A little while ago I noticed something called The Classic Club Spin at JonAnn's over at Lakeside Musing. The rules for that were pretty simple - make a list of 20 books and then a random number is posted and that's the book you read. I couldn't resist the concept and decided to play along. After a little poking around I discovered The Classics Club rules and decided I wanted to join. The rules are simple - make a list of 50 or more classics and read them in up to 5 years. I'm playing it a little safe by not putting any huge chunks on the list but I'm telling myself that it's just realistic because time-wise I'm not going to sit down and read an 800 page books. Some of these are rereads but since it's been 20 years or so since I've read any of them I don't think that counts! So here is my loosely categorized 50:
Completion Date: August 21, 2019
Children's
1. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
2. Eight Cousins - Louisa May Alcott
3. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
5. Back of the North Wind - George MacDonald
6. Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum
7. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
8. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
9. The Borrowers - Mary Norton
10. The Westing Game - Ellen Raskin
11. The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling
12. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Graham
13. Mary Poppins Comes Back by P.L. Travers
14. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
15. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
16. Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
17. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
18.The Cuckoo Clock by Mrs. Molesworth
19. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Classic Mysteries:
20. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
21. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
22. Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers
23. A Coffin for Dimitrious by Eric Ambler
24. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
25. Arthur and George by Julian Barnes
26. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
27. Beast in View by Margaret Millar
28. Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer
29. The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Other:
30. The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde
31. Animal Farm by George Orwell
32. Tell Tale Heart and Other Writingss by Edgar Allen Poe
33. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolf
34. Villette by Charlotte Bronte
35. Frenchmen's Creek by Daphne du Maurier
36. Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
37. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
38. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
39. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
40. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
41. Thornyhold by Mary Stewart
42. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
43. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
44. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
45. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
46. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
47. Princess Bride by William Goldman
48. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
49. The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
50. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
I'll be starting #43 soon because Great Expectations was #17 for my Spin List.
So many great books on your list, and I like the way you've broken it down! Mysteries always appeal to me in the fall - 21 is excellent and both 22 and 28 are loaded on my kindle. Hope you enjoy Great Expectations!
ReplyDeleteI'm really looking forward to the mysteries! I've read Whose Body but it was a long time ago and I don't remember much about it. I'd liked to read more Sayers than I have.
DeleteLove that you have Mary Roberts Rinehart on there, I adore her books.
ReplyDeleteI have read a few of hers but it has been a long time. I'm looking forward to trying her books again!
DeleteKatherine are some of these re-reads for you or are they all first time reads? I have read twenty-five of them, and some are soooo good.
ReplyDeleteThere's a mix. Quite a few are re-reads but are books I read a really long time ago. I figure my adult self will have a very different perspective than my high school self!
DeleteI started with The Classics Club a year or two ago, and it's been a great motivator overall. I've fallen off the wagon a bit this year, but I'll get back on. Good luck with your choices! They look fabulous!
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping it'll be a motivator for me as well. There's so many books I haven't read but they seem to get lost against all the review books.
DeleteOh, nice choices, and we share a few of the same! You reminded me of MR Rinheart, The Circular Staircase, which I read way back and Frenchman's Creek, which I wanted to read someday but forgot to put on my list. Enjoy these, and remember, Great Expectations is a very good read (I know you were ambivalent about getting it).
ReplyDeleteI am a little scared of it because I hated it so much when I read it the first time. However, that 14 year old and I don't have all that much in common - or at least that's what I keep telling myself! I'm looking forward to a lot of these but especially The Circular Staircase and Frenchman's Creek. I read The Birds by du Maurier earlier this year and LOVED it!
DeleteGood luck! I thought about doing this but I have enough on my plate. I've read some of these titles but there are many I haven't and I do want to, some day.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm sure I need all the luck I can get. I cheated a little and didn't put any massive books on my list because I know with all the other books I have to read they'd never get read if I did. I'm hoping this will be a good way to get some of the short reads I've been missing out of the way.
DeleteWhat a wonderful list! So glad you included The Borrowers, one of my all time favorites from when I was young!
ReplyDeleteOh good! I've heard of it but for whatever reason never read it. I'm looking forward to it!
DeleteWhat a great list of the classics!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm just hoping I'll be able to get to them all!
DeleteThis is a pretty cool concept. Although I am not a classic reader and there's no way I will read 50 of them even in 5 years it makes me want to participate. :)
ReplyDeleteI'll definitely have an eye on your progress. Lol. Good luck!
Happy reading!
Brittany @ This is the Story of My(Reading) Life
Thanks! I'll need all the luck I can get. I'm not much of a classics reader on my own so I was hoping this might inspire me to fill in some of the books I missed. I did kind of go the easy route. If you notice there's no chunksters on my list!
DeleteI've read many among those, you're in for a great fun discovery ! I didn't know Arthur and George by Barnes was a mystery. I like the way you organized your list :)
ReplyDeleteI've read some but it was a LONG time ago so I'm sure my perspective will be completely different. I came across Arthur and George on a classics mystery list and it intrigued me. Other than that I don't know much about it! I'm looking forward to getting to work on this list!
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