What The Dickens Book Club

Winner of the Booker prize, written by a Nobel prize winning writer, adapted by James Ivory into a prize winning film starring Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant, this study of British class character and history feels like a distillation of everything covered by the term British classic. Made even more interesting by being written by Japanese born author Kazuo Ishiguro. Regardless of subject matter one of the best character studies I’ve ever read.

Early feminism, and exploding Victorian morality coinciding with books like The Picture of Dorian Grey and Jude the Obscure in England. The Awakening looks at American domestic life.
Will postcard link to the Goodreads review in comments.

I have a confession to make, for a large part of my life when asked for my favourite book of all time, my answer was Jude the Obscure.
I think there’s a little bit of Jude in all of us. Frustrated yearning, deep seated self doubt, that feeling that everything would be fine if you could just make yourself be a little bit different!
Fortunately, laughter intervened and I learned to take myself a little less seriously. Thank god we can’t stay Arts students forever.
That said it’s still in my top 5! Apologies to Nick and Heather who suggested other Hardy novels, but I just think this would be great for a bunch of book nerds, particularly coming immediately after Chopin’s Awakening.

I wanted to branch out a little and Christine suggested the 1954 Japanese coming of age classic. It is a beautiful story, almost a fable set against Japanese village life. So popular it has been adapted for film 5 times!!
Apologies for the AI slop photo, couldn’t help myself