A number of the bloggers I follow are members of The Classics Club. I have actually wanted to join for a while, but found the idea of putting together a list of 50 books to read in 5 years very daunting. On the one hand, there are so many books to read. On the other hand, where to begin?
Feeling like I was missing a party I really wanted to attend, I finally hit on a two-part strategy. The first part of my list came from my existing TBR on Goodreads. That part of the list contains “classic” classics (if that’s a thing) that I just haven’t found time for – a.k.a., I wasn’t assigned – like Eliot’s Middlemarch and Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast.
The second part came from an imprint that I absolutely love, and wanted to explore more thoroughly, NYRB Classics. I love this imprint because of its broad range: history, biography, memoir, mystery, humor, and romance are all represented. Because of the nature of the list, these books are more international in nature, decidedly modern, and maybe a bit more obscure, including titles such as Elizabeth Taylor’s Angel and Nancy Mitford’s Voltaire in Love.
There are no re-reads on my list, which is a bit scary. A majority of the authors are completely new to me as well. But I feel like I will have accomplished something when I finally get through the list. Hopefully, that will be before August 5, 2018!
1. Baker, Dorothy: Cassandra at the Wedding
2. Bengtsson, Frans G.: The Long Ships
3. Borges, Jorge Luis: Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi
4. Braddon, Mary Elizabeth: Lady Audley’s Secret
5. Cather, Willa: Death Comes for the Archbishop
6. Choderlos de Laclos, Pierre: Dangerous Liaisons
7. Collette: The Pure and Impure
8. Collodi, Carlo: Pinocchio
9. De Balzac, Honore: The Unknown Masterpiece
10. De Maupassant, Guy: Alien Hearts
11. Dundy, Elaine: The Dud Avocado
12. Edwards, G.B.: The Book of Ebeneezer Le Page
13. Eliot, George: Middlemarch
14. Eliot, T.S.: Murder in the Cathedral
15. Fearing, Kenneth: The Big Clock
16. Fermor, Patrick Leigh: The Traveller’s Tree: A Journey through the Caribbean Islands
17. Fielding, Henry: Tom Jones
18. Finley, F.I.: The World of Odysseus
19. Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Great Gatsby
20. Gadda, Carlo Emilio: That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana
21. Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
22. Gogol, Nikolay: Dead Souls
23. Grossman, Vasily: An Armenian Sketchbook
24. Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Blithedale Romance
25. Hemingway, Ernest: A Moveable Feast
26. Hughes, Richard: A High Wind in Jamaica
27. Hurston, Zora Neale: Their Eyes Were Watching God
28. Inoue, Yasushi: Tun-Huang
29. Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
30. Jansson, Tove: The True Deceiver
31. Kerouac, Jack: On the Road
32. Malory, Sir Thomas: Le Morte d’Arthur
33. Mitford, Jessica: Hons and Rebels
34. Mitford, Nancy: Voltaire in Love
35. Murakami, Haruki: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
36. Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
37. Pepys, Samuel: Diary of Samuel Pepys
38. Pirandello, Luigi: The Late Mattia Pascal
39. Pym, Barbara: Excellent Women
40. Sabbatini, Rafael: Scaramouche
41. Simenon, Georges: Act of Passion
42. Sorokin, Vladimir: The Queue
43. Taylor, Elizabeth: Angel
44. Twain, Mark: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
45. Van Vechten, Carl: The Tiger in the House
46. Von Arnim, Elizabeth: The Enchanted April
47. Warner, Rex: Men and Gods
48. Wharton, Edith: Ghost Stories
49. White, T.H.: The Once and the Future King
50. Zola, Emile: The Belly of Paris
I'll be tracking my progress on a separate blog page. Right now the 0/50 has me pretty motivated to get moving on some classics!
Good luck! This sounds like a great challenge. Let me know if you highly recommend any of these after reading!
ReplyDeleteYou bet -- considering they're all considered classics, I'm assuming I'll like a good number of them!
DeleteLike you, I have several fellow bloggers who do this challenge (and now, one more!). I have been tempted but not quite enough (yet). I'm too busy reading new books. I do try to read a classic every now and then, though. I read To Kill a Mockingbird the last few weeks. And I downloaded a book by Maxim Gorky (although I can't promise I'll read it soon).
ReplyDeleteYour Murakami and Ishiguro are excellent choices!I don't think I've read any of the others. Good luck with the challenge!
I do think of you as a contemporary lit blogger, but I know you do classics as well. I am looking forward to those two Japanese titles in particular.
DeleteI have a Collette book, too, which I've never read. In fact, there are so many classics I long to bury myself in! Lots of titles on your list are new to me, so thanks for that. As for me, I've changed my list of 50 so many times I feel like I'm somehow cheating! :)
ReplyDeleteWe should find a mutual title on our lists to make into a group read! It would be fun, and I always appreciate your insights into books -- you see things I never see!
DeleteWhat a wonderful idea! I can't wait to hear what classics you love.
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to it too -- I have some ideas about which will be my favorites, but I'm trying to withhold judgment!
DeleteSome of these I adore but others I hated so much I never finished them. Some, of course, I haven't read. I hope you record your thoughts here -- I'm curious which you'll like.
ReplyDeleteI will definitely be reviewing them here -- now I'm dying to know which ones you hated! I am planning to replace books that I absolutely can't finish, since the point of this is FUN :)
DeleteWhat a wonderful and eclectic list. It includes some of my favorites: Barbara Pym, Zola, North & South, Middlemarch, Enchanted April. . . I wish I was reading them for the first time!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Karen! I hope the list has enough variety so that there's something for every mood. I'm a little worried I don't have enough comedy -- but I can always add books if it isn't working.
DeleteEee, so cool! I 'started' this year, but have only done one read so far, which I haven't even reviewed, but...well, I'm trying! Here's my list -- we have a few overlapping reads, if not overlapping authors. Would love to know what you plan to read -- I may try to jump in/read along!
ReplyDeleteI love your list! We overlap on quite a few. We definitely need to read and review one together, and see if anyone else wants to join!
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