To expand on the subject line, a classic is a book which, stylistically and/or in terms of the ideas or emotions it conveys, consistently has literary value to readers generation after generation. Its value endures.

By definition, I think that this requires the work in question to be novel in one way or another, so derivative fiction cannot by definition become "classic". I also believe that truly valuable ideas often (but not necessarily always) require that the book not be easily accessible to everyone, so the reader is forced to work a bit to appreciate the book.

However, I also believe that some more contemporary works can be considered "modern classics" because their ideas are profound enough and common enough to humanity that we can impute to them an enduring value. As such, some of my favorites might be too recent to consider "classics" by virtue of their enduring value.


The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Demons, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov
Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak
Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev
Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol
A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri
The Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio
The Iliad and Odyssey, by Homer
The Aeneid, by Virgil
The Metamorphoses, by Ovid
The Golden Ass, by Apuleius
The Argonautica, by Apollonius Rhodius
The tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides
The comedies of Aristophanes
Beowulf


I think which one I would suggest would depend on the person I was talking to. I think Brothers Karamazov is incredible, but I'm not sure how relevant it is to atheists, for example. I would guess I would recommend Doctor Zhivago as a more broadly appealing work.


Moby Dick


Almost everyone I know who has read it has not found any real value to it.