How do you read your Classics?

by Fran

A lovely customer asked me last week which classics I could recommend to her sister. Immediately, the titles that came to mind were two of my favourites: Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. I realised then that although written for children, I hadn’t read these until I was an adult. I devoured them and have read and watched anything vaguely related to them since. If I need a cry or to feel cosy, I pick up Little Women, and I often listen to the audiobook version as I go to sleep. I like to drift off to a favourite classic- they are comforting and familiar. 

Others I recommended were titles by Jane Austen. Persuasion is often overlooked but I love it, and Emma is funny. Sense and Sensibility is delightful. 

I remember reading Jane Eyre at school and hating it but after re-reading it as an adult, it became a firm favourite of mine. My mum forced me to read Wuthering Heights as a teenager and although determined not to like it, I stayed up all night reading and couldn’t put it down. I still have that copy and I can remember that night, each time I pick it up. I read Lorna Doone on holiday in the Lake District, and it made me want to run wild.

I crave Dickens in December. 

For me now, some classics are the books I loved as a child, and they are perhaps not even considered classics yet- surely if I say Shirley Hughes, I need say no more. It is the pictures in these that have often shaped how I live my life. I still strive to create Lucy and Tom’s Christmas every year. 

My father-in-law bought me the collection of Little House on the Prairie books for Christmas, and I am completely addicted to the descriptions of nature and simple living described in the pages. So far, I am on the fourth book, and I am reading them back-to-back. Other times when it comes to classics, I need a break and delve instead into something more light-hearted for a change. 

But I must admit that I have listened to a lot of classics on audiobook- I find that hearing them often introduces me to the tone and language of the story and then once I am immersed, I can pick up the book too. If I buy them on audiobook, I then must buy the book too for my shelves. Don’t tell my husband though. 

I don’t like to read an abridged version. Recently I listened to Wind in the Willows on a journey, but it finished all too soon and didn’t include the scenes I remembered from childhood. I was most upset. 

I always like to look out for different, pretty versions of my favourite classics too, another thing that is probably better kept between us. I am a sucker for cloth bounds and sprayed edges. 

I remind myself that with classics, it is fine to like some and not others- they are not to be read to impress, but for joy. The ones I have on my shelves bring me constant joy and the pages are well read. 

How do you read your classics? Do you read or listen? Do you plough through even if you are not keen? Keep them pristine? 

I found myself talking like I was from the 1800s after I had listened to a few Austens in a row and had to rein myself in. 

Whatever way you enjoy your classics, I hope they bring you pleasure and not pain!