10 Classic Novels That Actually Aren’t Boring

So you want to read a classic novel, but you don’t want to be bored to death the entire time. Seems reasonable. I know it’s my job to convince you that all classic novels are amazing, but the truth is some of them are really old and difficult to read. (And thank goodness for that, because otherwise we wouldn’t be a website.) 

See, we tend to judge classics by a modern metric of enjoyability, and that’s fine! Tastes evolve! The references seem dated, the sentences go on forever, and the plot twists become predictable because what was surprising 200 years ago is just par for the course today. For instance, can you imagine how shocked people were by Dracula in 1897? Now it’s 2020 and I don’t get out of bed for anything less than a vampire who is also some kind of werewolf hybrid and in love with the protagonist. (What we don’t yet know is that he was the one who murdered her father many years ago. The drama!)

It may not be the fault of the books or their authors, but that doesn’t change the fact that reading classics isn’t always everyone’s favorite thing to do. So if you’re looking for classic novels that won’t feel like a chore to read, here are a few you can try.