The Great Gatsby?” She asked, “Of course, you're the type of man who'll admire Gatsby. Rich, brilliant but lonely as hell.” She went on a full rant about Gatsby then, her hands gesturing animatedly, and I never wanted her to stop.