In this month’s Well Read column, Robert Weibezahl sang the praises of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel about the goings on in one very unusual mental hospital.
Sold for a $1500 advance, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest went on to become a cult classic and a touchstone for a generation of readers. As we said in the column, “the story of R.P. McMurphy still resonates a half-century later, for issues of the individual vs. authority are eternal.”
If you’d like to win a copy of this 50th anniversary edition—with cover art evoking the original—leave a comment here telling us what your favorite classic book is. A winner will be chosen at random from the comments left here before 5 pm CST on February 5, 2012. Good luck!
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ETA: Congratulations to our winner, Christy! She’s revisiting children’s classics such as Little Women with her grandkids.
Thank you to all who entered! Contest is now closed.
I’ve never read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but figure it’s about time I did. The movie was great, bet the book is better. My favorite classic book is Gone With the Wind. My mother handed it to me on a hot day during the summer after 5th grade (I think I had been driving her crazy for something to do). One page and I was hooked. I’ve read it and reread it many times in 40 years since and am due to read it again. I still read it the way I did as a kid: 100 pages a day while sitting on the porch on a hot summer afternoon.
Jeannie–
It’s an incredible novel. Kesey was one of our great writers.
Recently I purchased copies of War and Peace and Gone With the Wind to reread. I have also enjoyed Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Katherine by Anya Seton. I have never read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest but would love to do so.
this memorable classic was unique and amazing. My favorite was To Kill and Mockingbird. Loved the characters and the emotions. Also Rebecca which was unforgettable.
OMG! I loved the movie. Now I’d really like to read the book.
One of my favorite classics is DRACULA.
My Favorites are Dr. Zhivago,and Gone with The Wind,these are my all time favorites,read over & over,also watch often..
War and Remembrance(Herman Wouk)I reread ,and see something different each time .
There are several books from the past I re-read, but guess my favorite is Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.
My favorite is still Jane Eyre and in second place The Picture of Dorian Gray
My favorite classic book is To Kill a Mockingbird.
My favorite classic is Little Women.
I have many favorite “classics.” To Kill A Mockingbird, Emma, Gone With The Wind, A Tree Grows I Brooklyn, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (what a great book club pick it would be!), A Room With A View. It is very hard to choose just one book.
Oh the classics… I have to put Pride and Prejudice in any list of favorite classics. It was one of those books that inspired me to write and gave me that tingle in my spine for the kind of power a great story has over you. I loved everything about it, and as a teenager I imagined myself to be Eliza Bennet. Not a bad role model to aspire to eh?
I don’t know if it is considered a classic but The Monk by Matthew Lewis but I really think it is superb. If that is not then The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.
I loved the movie. Haven’t actually read the book, but would like to. My favorite classic book probably is a tie between Gulliver’s Travels and Pride and Prejudice!
I read the book and saw the play in Greenwich Village in the 1970s. Still a favorite.
Dune or perhaps LoTR.
My favorite has to be Jane Eyre. The atmosphere, the strong female, the gothic-ness (is that a word?) all bring me back to it again and again.
My favorite classic is The Picture of Dorian Gray.
I have to agree with Gone with the Wind as my favorite classic.
My favorite is “The Old Man and the Sea”, by Ernest Hemingway. It reflects life’s struggles and the spirit of the human being to continue against all odds!
Favorite classics (tie): To Kill a Mockingbird and Middlemarch.
My favorite classic book is Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice because it never fails to open my eyes on a scene or phrase that I recognize with fresh eyes and different perspective the older I’ve become. Plus I never tire of reading it again and again over the years. It’s got staying power for me!
“In Cold Blood.”
Is “Ball Four” a classic?
Gone with the Wind is one of my favorite classic novels.
i didn’t read classics growing up, but when i got older i got my hands on a copy for fahrenheit 451! that’s my favorite.
I’ve never read this one before but I’d like too. I don’t really have a favorite classic book. I don’t know if you would count Edgar Allen Poe. But I’ve always been interested in his poems/stories since I read about him in school. I dont know why, I guess cause he seems mysterious. But he’s one of my favorites.
The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Gone With the Wind or, for a kid’s book, A Wrinkle in Time
Tale of Two Cities
Prayer for Owen Meany
Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Slaughterhouse Five
Pride and Prejudice
Madam Bovary
The Great Gatsby, mostly because my high school English teacher just brought the whole dang story to life! (Thank you Mrs. Palmer!)
My favorite classic at this moment would be Wuthering Heights. I just love it
My favourite classic book is Fahrenheit 451.
My favorite classic is definitely To Kill a Mockingbird. 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are a close second and third.
Loved the movie and of course since book versions are almost always better, I’m sure I’ll love the book. I would love to own a copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
There are many classics I’ve enjoyed over the years, including favorite children’s classics (those somehow are never forgotten); and classic novels that I’ve read in high school and college (somehow mostly forgotten); but I would choose my favorite classic to be a tribute to my home in Brooklyn, i.e., Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Ah yes, those ailanthus trees are nearly impossible to uproot, nor is the book likely to be forgotten.
Thanks for sending me an alternate page for the contest.
I will always have a soft spot for “Tristan and Iseult” by Joseph Bedier. A beautifully written romance that has survived the ages.
Thanks,
Zara
zgarcia(dot)alvarez(at)gmail(dot)com
It’s been years since I read this one. Would love to have a nice copy in the library. My favorite classic is Wuthering Heights. Though I love many other good ones too!
Catch-22 is my choice for classic favorite.
East of Eden by Steinbeck is a favorite of mine.
One of my favorite classics is War and Peace, very long but good. Pride and Prejudice and Moby Dick. Dracula and Frankenstein is good to read around October.
I’d like to read this instead of take the movie as what the story line was. Hollywood always ruins a good book!
Sense and Sensibility is my favorite classic book.
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.
Gone With the Wind still my favorite
I have never read this book, but I have seen the movie several times. My favorite classic is Walden by Thoreau.
Rebecca and Jane Eyre!
‘Gone With The Wind’
There are so many but probably LOTR is my favorite – at least today.
Atlas Shrugged tops my favorite classics. I haven’t read Cuckoo yet but would love to.
It’s hard to pick just one. Now that I have grandkids I find myself going back and reading my childrens classics: Little Women, Five Little Peppers, etc.
Rebecca
To Kill a Mockingbird
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
One of my favorites is The Yearing. Growing up in the Oklahoma woods I could identify with Jodie and have re-read it many times over the last 50 years.
This is an amazing book. One that I would love to own and re-read!
My favorite classic novel is 1984.
I’ve never read “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” but I’d love to give it a try. My favorite classic book is either “Pride and Prejudice” or “Jane Eyre.” Least favorite? “The Mill on the Floss.” Woof.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the best. I have the complete set volume one by Barns and Noble Classics. I also have the complete set of Jane Austen. Other books include Picture of Dorian Gray, Wuthering Heights, The Divine Comedy, etc.
My favorite since High School is The Scarlet letter
Favorite classic – Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.
Little Women, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
My favorite classic? Such a hard question! One of my top favorites is definitely The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
My favorite classic would have to be either Northanger Abbey or Persuasion by Jane Austen.
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one that hasn’t read Cuckoo. My favorite classic would probably be The Great Gatsby. Or The Catcher in the Rye. Or Lord of the Flies.
My favorite classic is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn–a ‘coming of age’ story which had meaning for me as a young woman, and later as a much older one!
Interestingly enough, I recently put “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” on my list of books to read–somehow had missed it over the years, and was curious as to what made it such a classic……
My favorite American classic is Norman Mailer’s “Naked & The Dead”.
It opened my eyes as to what war is really about.
I have several favorite classics. I can’t pick just one. How about top three? Jane Eyre, To Kill a Mockingbird, and In Cold Blood. I’ve never read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but the movie was fantastic!
To Kill a Mockingbird is THE Great American Novel. It’s true; it’s a fact! Trust me, I’m a librarian.
(Catcher in the Rye is good, too.)
My favorite novel is “Gone With the Wind.” Mitchell was so very talented…her descriptions are so vivid you can almost feel the humidity of the South on your skin today. Thank you.
My favorite classic is ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand.
My favorite classic book from when I was a little girl was “Heidi”. I actually have quite an old edition of it as well! One of my favorite and most memorable movies I have seen is actually “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!
I’m going to say John Christopher’s Tripod Trilogy (White Mountains, City of Gold and Lead and Pool of Fire) is my favorate classic novel. I realize it’s really three books, but they’re short and together are still less pages than some novels.
And don’t forget to add the prequel if you want the whole story.
To Kill a Mockingbird would be my favorite!
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
To Kill A Mocking Bird and Catcher in the Rye
Cain and Abel, Gone With the Wind. I know there are lots more, but you only asked for one and I already gave you two!!
Gone With the Wind…Great book & good movie adaption
I really loved The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
My favorite classic book of all time is “Of Mice and Men”. It’s a
story that gives you a knowledge of how deeply two men love each
other as brothers. This one gets better every time you read it.
Anna Karenina.
I, too, have never read “Cuckoo’s Nest”, but so enjoyed the movie. I’d love to add it to my library and read it finally.
Sherlock Holmes is my fav!!
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier… Now that I’ve typed it I yearn to read it again!
I would have to say Anne of Green Gables. don’t know if that’s far back enough to be a classic but I will say it is.
I love Gone with the Wind for a special reason. My mother was reading the book when i was born, my real name is Suellen. The problem was no one ever pronounced it right in school even the teachers because most spellings were Sue Ellen, so i used Sue most of the time. I guess I am lucky because my mom said she could have named me Scarlett, yikes.
My Favorite is Gone With The Wind.
My favorite classic is To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
East of Eden
My favorite is The Grapes of Wrath. I’m surprised it took 76 comments for any one to come up with it. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is another favorite that hasn’t been mentioned yet. Oh, and Crime and Punishment.
I think this is my favorite classic! Though I read it for the first time last year. What a great book!
Little women, always my favorite.always brings. Back wonderful memories.
Read it, taught it, loved it!!! Kesey and 1962 go together like bread and butter.