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I have personal beef with Holden Caulfield.

Book covers: "The Catcher in the Rye" with a horse illustration, and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" featuring Huck Finn in overalls

Covers of "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" displayed side by side

Book covers for "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain

Which &ldquo;classic&rdquo; book doesn&rsquo;t deserve that title?

Which "classic" book doesn't deserve that title?

Discussion of classic books that people don't like.

I personally have a number of movie marathons lined up.

Person reading with a mug, next to hands picking apples from a box in a garden

Person reading with a mug, another image shows hands reaching for apples in a box

Hands placing apples in a crate outdoors, surrounded by grass, suggesting apple harvesting or gardening activity

What's on your fall bucket list?

Cartoon crab joyfully showering in money, grinning widely under running water, depicting wealth and happiness

Cartoon crab joyfully showering with money, surrounded by water and dollar bills

Animated crab excitedly showering in money under a bathroom shower

What financially smart decisions have you been making lately?

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The Scarlet Letter. Only 200 pages but *feels* longer, it's nothing but a slog through pure shame, guilt, self flagellation (I'm being quite literal here) and despair. Nathaniel Hawthorne's great great grandaddy was a judge for the Salem witch trials and he morosely continues to make that the reader's problem even today. 

Do not recommend.

I also don't understand why Catcher in the Rye is a classic. A spoiled college kid does nothing. I don't see any point in that story. Holden Caulfield is insufferable.

Little Women. Horrible book. Just dull and dreary. 

So glad to see people saying The Great Gatsby.  I cannot understand the love for this book.  Having been assigned it 3 times (once in HS and twice in college) I just do not see why it's considered the "quintessential American novel".

Finnegan's Wake. I feel trolled by its very existence.

Depends what your goal is. If you want kids to learn to love reading, let them read books that appeal to them. Even if you have the additional goal of getting them to think about the world, a lot of classics are too densely written about times they know nothing about. If you want to do some kind of great books course, by all means read them to understand the history of literature. 

As for which books we&rsquo;re all supposed to read actually suck, a lot of your great American novels the size of a brick written by straight white men are pretty awful: Tom Wolfe, Philip Roth, Jonathan Franzen, Saul Bellow, never read a really enjoyable book by any of them

Moby Dick. Tried multiple times to read it and can't get passed the second page. Ugh.

Which “classic” book doesn’t deserve that title?

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