I notice a lot of SHTF and Sci/Fi fans here, which is cool, but I'm a fan of the classics. I know there are books in these genres that also fit into the "classic" category. Sometimes I wander out and read something else, but I always come back to the old stuff. Yeah, I know that's pretty boring for some. I guess I'm just thinking out loud here, but it sucks that since the passing of my grandmother in 2011, I don't have anyone to talk about books with. I've tried to recommend books to friends, as I think they'd enjoy them, but nobody wants to read anymore. I've often thought about posting about a book I've recently finished up to discuss the ins and outs of, but I didn't know if anyone here really read that stuff. Meh. Just having a shitty day I suppose.

Do you mean stuff like Edgar Rice Burroughs or Talbot Mundy?

Or possibly some of the juvenile stuff like the Submarine Boys?

Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Rand, Orwell, stuff like that.

Sorry, H. Rider Haggard is about as serious as I ever got.

Unless you count Kipiing, of course.

Favorite Steinbeck is East of Eden.

Read Sometimes a Great Notion by Kesey, I think it's better then Cucoos Nest.

Read Catch 22 by Heller as well.

I'm reading East of Eden now. I'm about half way through it and am really enjoying it. I'll order your other 2 suggestions, thank you. I'm a big fan of ordering books for cheap on Ebay. Electronic devices can't compete to a good old fashioned paper book in the hands, in my opinion.

Yeah I buyvtones of books on amazon. Arf and Ktmtalk are about the only things I can read electronically.

If you haven't read The Jungle yet you should get it too. Also, add Heart of Darkness too your list.

7 Pillars of Wisdom.

Have you read Moby Dick?  Lots of love for it out there.  I hated it, one of the few books I fast forwarded through large portions.

As mentioned, Heart of Darkness.  Another one I personally did not care for.  The horror!

Brave new World was a fun read, sci fi from the turn of the century.

Even earlier than your preferred timeframe is Robinson Crusoe

I've read Brave New World and Robinson Crusoe. I'll have to try Moby Dick and Heart of Darkness.

I'll check it out broseph, thanks.

For some weird reason I love socialist and communist authors and for the life of me, I can NEVER figure out why.

I love Steinbeck  Cannery Row is probably my favorite.

Also love Solzhenitsyn.  A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, August 1914.....love them.

I need to sit down and read Gulag Archipelago.

There's a lot of scholars who think portions are made up, but frankly it's a good read regardless. Lawrence's actual life is more interesting than most fiction.

Some of my favorite early 20th century novels...

Hemingway,  "The Sun Also Rises," and "A Farewell to Arms"
F Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby," "The Beautiful and the Damned"
Faulkner, "The Sound and the Fury"
Jack London, "The Iron Heel"
Ford Maddox Ford, "The Good Soldier"
Kafka, "The Metamorphosis"
Sherwood Anderson, "Winesburg, Ohio"
Remarque, "All Quiet on the Western Front"
Henry Miller, "Tropic of Cancer"

If you're into poetry:
TS Elliot "The Waste Land"
Robert Frost "North of Boston" "Mountain Interval"

I think we just became internet best friends! I just finished East of Eden about 5 minutes ago. Damn. That dude could fucking write.

I was an English Lit major in college, so likely read them all: Faulkner, Melville, Poe, Cooper, Hawthorne, Flannery O'Conner, Orwell (Sr. Seminar on this guy), Harper Lee, Truman Capote, Virginia Wolfe, take your pick.

Did I like any of them? Yeah,sure, a few. But after having to read 'Miss Furr and Miss Skeene' and 'Waiting for Godot' there is point at which you prefer a root canal.

I liked Rappaccini's Daughter by Hawthorne, Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Animal Farm by Orwell, The Telltale Heart by Poe, and To Kill A Mockingbird by Lee. Melville and Cooper weren't bad either but not ones I'd pick up again.

I guess I'm just stuck in a hardboiled detective phase if I reach for fiction nowadays. And maybe Jane Austen.

ETA: I guess my biggest beef with modern writers is how negative and existential every freaking book is. It's like watching Breakfast Club each time I read something: bunch of rich dumbass kids bitching about how terrible life is. Read Pear S. Buck's The Good Earth, where a young woman is coerced into marriage and gives birth while working out in the fields, if you want to see how tough life is. Jeez.

*steps off soapbox*

I used to love reading fiction novels.  Then the war happened.  I can't read action novels now b/c they're 99% bullshit, and I've gone to actual places where actual things have happened.

So I surf ARFCOM instead - or obsessively add things to my .kml file on Google Earth.  

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Have read the Complete Sherlock Holmes numerous times.
Edgar Rice Burroughs - Read the complete Tarzan series a couple of times.
Robinson Crusoe, Count of Monte Cristo, Old Man in the Sea, and a few others.
But my favorite, 20th Century writer was Louis Llamour.

Started with the classics ...





Then moved on.  Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is a favorite, even its bookend imagery of water.
Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.  Simple.  Powerful.  (Short sentences too.)
Etc.  You know, writers and their writings that are gooder than average.  I'm traveling, or I'd wander around my library looking for inspiration on the shelves.

You said early 20th century, otherwise this one would be at the top (kind of a sleeper book, yeah):
Bellow's Henderson the Rain King -- at the right time in one's life, this book can be killer.

Old Man and the Sea is really good. I also enjoyed Robinson Caruso (sp?), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Solomon's Mines, etc. Going back a little further I really liked Doyle's work, "Sherlock Holms". There are others, but nothing wrong with the classics. 

Forgot to add, several years ago I read, "Last of the Mohicans". I know a lot of people who liked it, but I was ok with it. Not my first jump to but that is my opinion.  

I have a vague memory of a coming of age story, apparently in the 20's/30's, as the male interest of the heroine was a bootlegger.  It was all over my head @ the time, but I've remembered enough about it for nearly 40 years, it would be nice to go back and reread it.