Instagram story viewer> @simones_classics> Posts

Simone's Classics

@simones_classics

1.3K

followers

453

following

☆Reading the classics/modern classics
☆Charity shop/secondhand books
☆MA English Lit
☆Slow reading
☆Manchester 🇬🇧

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Classics stack

I very kindly received this stack of classics from the wonderful folks at @tandemcollectiveuk and @almapublishing

Autumn is the perfect time to get back into the classics if like me you've been neglecting them for a while.

What could be more perfect than classics by candlelight as the nights grow darker and we start to retreat inside?

I have read all 3 of these novels previously so, whichever one i chose will be a reread. The only question now is, which one should I start with first?

#classicscommunity #classicsstack #classicsbycandlelight #classicnovels #classicliterature by @simones_classics

69

1

11 days ago

East of Eden challenge
It feels like it's been absolutely forever since I last posted here. But if anyone was going to get me back into reading the classics, then you can't do worse than John Steinbeck. Well, more specifically the Netflix adaptation of his novel, East of Eden.

I saw that @Netflix had set a challenge to read 15 pages a day until October when the adaptation is released. For the last week I've been hitting and exceeding that target.

So, is anyone else planning on completing this challenge or currently doing it?

#EastofEden #JohnSteinbeck #Americanclassics
#classicscommunity by @simones_classics

160

7

2 months ago

January classic - Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Last month my classic of choice was Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I read the Everyman Library edition, which are quickly becoming my favourite editions and this no exception.

This book reminded me once again, why I love reading the classics. Their universal themes and enduring that resonate long after they were written, their power to speak across time and place and remain culturally significant.

Things Fall Apart depicts the human experience of love, life, and power. The reason this book and so many other classics remain popular is because of the complexities and nuances of emotions and relationships they reveal.

Published in 1958, on the surface Things Fall Apart is a story about the life of Okonkwo, an ambitious Igbo man in pre-colonial Nigeria. However, you only need scratch the surface and this novel becomes so much more than that. It’s a story about the impact of colonialisation on Africa and in particular, a small Nigerian village, where the Igbo people’s social, political and spiritual lives are upended.

It's well known that this book was Achebe’s response to novels such as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and his portrayal of Africans as savages.

This novel showed convincingly to his 50’s readership, perhaps for the first time, that Africans lived, worked, loved, hated, and ultimately died like all human beings – just like us.
There’s so much more I want to say about this book, but as this is my January classics wrap-up, I’ll leave it there for now.

What does the month of February hold for classics? Well, it’s a book club choice this month about the lives of West Indian immigrants in 1950s London. Can you guess which classic it is?
#thingsfallapart
#chinuaachebe #africanliterature #africanwriters by @simones_classics

153

0

8 months ago

Presenting...the book I'm kicking off 2026 with and it's an absolute banger.

I've always wanted to read Things Fall Apart so when I found this Everyman's Library edition I knew it was a sign that this year was the year.

It tells the interweaving stories of Okonkwo, a man desperate to make something of himself only to face a series of misfortunes that mark is fall from power. This is twinned with the story of the arrival of white missionaries and the erosion of customs and traditions held sacred by the local peoples.

What book are you starting the year with? by @simones_classics

294

9

9 months ago

Classics I read in 2025
I feel like I spent a large chunk of 2025 neglecting this account and not reading a great deal of the classics.

However, when I came to do my yearly round up, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I'd got through far more classics than I'd thought.

Some were short reads such as Mrs Caliban and White Nights and others took me pretty much half the year to read, like The Count of Monte Cristo. Speaking of which, if I had to single out any one book it would be that one for its sheer scope and brilliance.

So tell me, what was your favourite classic of 2025? by @simones_classics

227

6

10 months ago

Reading update
I've been in such a classics reading funk, jumping between one book and another without really being able to settle on any.

This week I started Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison which I'm hugely enjoying but I simply didn't have room in my suitcase home for it, so I slipped in Dostoyevsky's White Nights instead.

I'll hopefully pick Song of Solomon back up again once I return home but here at my parents I'll be attempting White Nights for the second time before hopefully seeing if I can find some of my old books in the shed.

What is everyone else reading in the lead up to Christmas? by @simones_classics

211

7

10 months ago

Faber poetry collection box set
I thought I'd show off this little box set of Faber poetry I found recently in my local charity shop. Only £2!

It's been a while since I've read any poetry but I noticed a few of my favourite poets in the collection including the likes of Auden, T.S. Eliot and Sasson (who I studied at school).

There's also a cool selection of poets whose work I've never read before. Wendy Cope for instance and Seamus Heaney.

So I'm curious, what poetry or poets did you study at school and did you enjoy them?

#poetry #poetrycommunity #poetrycollection
#faberpoetry #faber #poetrylovers #poetryofig by @simones_classics

284

1

a year ago

🎃 Classics read in October
A week late but better late than never, these are the 2 classics I finished last month.

- The Counte of Monte Cristo by Dumas
I started this at the beginning of the year and it was well worth the 1300 pages because it's without a doubt one of my new favourite classics.

- Nineteen-Eighty Four by Orwell
This was a reread for my local bookclub as we were also seeing a theatre production of the book. It's a book that's so well known in the public consciousness that reading it is an act of forgetting what you think you know.

#thecounteofmontecristo #nineteeneightyfour
#Classics #classicscommunity #classicnovels by @simones_classics

250

6

a year ago

Thoughts and observations: - Daniel Deronda by George Eliot- Part 2

Following on from my part 1 post on George Eliot's Daniel Derronda, here are some additional thoughts on why this wasn't one of my favourite Eliot novels.

The overriding feeling when reading this book was one of discomfort. It sat uncomfortably with me in 2 respects :

1) A significant part of the storyline involves Mordecai’s desires for the foundation of a new national state in Palestine.
It was hard reading this book whilst watching what Isreal has doing in Gaza. With everything that has been going on in Palestine and specifically Gaza right now, it is difficult to reconcile that with Mordecai’s Zionist pursuit of an Israeli homeland for Jews. What’s troubling is that essentially what we have now is what Mordecai’s vision for the future have led to. The forced displacement of the Palestinian people and the resulting famine and genocide.

2) Whilst the novel was ahead of its time as a proto-Zionist work and one of the first works of fiction sympathetic to the plight of the Jews, it was so overtly antisemitic it was painful to read. The constant references to big noses and dark features had me cringing.
Even Eliot’s partner, the editor and literary critic George Henry Lewes, stated that: “The Jewish element seems to me likely to satisfy nobody.”

The whole book left me unsatisfied and wondering what Eliot was hoping to achieve with it.
.
#danialderronda #GeorgeEliot
#classicscommunity #classicscommunity #classicnovels #classicsbookstagram by @simones_classics

303

9

a year ago

1984
I'm curled up on the sofa rereading 1984 for my local bookclub's October read. It's been a few years since I've picked up 1984 but every time I do, I rediscover my love and awe for it.

Then tomorrow the bookclub is off to watch an amateur production of 1984 at a local theatre, which I'm really looking forward to. I've seen the film version staring John Hurt but never a stage production.

Is there a classic youd love to see performed on stage?

#1984georgeorwell #georgeorwell #1984 #nineteeneightyfour #dystopianreads #dystopianliterature #dystopia #classicscommunity #classicnovels by @simones_classics

166

4

a year ago

🇫🇷Current read – The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
At the beginning of this year I joined a readalong for The Count of Monte Cristo. I was doing well and following along with the set number of daily chapters until I reached about half-way, some 500 odd pages. At that point it seemed like doing the same amount of pages again was too large a feat so I put it to one side, with the intention of coming back to it before the end of the year. Then at the start of October I promised myself that I would finish the novel by the end of this month.

The reason, besides the intimidating amount of pages still left to read, for my pause in reading, was I think because of the chapters set in Rome. I couldn’t work out how they fitted in with the rest of the story (at the time) and equally, who all these new characters were. But like any brilliant novel, all became clearer as I wound deeper and deeper in and the bigger picture began to emerge.

Now, with only less than 100 pages to left to go, I can safely say that The Count of Monte Cristo is easily one of the best books I’ve ever read.
I want to do a full review once I’ve finished but if you haven’t read this novel, or you’ve started it but not finished it, I would persuade you to reconsider.
.
#thecounteofmontecristo
#alexandredumas #Classics #classicscommunity #classicnovels #frenchlit #classicsbookstagram
#classicsreader #classicbooks by @simones_classics

341

16

a year ago

Thoughts and observations: Part 1 - Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

My predominant feeling about Daniel Derronda is that it really should have been 2 separate books

There should have been 1 book featuring Daniel's parentage, mirah and malachi's story and another book for Gwendoline and Grandcourt's story. The reason being, Gwendoline's part of the narrative jars when it comes up against Daniel's and especially Malachi's. There's a very different tones. But together they rub against each other

It would have made for a more coherent book if they were separate which sounds contradictory but isn't when you consider the novel is over 700 pages long. This would have solved the issues of pacing and tone.

If you've read Daniel Deronda what were your thoughts on these different storylines?

#DanielDeronda #Classics #classicscommunity #classicnovels #GeorgeEliot #classicsbookstagram #classicsbookstagrammer by @simones_classics

301

7

a year ago