Which books should be considered classics? Our readers have thoughts. (2024)

The books that can go:

Among our respondents, this 1951 novel elicited the most — and most merciless — complaints. Much of the grumbling revolved around Holden Caulfield, a character whom multiple readers labeled “whiny.” “I refuse to call Caulfield a protagonist because he wasn’t ‘pro’ anything, save perhaps his own self-created misery,” Elizabeth Coleman wrote. “It has been decades since I suffered through it; perhaps I’d perceive the book differently now. However, I feel no obligation to take that risk; there are too many potentially wonderful books waiting to be read for the first time.”

“Gatsby” didn’t inspire the level of indignation that Holden did, but a number of respondents felt that it lacked substance. According to reader Daniel McMahon, the novel is “filled with unlikable and despicable characters from such an incredibly narrow swath of American life. Humorless, joyless and intellectually pedestrian, this novel is not just overrated — it’s not good. It is the Emperor’s New Clothes of novels that ‘beats on’ because it is so endlessly assigned and students are told it is a classic. I suppose if one has read only 10 novels in one’s life (or high school career) that it might seem to be the best of those.”

While we fielded specific grievances about “The Sun Also Rises,” “The Old Man and the Sea” and “A Farewell to Arms,” quite a few readers wanted to relegate everything Hemingway ever wrote (“right down to the grocery lists”). “He attempts to dig for emotional depth and gives up after half an inch,” Sarah Miller wrote. “I do not get the unending praise for his work.”

It was perhaps inevitable that this protracted and frequently assigned title would make the list. For some, reader Staci Sturrock’s fickle relationship with the novel may be more interesting than the novel itself. It all started in high school, decades ago, when a teacher assigned it even though, at 17, she “had zero hope of appreciating it, nay, even understanding it.” But maybe, she reasoned, as an adult she would finally understand Melville’s brilliance. “I revisited it last month and was so in LOVE with the language, characters and plot for the first third that I was heralding its brilliance from my own personal crow’s nest, telling my husband, friends, even my hairdresser that they HAD to read it,” she wrote. “Boy, was I proud of myself. ‘Look at me, I’m voluntarily reading “Moby-Dick” and enjoying it!’ Then I entered the murky, dense chapters on whaling history, whale behavior, the whaling trade, blah blah blah blubber blubber. That’s enough whale facts. I’m done. I went back and told everyone I was wrong, don’t bother.”

“A mess.” “Chaos.” “Incoherent scribblings.” These are but a few of the descriptions readers had for Joyce’s experimental novel. “As a graduate student I was forced to read this book, which entailed my having to buy a 250-page book to....TRANSLATE IT!,” William J. Raabe wrote. “Now it quickly became obvious that Joyce was a linguistic genius. There were several examples of his writing a phrase which actually was a pun in more than one language. I’m sure if you were fluent in a number of languages, especially the classics, you thought this was great. However, to think that the ‘above-average’ English major needed a translation to read a work supposedly written in the English language and then label it the greatest work of all(!) is ludicrous!”

Readers dinged this 1850 novel for being both melodramatic and dull. “Call me a skeptic (and a lapsed Catholic), but other people’s adulterous sins, writ large over hundreds of pages, lost my interest a long time ago,” wrote Mark Haviland, who was forced to read the book in high school and college. “Also, to paraphrase Monty Python, the Puritans are an ‘insufferable lot’ and not the best part of our history.”

It turns out that if you’ve started this novel three times and never finished it (um, hypothetically), you’re not alone. Though, for better or worse, reader Harris Factor was not among the quitters: “Early on I realized that this would be a slog but I was swayed by all the glowing reviews and plowed my way through to the end. After more than 1,000 pages I concluded that I had wasted a lot of time and mental energy on a book that just wasn’t very good.”

While many readers wanted to remove this classic from the canon, Matthew Martin’s reasoning was especially thoughtful: “I love this book, but it has long since ceased to be a book. It’s a totem for a certain type of blinkered, well-meaning reader who reveres it not for the delicacy of its sentences, but as the ultimate expression of how just one upstanding White person can save Black people from racism. This book is, for a lot of folks, the end point of a lot of thinking about some very complex and difficult topics.”

A few dishonorable mentions: “A Confederacy of Dunces,” by John Kennedy Toole (“A handsome senior recommended this to me in high school and 18 years later, I still have not forgiven him for wasting my time”); the Bible (“misogynistic historical fiction that millions believe is factual history”); “Lolita,” by Vladimir Nabokov (“prurience for the aged male academic”); and Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” (“a hideously written clunker”).

The replacement classics:

There was less consensus in the “classics to add” category, but a number of readers wrote that this 1968 western deserves serious consideration. “Recommending it, you often get a quizzical look,” Brendle Wells wrote, “but it truly is one of the great American novels for its portrayal of the American West, the American mindset and for the characters, especially Mattie Ross, who is a heroine for the ages. And that writing … I could go on and on, but that would be in direct opposition to the tight, perfect prose.”

Multiple readers waxed poetic about this 2016 bestseller, including Juanita Stein: “A perfect combination of historical novel, clever plot and a main character who is forced to find a purpose to his life in unexpected ways. Add a dash of mystery and intrigue, humor and brilliant observations about humanity, and you have what I consider to be the perfect novel.”

A number of the novels that readers recommended are already considered classics, including George Eliot’s “Middlemarch,” Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” and Willa Cather’s “My Ántonia.” “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” feels on the cusp, if it’s not already there, but Kimberley Laws makes such an excellent case for the novel, we had to include it: “In a world in which little girls long to be princesses, wear flouncy gowns and inhabit dreamy castles, this book offers a much-needed dose of reality. Francie Nolan lives in Brooklyn, surrounded by poverty. Her father is a drunk and her mother works her fingers to the bone to support her kids. But Francie finds joy in the little things — the people she loves and life’s simple pleasures. While few will ever achieve the fairy tale ending depicted in princess stories, all of us will face adversity. This is why Smith’s message is so poignant. Girls need to know that their happiness does not rely on their looks, a knight in shining armor, or any of the trappings of a Disney-esque ‘happily ever after.’ Happiness is a choice that comes from within.”

“Kindred,” by Octavia E. Butler

Readers called out Butler’s “Parable of the Sower” as well as this 1979 science fiction novel. “A masterpiece of character development, with complex themes, compelling plot, and clear yet poignant prose,” Melanie Shoffner wrote. “I’ve read — and taught — it multiple times and find more to consider each time. A work of fiction, yes, but its insight into the historical roots of American race, gender and socioeconomic issues offers much to consider now — yet it is still a fantastic story, not a treatise on U.S. issues. Everyone should read this — and I never make that proclamation lightly!”

A number of Le Guin’s books were proclaimed masterpieces. As for “The Dispossessed,” Cheryl Glover wrote: “It removes you from the here and now and takes you to another place, another world, where you are free to explore life without the usual social constraints. Science fiction allows us to do that. Ease into another reality where things are different but they still work. This book challenges us to think about what we value, not about money or stuff, but about ourselves. I keep coming back to it and every time I get more out of it. It is critically acclaimed but I doubt many people have read it.”

“Ceremony,” by Leslie Marmon Silko

Lark Hammond wasn’t the sole reader to offer up this new classic, but the former prep school English teacher was the only one to supply us with a tempting comparative lit assignment. “This book is a challenging read, stylistically — a real tour de force — and the payoff is amazing,” Hammond wrote. “Silko weaves together very real post-war (World War II) PTSD sufferers, traditional myths of the Laguna Pueblo people, shamanic experiences and a plot that illustrates a vision of good and evil that compares most intriguingly with the Christian vision of good and evil developed in Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost.’”

Readers recommended Everett’s entire bibliography, singling out “The Trees,” which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. A handful of readers also noted that his most recent novel, “James,” which revisits the plot of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the perspective of Jim, should be taught alongside Mark Twain’s classic.

This 1955 National Book Award nominee had several fans. “It describes presciently what we now understand as the hollowing out of the human spirit wrought by our belief that earning money to spend is the ultimate meaning of life,” Ronni Lundy wrote. “Perhaps if Arnow had been a man — maybe one named Steinbeck? — we’d have lifted this book to the top of the American canon long ago.”

A few honorable mentions: The U.S.A Trilogy by John Dos Passos (“an engrossing snapshot of the chaos, dreams and inequities of a nation on the rise”); “Hamnet,” by Maggie O’Farrell (“a gripping story that leaves you heartbroken and with a changed perspective”); “The Memory Police,” by Yoko Ogawa (“a simple, perfect portrayal of a selfless soul”).