I’ve been quietly following The Classics Club blog for some time now wishing I could join but scared of making the commitment. As per the rules, I need to commit to a minimum of 50 classic books in 5 years!!! I am unable to plan for the next 5 days properly, how on earth can I make a commitment for 5 years?
Then I went over my list of books I have read this past year, and then I read the list of books on The Classics Club page and realized…hey, I am already reading these. How hard is it to actually publish the list of books you anyway plan to read.
So, here we go…here is my very ambitious list of 50 classic books that I plan to read from now till 2017.
What do you think of the list? Do you have any suggestions on books that I can add to the list? Have you read the books on this list? Any thoughts/comments on these?
And if I am inspiring you to join up the Classics Club, please do let me know…it would be great to embark on this reading journey together 🙂
- Adams, Richard: Watership Down
- Alcott, Louisa May: Jo’s Boys
- Alcott, Louisa May: Little Men
- Angelou, Maya: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- Atwood, Margaret: A Handmaid’s Tale
- Austen, Jane: Sandition
- Austen, Jane: The Watsons
- Barrie, J.M.: Peter Pan
- Beckett, Samuel: Waiting for Godot
- Bennett, Alan: The Uncommon Reader
- Bradbury, Ray: The Martian Chronicles
- Braddon, Mary Elizabeth: Lady Audley’s Secret
- Bronte, Anne: Agnes Grey
- Bronte, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
- Bronté Charlotte: Villette
- Bulgakov, Mikhail: The Master and Margarita
- Burnett, Frances Hodgson: A Little Princess
- Camus, Albert: Stranger
- Cather, Willa: Death Comes for the Archbishop
- Cather, Willa: My Antonia
- Dante: The Divine Comedy
- De Saint-Exupery, Antonie: The Little Prince
- deCervantes, Miguel: Don Quixote
- Dickens, Charles: The Pickwick Papers
- Douglass, Frederick: A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Dumas, Alexandre: The Vicomte de Bragelonne
- Ellison, Ralph: The Invisible Man
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Beautiful and Damned
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott: This Side of Paradise
- Flaubert, Gustav: Madame Bovary
- Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the D’urbervilles
- Hemingway, Ernest: Death in the Afternoon
- Hemingway, Ernest: Islands in the Stream
- Hemingway, Ernest: To Have and to Have Not
- Hesse, Hermann: Siddhartha
- Ibsen, Henrick: Doll’s House
- Irving, Washington: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
- James, Henry: The Portrait of a Lady
- James, Henry: Washington Square
- Juster, Norton: The Phantom Tollbooth
- Kipling, Rudyard: Captains Courageous
- le Carré, John: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
- le Carré, John: The Spy who came in from the cold
- Marquez, Gabriel Garcia: One Hundred Years of Solitude
- Morrison, Toni: Beloved
- Morrison, Toni: The Bluest Eye
- Naipaul, V.S: A House for Mr. Biswas
- Rhys, Jean: Wide Sargasso Sea
- Wharton, Edith: The Age of Innocence
- Wharton, Edith: The House of Mirth
I hope that by 2017, all the books in the above list have turned to links to my reviews 😀
omigosh, thank you so much for bringing this to my attention! I am IN! In like Flynn! (whoever Flynn is…)
It’s funny, I seem to have read quite a few in the first half of the alphabet and very few in the second half… Good luck with your challenge 🙂
@disqus_mUBrEiIQ5D:disqus thanks. Right now, the challenge is slumbering quite a bit. Have gotten pretty distracted with the new and shiny books coming my way. Hoping to get back into classics sometime next month. Let’s see 🙂
I have read 13 of the 50 books listed by you, many more are in my TBR, though I doubt I would read the unfinished Austen novels (having read the 6 novels and Lady Susan).
@piyushchourasia:disqus I haven’t been very motivated to read the Classics of late though. It’s funny I read so many classics when I hadn’t planned to. But now, that I have made a plan, announced it on my blog, and put up a book list, I just can’t seem to get through it 🙁
Do let me know, if you would like to do them in a group read format, going through a classic from your list once every 2 months, I should be able to fit it in my reading schedule.
I can’t commit to more challenges but I decided I’d start a personal perpetual challenge starting this 2014 to read a classic per year. That’ll probably result to reading only a few haha.
You have inspired me to give a thought on it. 🙂
Also, I’ve read Jo’s Boys and Little Men, both great books. Ibsen’s Doll’s House is one of those works which I’m not sure how I feel about.
And One Hundred Years of Solitude is a book that everyone should read or attempt to read. It is a book for life.
@Udita: Good to know that Jo’s Boys and Little Men turned out good for you. I was concerned they might be a little preachy.
This sounds fun, I may jump in come 2014!
@Udita: Do, do. It’s quite an easy going group, and you can pace yourself the way you want to. That may not always be a good thing as this year my classic reading has really slumped >.<
I agree that its crucial for a beginner participant to have a fundamentally sound grip and that the grip can be a beneficial beginning point in understanding the swing.
Whats up with your header spanning the navigation menus? Shouldnt it be on the top bar?
@vatsalya: That’s the theme look. All twenty twelve themes look like this if a header image is used.
seo ???%3
your list is awesome man…! really simply great,i am waiting to read your next review
Really interesting list 🙂 We have a few titles the same. This year I’ve read Wide Sargasso Sea and Little Women, and I really liked both. Happy reading!
@jessicabookworm: Really? I need to come over and look at your list. I’ve read Little Women and Good Wives, but want to finish the rest of the books in the series. I am dying to read Wide Sargasso Sea, just holding off until I finish reading my current crop of books, which somehow are not so interesting, seeing the state of mind I am in right now 🙁
I like your list! We’ve got many titles in common. I’d love to read your reviews 🙂
This is a great list! I’m excited to see Anne Bronte and a couple Alcotts up there! Welcome to the club. 😀
I am very much tempted to follow you…Let me think about it 🙂
@Elizabeth: Oh, do join me. I am really looking for company 🙂
Good Luck with your project 🙂
I just read Watership Down last month and it was such a ride!
The Handmaid’s Tale is the freak-est ever! In a very good reading way 😉
Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead is such a great book! It’s so hilarious, especially if you’re a fan of Hamlet.
i think u have to include works of authors like milan kundera
and gabriel garcia marquez
@muneer: I have included One Hundred Years of Solitude by GGM and plan to read it in the near future. I have read couple of other books by him – Love in the time of Cholera (which I didn’t much care for), and Chronicle of a Death Foretold (which I loved).
You are right about Milan Kundera, I didn’t really think of him. What books by him do you suggest?