Do I dare make this list? I'm not sure. I avoid talking about my all time favourites, because I'm scared I'll change my mind again. For the purpose of this blog, I've decided to list the five classics that mean most to me. The reading of them was a transformative experience for me as a reader. The books did something more for me than tell a story. They inspired my creativity, ambitions and thoughts about philosophy.

5.

Middlemarch

by George Eliot

first published in 1871

Middlemarch was one of the first 'big classics' I read. It was a bit nerve-wracking to start it. But how glad I am that I did. It introduced me to one of my favourite authors: George Eliot (pen name of Mary Anne Evans). 

'The most ambitious narrative of nineteenth-century realism, Middlemarch tells the story of an entire town in the years leading up to the Reform Bill of 1832, a time when modern methods were starting to challenge old orthodoxies. Eliot’s sophisticated and acute characterization vividly brings to life the town’s inhabitants – including the young idealist Dorothea Brooke, the dry scholar Casaubon, the young, passionate reformist doctor Lydgate, the flighty young beauty Rosamond and the old, secretive banker Bulstrode – as they move in counterpoint to each other.'

Find this edition here.

4.

Pride and Prejudice

by Jane Austen

first published in 1813

Not the most original book to put on this list. But if I'm truly going to make a personal list, I can't deny that Pride and Prejudice is one of my favourite classics. I didn't truly appreciate this novel on its second read and that makes it all the more special. I found Jane Austen quite challenging when I started reading classics and preferred the more accessible Jane Austens: Sense and Sensibility and Emma. Although some disagree with me on that. For me: those were the easiest to read back in the day. Since then, I've appreciated Pride and Prejudice for the masterpiece that it is. It's the Jane Austen I will reread most in my life.

'Pride and Prejudice, which opens with one of the most famous sentences in English Literature, is an ironic novel of manners. In it the garrulous and empty-headed Mrs Bennet has only one aim – that of finding a good match for each of her five daughters. In this she is mocked by her cynical and indolent husband.'

Find this edition here.

3.

Wuthering Heights

by Emily Brontë

first published in 1847

Possibly the most divisive classic of all time: Wuthering Heights is either fiercely loved or fiercly hated. The language is an absolute triumph. I've never read anything like it and I doubt I ever will. Emily Brontë is a poet at heart and her characters seem to exist in a passionate delirious, poetic dream. Every time I read it, I wonder why I didn't reread it sooner.

'Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine’s father. After Mr Earnshaw’s death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine’s brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries.'

Get this edition here.

2.

Beloved

by Toni Morrison

first published in 1987

The most recent publication on this list is Beloved by Toni Morrison. This novel is so expertly written that it blew me away. I remember sitting in my small home library, not knowing what to expect from this book. It was difficult and hard-hitting. But once I got sucked into the novel, I experienced something that only a few books can do. I have no idea how to properly describe it, reading Beloved felt like experiencing art. As if you're in a busy museum and suddenly there's no one there: just you and that one painting. 

'It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved, returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit her love. Told with heart-stopping clarity, melding horror and beauty, Beloved is Toni Morrison’s enduring masterpiece.'

Find this edition here.

1.

To the Lighthouse

by Virginia Woolf

first published in 1927

Have you ever read a book and immediately wanted to turn it into a film? I don't mean: watch a screen adaptation. I mean: be the writer, director and set designer of this amazing book you're reading? It doesn't take long when I'm rereading my favourite classic to want to put the pieces together. Every single minute of this book has a moving picture in my mind. There's no other book that boosts my creativity in such a way as To the Lighthouse. 

'To the Lighthouse is at once a vivid impressionistic depiction of a family, the Ramseys, whose annual summer holiday in Scotland falls under the shadow of war, and a meditation on marriage, on parenthood and childhood, on grief, tyranny and bitterness. The novel's use of stream of consciousness, reminiscence and shifting perspectives gives it an intimate, poetic essence, and at the time of publication in 1927 it represented an utter rejection of all that had gone before.'

Find this edition here.

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