My list of Bookish Goals for 2013 included joining The Classics Club and I'm excited to finally have my list together! I'm seriously starting to think I have some sort of addiction to lists though (do you think there's a support group for this kind of thing? No? Well, I suppose there's no true harm in it!) Anyway, this awesome club is (obviously) a community committed to reading and blogging more about the classics. Considering I've only posted about one lonely classic on this blog (that I didn't even like very much!) and yet I keep adding new ones to my collection, I'm way overdue for something like this. The goal is pretty straight-forward: read 50 classics over a 5 year period, so my end date is February 8, 2018. That's quite a lot of time, so don't worry, I will still be reading and reviewing other types of books as well! This is something I've been wanting to do for some time now, but a few excellent reviews like this one about Rebecca from the Insatiable Booksluts has really reminded me just how much I've been missing out on. At first, I was worried this would feel too much like "homework," but unlike in high school, I get to pick the books, so I don't think that will be a problem. Interestingly enough, many of the ones I've chosen for this project are actually considered children's classics, so I'm thinking this should be more than do-able. (See my post of 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before Your Grow Up.)
I doubt I will be able to exceed 50, but my list does have a few extras since my collection is rather large. The Club's guidelines state this can be a "living list" and it's allowed to change over time, so I'm thinking of it as some built-in leeway. I've included my picks for the 2013 Back to the Classics Challenge, so those will likely be the ones I choose to read first. I've also purposely chosen a little bit of everything -- modern classics, older classics, poetry, plays, novellas, and short stories to keep things interesting. So without further ado, THE LIST.
Club Progress:
2. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
3. Emma, by Jane Austen
4. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
5. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury (re-read)
6. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
7. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë
8. The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
9. A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
10. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
11. Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carrol
12. And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie
13. Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie
14. A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
15. This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
16. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
17. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
18. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
19. The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling
20. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
21. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
22. The Rainbow, by D.H. Lawrence
23. The Magician's Nephew, by C.S. Lewis
24. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis (re-read)
25. The Horse and His Boy, by C.S. Lewis
26. Prince Caspian, by C.S. Lewis
27. The Voyage of The Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis
28. The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis
29. The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis
30. Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Márquez
31. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
32. Bel Ami, by Guy de Maupassant
33. Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier
34. The Enchanted Castle, by E. Nesbit
35. Five Children and It, by E. Nesbit
36. The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman
37. The Amber Spyglass, by Phillip Pullman
38. The Subtle Knife, by Phillip Pullman
39. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle
40. The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, by Howard Pyle
41. Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson
42. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
43. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
44. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
45. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
46. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
47. The Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain
48. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
49. The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss
Novellas & Short Story/Poetry/Play Collections
50. Aesop's Fables, by Aesop
51. The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer
52. The Poems of Emily Dickinson, by Emily Dickinson
53. The Adventures & Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
54. The Sign of Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle
55. The Valley of Fear, by Arthur Conan Doyle
56. The Hound of The Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle
57. A Study in Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle
58. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm
59. Selected Stores, O. Henry
59. Selected Stores, O. Henry
60. Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling
61. The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays, by Oscar Wilde
I was an English major, so I read a lot of classics, and I enjoy classics, but what got me was the constant need to nit-pick and over analyze every scene, every character, every line to sound "intelligent." now that I'm out of school, I love reading a classic just to read it and enjoying the story instead of worrying about motif or larger social implications. I highly recommend Jane Eyre - most peole are Austen and Darcy fans, but I would take Bronte and Rochester any day. I also recommend Farenheit 451 and The Chronicles of Narnia - fantastic, make you think reads. Good luck and enjoy!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kristin! And I have to agree about the over-analysis in school -- I think I'll enjoy these books much better now. And thanks for the recommendations. The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe and Fahrenheit 451 are two I actually have read before, but want to re-read for the Club. I never read the rest of the Narnia series, so I think I need a refresher before reading the other books. And 451 was one of the few books I read for school and really enjoyed, so I'd like to revisit that one for the Banned Books Challenge :)
DeleteIt is the quintessential banned book . My students love the irony of a book about censorship being censored.
DeleteWelcome to the club, Christine! I love your list, but that's no coincidence. Most books on your list are either favourite books of mine (e.g., Christie's crimes, F.H. Burnett's and Jane Austen's novels, Pullman's wonderful trilogy) or also on my Classics Club list. So, we seem to have a very similar taste... Hence, I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on the classics on your list.
ReplyDeleteThanks Eszter! I will definitely be checking your list out -- so excited to have found this new community :)
DeleteExcellent list!! I agree on Jane Eyre. That was my first classic. It made me want to read MORE. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Mabel! That is one I'm very much looking forward to :)
DeleteGreat list! I hope you enjoy the club.
ReplyDeleteThanks Arie!
DeleteWelcome to the group, Christine. Looks like we share a couple of titles. I'm like you in that my list is quite elastic and ever-growing even though my official goal is 50 books in 5 years.
ReplyDeleteI love that you have a short works section. I have the same. Thanks to a short stories challenge I found last year, I now have a Short Works Reading Challenge in full swing. Some of the titles are also on my Classic Club list.
I need to highlight the banned books on my list and make a note to participate in your Banned Books challenge.
My Classics Club reading list.
My Short Works Reading Challenge.
Oh, Nina Sankovitch (Tolstoy and the Purple Chair) recommended the short stories by Katherine Mansfield. I'm going to check those out.
Good luck.
Thanks Vikk -- I'm really looking forward to finally reading all these great books. The more I looked over my shelves and thought about which books I really wanted to read, the more I realized I really had to include some of those collections. It will be nice to have some choices that I can read a bit at a time if I feel like it. Good luck with your list too!
DeleteIt seems like you have put together a great list to ease yourself in to more classics. There are many books on your list that I have read, and loved, myself, but there are also a bunch that I too hope to get round to some day. I wish you luck with meeting your list, I'll definitely be keeping up with your progress! Haha.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I'm a list person too. You can never have too many lists :-)
Thanks Jade -- I love when I hear about everyone else's favorite classics & am looking forward to figuring which ones I like best too. Unfortunately I read so few for school, but I've got plenty of time to remedy that :)
DeleteI want to read Narnia books, too. Coming from non-English language society, I knew nothing of this kind of popular Western children's literature when I was small. Shame, but then again, I read many other books :)
ReplyDeleteProps for taking on poetry, plays and shorter stuff! I keep away from poetry... generally because I think I don't understand it. But one should sometimes push oneself to learn new things, right.
And I'm sure there are books you've read that I missed out on as a kid!
DeletePoetry is not the easiest, but between studying some of Emily Dickinson's work in school and attending an event at a local Botanical Garden that incorporated her poetry a few years ago, I felt like hers at least was starting to make more sense to me. I still think it will be quite a project to make it through all of her poems though. I am trying to push myself a bit, so we'll see how it goes!
Good luck with the list, we have about half in common! And I am so bummed, I had put thought of Princess Bride yesterday but forgot to add it in...maybe i can sneak it as #51. I love all the children's and mystery classics you have, Those are the ones I am most looking forward to from my list as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tanya! And the good thing about the Classics Club is that you're allowed to change your list. I'm sure I'll end up making a few adjustments myself :) Looking forward to checking out your list!
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