The Classics Club

I began the Classics Club a few years ago, but then took a break. I'm ready to restart it!

 Here are the basic rules of The Classics Club:

choose 50+ classics
I have chosen 55 with the expectation that some will be terrible and I won't want to read them. I'm shooting for a goal of 50.  I have chosen some that I have always intended to read, or feel like I should read.  I've chosen others that I've read in the past and would like to read again to see if I have a better understanding, or just for the pure enjoyment of revisiting an old friend.

list them at your blog
Tada! (see below)

choose a reading completion goal date up to five years in the future and note that date on your classics list of 50+ titles
My orginal goal was to have read my 50 by 6 July 2018. My new goal is June 2021 (Holy Cow!) The Classics Club stresses that this is a "living list/goal" and as such it the list can grow, the goal date can be extended. . . the point is to read and grow with the classics.  That being the case, I reserve the right to add to or subtract from my list.

write about each title on your list as you finish reading it, and link it to your main list
The point of this is not to write reviews, but to initiate discussion by writing about "your reading thoughts".


Here is my list; note that I completed some a few years ago and have reposted my discussion on this blog.

1. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie (read my discussion here)
2. Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake
3. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (read my discussion here)
4.  The Professor by Charlotte Bronte (re-read)
5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (re-read)
6. The Thirty-Nine Steps by James Buchan (read my discussion here)
7.  The Shuttle by Francis Hodgson Burnette
8. "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Truman Capote (re-read) (my discussion)
9. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel deFoe
10. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
11. The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot (re-read)
12.  A Passage to India by E.M. Forester
13. Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
14.  Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
15. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
16.  Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
17. Mayor of Castlebridge by Thomas Hardy
18. Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (re-read)
19. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (re-read)
20.   The Golden Bowl by Henry James
21. What Maisie Knew by Henry James
22. Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
23. Lilith by George MacDonald (re-read)
24. Phantasties by George MacDonald (re-read)
25. The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
26. The Garden Party and other stories by Katherine Mansfield
27. Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle  by Vladimir Nabokov
28. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
29. Translucent Things by Vladimir Nabokov (re-read)
30. 1984 by George Orwell (read my discussion here)
31. Animal Farm by George Orwell
32. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (read my discussion here)
33.  Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (read my discussion here)
34.  Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
35. The Heir by Vita Sackville-West
36. Seducers in Ecuador by Vita Sackville-West
37. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (re-read) (my discussion)
38. Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger (re-read)
39. Nine Stories by JD Salinger 
40. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction  by JD Salinger
41. Henry IV by Shakespeare (re-read)
42. Henry V by Shakespeare (re-read)
43.  King Lear by Shakespeare (re-read)
44. Life and Death of Harriet Frean by May Sinclair (read my discussion here)
45. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (my discussion)
46. Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale (re-read) (read my discussion here)
47. Love Poems by Sara Teasdale
48. The Warden by Anthony Trollope
49. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (re-read)
50. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (read my discussion here)
51.  The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (read my discussion here)
52.  The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
53. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
54.  To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (re-read) (my discussion)
55. The Waves by Virginia Woolf (re-read)
56. The Years by Virginia Woolf (re-read)