Have you ever curled up with Pride and Prejudice and swooned over Mr. Darcy, with his smouldering, passionate declaration of love for Lizzy Bennet?  Have you jumped at the smallest noise after reading Wuthering Heights’ terrifying description of the ghostly Cathy knocking at the window?  Laughed like a Florentine noble at the bawdiest tales in Bocaccio’s Decameron?  Or kept a sad vigil with Natasha at Prince Andrei’s bedside in War and Peace?  No?  Then you’re missing out.

But they’re boring, you insist.  I had to read that in tenth grade.  It was awwwwwwwful.  Barely even readable.  Too many people have had their reading experiences ruined by a stern teacher or a rigid curriculum.  And it’s true that no one likes a book that they’re forced to read.  But I’ll bet if you dust off one of the “classics” and approach it with fresh eyes, you’ll find a whole world there, full of romance, joy, sadness, adventure, desperation, fright… a whole range of human emotions.

There are many different definitions for what makes a book a classic.  No one definition is controlling, but most generally agree that to be considered a classic, a book has to have attained critical and popular success for a substantial period of time.  (Liz Foley, Vintage Classics Editorial Director, has a good commentary on the topic over on the Man Booker Prize website.)  Let’s think about that for a moment.  Ask yourself this – can a book really attain critical and popular success, and sustain it for decades, even centuries, if it’s boring?  I guess anything’s possible, but it doesn’t seem terribly likely to me.  Classics are books with staying power… and they have staying power because they speak to people.

I’d be lying if I said I liked every classic.  The Scarlet Letter did nothing for me, nor did The Secret Agent.  But when I pick up a classic novel, I don’t expect it to be dry and boring and dull.  I expect to enjoy it immensely – like so many people who’ve read them before me.  I expect to be swept into new worlds of romance, adventure, excitement, and fun.  I expect to identify with the characters, to laugh with them, and to be moved to tears by their stories.  Most of the time, the classics that I read fulfill those expectations.

And it’s not just that.  Reading classic works enriches my daily life and my travels.  When I watched the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace in 2008, I was thinking about Christopher Robin.  Seeing Place Saint-Michel in Paris brought to mind barricades, street fighting and Les Miserables.  Traveling through England this fall, I’ll be thinking of the second Mrs. de Winter shivering near the cliffs and coves of Cornwall… of Tess Durbeyfield stretched out across an ancient altar at Stonehenge… of Catherine Moreland navigating the Bath social scene…

I’m not saying that I don’t read magazines, or new releases, for that matter.  I like a glossy issue of Bon Appetit as much as the next girl.  And if I skipped the new releases I’d have missed out on The Night Circus, which was perhaps the best book I read all year.  But I’ll never abandon those piles of old favorites.  Jane Eyre is still thrilling and romantic.  War and Peace is epic, tragic and uplifting all at once.  Pride and Prejudice and Emma are pure, unadulterated fun.  Rebecca is suspenseful and mysterious.  The Decameron is hilarious, and kind of dirty (in parts).  Who would want to skip any of that?  If you haven’t picked up a “classic” novel in awhile, try again.  Give yourself the gift of reading the “great works” without a strict teacher breathing down your neck.  After all, they’re really, really good.  That’s why they’re classics.