Barry Brassfield

When I joined goodreads back in 2011, I didn't go back and record all the books I'd read previously. I started fresh, but of late I've been creating categories for old books and classics I read in college, and earlier times in my life. As a lit major through graduate school, I read a lot, but when I graduated in the 90's goodreads and sites like the storygraph didn't exist obviously, so I'm going on memory. There are many books I'm sure I will forget, but of all the fiction books I read in college, not one stayed with me more profoundly than The Brothers Karamazov. I've read it twice, in different translations, and I hope to read it once more before I leave this earth. TBK is simply not to be missed imo.

I love the Bronte's, and this story is a classic for a reason, despite all the hyperspeed human emotion and turmoil, just like the crazy landscape. As good as Wuthering Heights is, I actually enjoy Emily Bronte's poetry even more, but WH is very compelling, come to life during an incredible 19th Century British period of writers of towering importance. At least to me.

The Waves is one of my favorite books in any language. Woolf was just incredibly brilliant and this work is her crowning achievement to my mind.

My favorite English novel from any century, which is really saying something when I think of writers like Virginia Woolf, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Middlemarch also stands up to re-reading, which I hope to do this year. Dorothea Brooke <3

After Moby Dick, my favorite opening in all of literature. I love this book so much.