Sunday, April 15, 2012

The Classics Club



Jillian at A Room of One's Own has recently created The Classics Club. I love reading classics and plan to read 50 over the next 5 years. The list below is a starting point and will probably evolve over the next few years. I hope to read the following books between April 15, 2012 and April 15, 2017:

  1. Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice (reread)
  2. Austen, Jane  - Emma
  3. Braddon, Mary Elizabeth - Lady Audley's Secret
  4. Bronte, Anne - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
  5. Brookner, Anita - Hotel du Lac
  6. Buck, Pearl S. - Imperial Woman
  7. Capote, Truman - Breakfast at Tiffany's
  8. Cather, Willa - A Lost Lady
  9. Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
  10. Christie, Agatha - And Then There Were None
  11. Christie, Agatha - Murder on the Orient Express
  12. Colette - Gigi
  13. Collins, Wilkie - No Name
  14. Dickens, Charles - David Copperfield
  15. Dostoevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment (Pevear and Volokhonsky translation)
  16. Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
  17. DuMaurier, Daphne - My Cousin Rachel
  18. Faulkner, William - A Light in August
  19. Fitzgerald, F. Scott - Tender is the Night (reread)
  20. Forster, E.M. - Howards End (reread)
  21. Gaskell, Elizabeth - Cranford
  22. Gaskell, Elizabeth - North and South
  23. Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the D'Urbervilles
  24. Hemingway, Ernest - The Old Man and the Sea (reread)
  25. Hemingway, Ernest - The Sun Also Rises
  26. James, Henry - Washington Square
  27. Mitford, Nancy - The Pursuit of Love
  28. Morrison, Toni - Sula
  29. Oates, Joyce Carol - Them
  30. O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find (stories)
  31. Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
  32. Powell, Anthony - A Dance to the Music of Time (four movements)
  33. Pym, Barbara - Some Tame Gazelle
  34. Richardson, Samuel - Clarissa (year long group read, in progress)
  35. Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
  36. Stegner, Wallace - Crossing to Safety (reread)
  37. Steinbeck, John - The Pearl (reread)
  38. Steinbeck, John - The Winter of Our Discontent (reread)
  39. Tan, Amy - The Joy Luck Club
  40. Tanizaki, Junichiro - The Makioka Sisters
  41. Taylor, Elizabeth - A Game of Hide and Seek
  42. Updike, John - Rabbit, Run
  43. Welty, Eudora - Delta Wedding
  44. Wharton, Edith - The Age of Innocence
  45. Wharton, Edith - The Bunner Sisters
  46. Whipple, Dorothy - They Were Sisters
  47. Whipple, Dorothy - The Priory
  48. Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
  49. Woolf, Virginia - A Room of Ones Own
  50. Zola, Emile - The Belly of Paris

A Personal Bonus Challenge will be to finish the following books in progress... realizing I will probably need to start over.

Eliot, Georg - Middlemarch
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
Maugham, W. Somerset - Of Human Bondage
Thackery, William Makepiece - Vanity Fair
Trollope, Anthony - The Way We Live Now

My reward for completing the above list will be a 'literary pilgrimage'.  It may be a day trip to Edith Wharton's The Mount, but I'm really hoping to plan a trip to England with a literary focus.

Track my progress by clicking on the "Classics Club" tab at the top of this blog.

39 comments:

  1. Welcome to the dark side. ;)

    Fantastic list! Many of these are on my list, or already favourites.

    I like your idea of rewarding yourself with a literary pilgrimage. I might have to do the same!

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    1. Diana - This is going to be an adventure! The literary pilgrimage will provide a lot of motivation, too.

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  2. You should reward yourself with both:) Maybe do The Mount as a reward at the half-way mark and England when you cross the finish line. This is a very exciting 'journey'... happy reading!

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    1. Stacy - A brilliant idea! The Mount is a day trip for me, so maybe it should be my first reward - say after 10 or 15 books. After that the rewards could get larger, or farther away.

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  3. Oh, but we can't wait five years to meet up at The Mount! :)

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    1. Audrey - See Stacy's comment above. I love the idea of incremental rewards. The Mount will be first, since it's the closest.... maybe on a Saturday or Sunday in the fall when the leaves are changing? We can plan a blogger meeting!

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  4. I like Stacy's idea. Stagger those rewards as you read through. I really want to visit The Mount too so I am all for pushing that reward forward in the project timeline.

    Like the list and am reminded of the diversity of what we now think of as classics. Glad to see your Woolf and O'Connor inclusions here - personal favorites.

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    1. Frances - I love Stacy's idea! I think The Mount should be a 10 or 15 book reward... maybe a blogger meet-up for the fall or next spring? The diversity of the lists is fascinating and I know mine will evolve, too.

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  5. A literary trip to England is my dream! Good luck with the challenge. I think you've paced it out well and you have some great books on your list!

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    1. Reviewsbylola - I had a wonderful literary day in Bath in 2008 and have been wanting to plan a whole trip like that ever since. Now I have five years to read and save ;-)

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  6. The prize = a trip to England - will be more than worth all that serious reading! Good luck with it!

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    1. Thanks, Harvee. I sure hope the trip idea works out.

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  7. Yay! So excited to see more people jump on the classic nerds bandwagon! Fantastic list.

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    1. Christina - Thank you. Should have my first book finished tonight :-)

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  8. This sounds like such a great challenge. I'm not going to join since I'm sure I'll fail! :-) I really enjoyed Joy Luck Club and hope you do too whenever you get to it.

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    1. Vasilly - I've read several Amy Tan novels, but not The Joy Luck Club... and that's the most famous! My daughter read it last summer and loved it, so I've got her copy here ready to go.

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  9. A literary vacation sounds like the perfect incentive!

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    1. Softdrink - That's the best incentive for me!

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  10. Welcome to the "club". I loved "The Way We Live Now"...think about our recent financial collapse when you read it. Many of your books are also on my challenge list or are books I've already read. I like the idea of a literary tour of England. Go for it!

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    1. Donna - Thanks! I was reading The Way We Live Now with a group, fell behind, then never picked it up again. I was really liking it, too, so it shouldn't take too much effort to get back to it.

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  11. I really really want to do this but I just don't seem to have the brainpower to make my own list. Maybe I just need to take everyone's #1 choice and create 50 that way? ;)

    Middlemarch. A tough one!! And I've been wanting to read Vanity Fair for a while!

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    1. Trish - That's one way to make a list ;-) Middlemarch was a slog for me... it may take some work to get back to that one!

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  12. I love the literary pilgrimage as a prize!! Great list and very best wishes for your reading, Jo Ann! I'm glad you joined. :-D

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    1. Thanks for hosting, JIllian. This is going to be fun!

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  13. Wow! Your list has a wonderful variety of titles. I, too, am looking forward to reading North and South. I absolutely love your idea of a literary pilgramage...that would be fun and inspiring! Happy Reading ~
    Beth :-)

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    1. Beth - I've read a few of Gaskell's short stories, but none of her novels. North and South will be one of the first titles I tackle. This is going to be a great project!

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  14. Love the list you put together and I think this a great endeavor!

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    1. Staci - We'll see how it goes, but I'm glad the list can change as I go along.

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  16. Can I come to England with you? We could visit Oxford and Westminster Abbey and The Tower and Stratford-upon-Avon and . . . . I think you have a lovely list: David Copperfield is my favorite Dickens.

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    1. Sherry - Sure! The more the merrier! I'm looking forward to David Copperfield. Dickens seems to work best for me in the fall/winter, so it'll be a while before I get to it.

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  17. I sure like your 'reward' idea!!!

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    1. Nan - I figure I've got five years to plan and save... fingers crossed.

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  18. Great list! Quite a few in there I have been wanting to read too, especially Trollope, James, and more Hardy and Collins. By the way, I am in the middle of No Name at the moment, and I can tell you that you are definitely in for a treat!
    Love the rewards scheme too, hahaha. All the best in 'claiming' your rewards! ;)

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    1. Michelle - I'm so glad to hear you're enjoying No Name! I loved both The Moonstone and The Woman in White, so look forward to more Collins... possibly this fall.

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  19. Great list JoAnn. There are some books on your list that I'd love to add to my list. This is a challenge that will be very enjoyable. I'm looking forward to following your progress.

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    1. Margot - It was the ability to let my list evolve over the next 5 years than really enticed me into joining The Classics Club. Otherwise, I would most certainly fail. Who knows which classics I'll feel like reading a few years from now?

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  20. Great list that includes some of my favorite books but you couldn't pay me to reread Forster.

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    1. Beth F - Not a Forster fan, eh? I loved Howards End and Room with A View, but was barely lukewarm with his 'masterpiece' A Passage to India.

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