what are some must-read classic literature books?

I agree with Great Expectations.

Also:

A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)

The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)

Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky)

Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)

Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)

The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

The Complete Grimms Fairy Tales

No Exit (Sartre)

Walden (Thoreau)

The Waste Land (T.S. Eliot)

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

Hmm. There are so many good classics, really - that's why they are classics, after all. I love them. Barnes and Noble has a great collection of classics, in trade paper, at cheap prices - I often just go in and pick one up whenever I need something new to read. They're almost all good, and they usually have a display with a lot of them available for the picking.

Here's a list that they have:

You may want to look into reading books by any of the Bronte sisters (Emily, Charlotte, or Anne). I really enjoyed "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte, and "Wuthering Heights" by Emily. But all three sisters were amazing authors. There is a site with some of their works. I posted the link in the sources section.

I also enjoyed "Emma" by Jane Austen. The movie "Clueless" was actually based on this book, and updated to fit a more current teen audience, but it is way better than the movie!

Any version of "Arabian Nights" would be a wonderful addition to your collection if you like fantasy type stories...a woman trying to save her own life by telling story after wonderful story to her new husband, the sultan as a means of teaching him to trust women again.

"A Tale of Two Cities", or pretty much anything by Charles Dickens is a good bet. E.B. White also has some good stories. Laura Ingall's Wilder's "Little House" series is really good, even in adulthood, as is C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia".

It's hard to think of stories, even classic tales, that don't have at least some sort of sexual innuendos. I know how hard it is, as I hate sex scenes in books and movies, but even many of those written in the 1800's tended to cross the lines as far as would allow in those days. But hope you find some enjoyment in some of these!

Try Jane Austen - she wrote 6 novels - Pride & Prejudice; Sense & Sensibility; Emma; Persuasion; Mansfield Park; and Northanger Abbey. Others you might want to check out - Wuthering Heights by (Emily?) Bronte and Jane Erye by (Charlotte?) Bronte; At the Back of the North Wind by George McDonald; In His Steps by Charles M. Sheldon; Hinds Feet on High Places - not sure of the author; Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (he also wrote Hunchback of Notre Dame, I have not yet read that one so you're on your own there); Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame; Silas Marner by George Eliot; Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. I enjoyed all of these to some extent (some more than others, of course). From what I remember they are all clean (I don't read smutty books), although a couple are a little dark - not graphic or scary but the theme and tone are darker. I hope something there trips your fancy. Happy reading!! :)

Jane Eyre

Wuthering Heights

Pride and prejudice

Far from the madding crowd

East of Eden

Grapes of wrath

1984

The house of mirth

The tenant of wildfell hall

The portrait of Dorian Grey

The count of Montecristo

The woman in white

Madame Bovary

Villette

Great expectations

Crime and punishment

The mill on the floss

Frankenstein

Rebecca

Lord of the flies

100 years of loneliness

Personally I like a book called Snakes Pass by Bram Stoker but virtually no one has ever heard of it and it's a bit odd. Try picking up Stewart Little by EB White.

Mark Twain might or might not be your cup of tea, but Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are classics that should be read.

some (normally) modern classics, that are additionally relaxing examining, no longer uninteresting, etc.: "looking forward to Adam," Martha Beck, "Hidden digital camera," Zoran Zivkovic, "the path of the better Self," Mark Prophet, "the large Divorce," C. S. Lewis, "West with the evening," Beryl Markham, "lifeless Souls," Gogol, "1984" and "Animal Farm," George Orwell, "Catcher interior the Rye," J. D. Salinger, "My Antonia," Willa Cather, "Slaughterhouse-5," Kurt Vonnegut, "Anne of green Gables," L. M. 1st viscount montgomery of alamein, "Little women human beings," Louisa could Alcott, "The Jungle e book," Rudyard Kipling, "Freakonomics," S. Levitt, "Liberal Fascism," Jonah Goldberg, "stay Alive, My Son," Pin Yathay, "Nineteen strategies of gazing Wang Wei," Weinberger and Paz.

anna karenina- its a romantic story but no disgusting parts at all

great expectations

Father's and Sons--Turgenev

dickens no pun intended but Charles dickens is great try great expectations.