Saturday, April 28, 2012

The Classics Club Challenge


Jillian is hosting a great book challenge : to read 50 classics within the next five years.  Since I try to get in a good dose of classics, ten per year sounds like a reachable goal.  Here are the books that I plan to read.  I own most of these (either on my book shelf or on my Kindle) so I like it that I'm attacking my TBR stacks. Some of the titles are obscure books by famous authors. Others are newer classics (Wendell Berry and Elizabeth Goudge).  A few are Christian classics.





The books I'm hoping to read are:

1. 1984 - Orwell 6/8/13 ****
2. Adam Bede - George Eliot 9/12/13 ****  
3.  Adventures of Huck Finn – Twain 8/4/14 ****
4. Adventures of Ulysses - Charles Lamb 5/12/14 *****
41. Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton 9/28/16 ***
5. Black Beauty - Sewell 2/15/13 ***
6. Cranford - Gaskell 6/22/16 ****
7. The Claverings - Trollope 5/6/13 ***
8. Cy Whittaker’s Place – J. C. Lincoln 7/7/13 ****
9. Cyrano de Bergerac – Edmond Rostand (re-read) 5/29/12 *****
10.  A Daughter of the Land – Gene Stratton Porter (switched to The Harvester  by same author)11/14/12 **
11. David Copperfield - Dickens 3/27/14 ****
12. Daniel Deronda – George Eliot 7/2/12 ***
13. Don Quixote – Cervantes 6/20/12 (read 328 pages, DNF) *
14.  Emma - Austen 6/7/13 ****
15. The Elusive Pimpernel – Orczy 12/22/16 **
16. Eugenics and other Evils – G. K. Chesterton 1/15/17 ***
17. Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald 5/12/16 ***
18. Gulliver's Travels - Swift 10/1/12 ** (DNF, listened to 5 of 9 hours)
19. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain  8/4/14 ****
20. Heart of the Family – Goudge (re-read)
2    21. The History of Mr. Polly by H.G. Wells 8/3/12 **
22. The Hobbit - Tolkien  12/5/12 *****
23.  Island Magic – Elizabeth Goudge 10/2/13 *****
24. Jane Eyre  - Charlotte Bronte (re-read) 3/8/17 *****
25. Jayber Crow – Wendell Berry 8/12/13 ****
26. Life Together – Bonhoeffer (re-read) 11/20/12 ****
27. Mansfield Park – Austen (re-read) 5/14/12 *****
28. Moby Dick - Melville 3/28/13 *****
29. Moonstone - Wilkie Collins 1/18/12
30. Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare 8/18/14 **
31. North and South by Gaskell 5/21/16 ****
32.   Our Mutual Friend - 1/29/15 *****
33. Paradise Lost - John Milton - 4/21/15 *****
34. Pilgrim’s Inn – Goudge (re-read)
35. Pilgrim’s Progress – Bunyan (re-read) 4/22/16 ****
36. Pinocchio by Collodi - 4/15/15 * 
37. A Pair of Blue Eyes – Hardy 3/29/13 **
38. Return of the King – Tolkien 11/25/12 *****
39. Room with a View - E.M. Forster 9/13/12 ***
40. Ruth – Elizabeth Gaskell 5/9/13 **
42. Mill on the Floss – George Eliot 1/21/17 ***
43. Story of the Odyssey - Alfred J. Church 5/12/14 ****
44. Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë 10/12/13 ****
45. Tess of the Durbervilles - Thomas Hardy 5/28/14 ***
46. Two Gentleman of Verona by Shakespeare 4/20/14 **
47. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee 10/20/16 *****
48. Treasure Island by R.L.Stevenson 4/10/14 ****
49. Two Years Before the Mast - Dana 10/10/12 DNF**
50. Wind in the Willows (re-read) 10/3/12 *****

Alternate titles: Bleak House or Dombey and Son - Dickens, Godliness by Booth, East of Eden, Anna Karenina, Island of the World, The Trees by Conrad Richter, Man in the Iron Mask, House of Seven Gables, Picture of Dorian Gray, Scarlet Letter, Shakespeare...


7 comments:

Sherry said...

What a lovely list! I particularly recommend the two by Wendell Berry and The Three Musketeers. Very different books and authors, but both worthwhile and memorable.

*ೃ༄ Jillian said...

Hi, and welcome to the club. I love your title selections and will be reading your posts on these works. :)

Ruth @ with freedom and books said...

Hi, Hope,
You had left a note on my blog, and I was wondering if you put together a list, too. You did!
Best of luck to you, too!
Ruth at http://greatbookstudy.blogspot.com

jessicabookworm said...

What a really exciting mixture of books you have on this list?! Lots I have heard of and lots I haven't. Look forward to hearing your thoughts on them :-)

melainebooks said...

Cyrano is such a wonderful book !!!! If you have the opportunity, let's have a look to the movie with Gérard Depardieu. He was asthonising !
Anna Karenine is also a book I'd like to read :)
It's a very lovely list you have. Enjoy your bokks and let's keep in touch !!
Melainebooks

m said...

Hi Hope, I read your list and many of them are new to me, looking forward for your review. The funny thing is I also read Mansfield Park as first book in this challenge

*ೃ༄ Jillian said...

Wow, you're making excellent progress! :)