Digested classics
John Crace’s incisive pastiches of classic novels, from Joseph Conrad to Virginia Woolf
Digested Dickens: David Copperfield
John Crace makes the famously autobiographical novel flash before your eyes
Digested opera: Puccini's La Bohème
Will Rodolfo give up his day job writing rubbish poems or give Mimi the cold shoulder instead? John Crace coughs up a classic
Digested classics: the 20th century's greatest novels
No time to read the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century? Or even six of the very best? Then mug up with these extracts from John Crace's new book, Brideshead Abbreviated
Choose the final classic to digest
John Crace's Brideshead Abbreviated, his digests of 100 classic novels from the 20th century, is published today. Time to tell him what he left off
John Crace's digested classics
A complete list of the 20th-century classics boiled down by John Crace
Digested opera: Handel's Radamisto
John Crace: Oh woe is everyone ... John Crace boils down this tangled tale of tyrannical love and incessant death wishes
Digested opera: Janáček's The Makropulos Case
The enigmatic diva at the heart of this bizarre tale takes an age to reveal her true identity. Don't worry, though: John Crace is on the 100-year-old case
Digested opera: Faust
He may have sympathy for the devil, but when it comes to love he doesn't have a chance in hell. John Crace decodes the destiny of a desperate man
Possession by AS Byatt
'I have thought of little else but English myth and dull literary allusion, of interest to no one but writers who take themselves far too seriously'
Digested opera: Idomeneo
Ilia has the hots for a hunky Cretan, but is he destined for a life in Argos? John Crace is on hand to appease the gods of clarity with his version of Mozart's classic
Digested opera: The Pearl Fishers
Will friendship or love for a mystery exotic woman win out in Bizet's tumultuous classic? Find out as John Crace decodes the libretto
Tarr by Wyndham Lewis
'For his part, Tarr was perplexed by Bertha's bohemian nonchalance. For our part, we were bored senseless by the banality of the self-consciously Modern'
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
'O Shanty Town. Where all roads lead if you are black. O Shanty Town. Where tribal folk lore is crushed in the dust. O Shanty Town. Where poetry dies on the page'
Digested opera: Puccini's Tosca
Can Tosca outwit the evil baron Scarpia and save her young lover from death in Puccini's classic tale of lust, torture and vengeance? Let John Crace unravel the high drama
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum
'When Dorothy threw a bucket of water over the Wicked Witch of the West, she wasn't the slightest bit surprised when she evaporated. "The thing with children's allegories," she explained to the others, "is not to question anything."'
Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon
'How I came to hate the war for transforming the Elysian lifestyle of the very rich into communitarian mud and shrapnel!'
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
'Fain would I talk. People only talk when they have nothing to say. Just watch my lips'
Crash by JG Ballard
John Crace ploughs into the still controversial tale of fetishised collisions, so you don't have to. It's been somewhat toned down, believe it or not, but remains highly unsuitable for almost everyone. You have been warned
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
'This is India, a land of sensory and poetic overload, a land teeming with literary prizes for those who can find the right imagery to win them'
Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier
'I can well remember that first night I spent in my garret, a sickly lonely five-year-old who even then had an unhealthy fondness for over-indulgent nostalgia...'
About 113 results for Digested classics 
