Classics Club is in a spin
Classics Club is taking its members for a spin. Not the kind of spin which involves dressing in jazzy lycra and sporting super-toned calf muscles. Classics Club’s kind of spin is one you’ll know if you’re a Las Vegas type of person and like a spot at the roulette table. It’s all a question of numbers.
What we’re challenged to do is pick a list of 20 books from our Classics Club reading list, and number them. On Monday, with a spin of their virtual roulette wheel, the team at Classics Club will reveal a winning number and we all have to read the matching book from our list by end of March. Since we’re supposed to include on our lists at least five books that we know we really should read, but have been putting off for a while, this is not a challenge for the faint hearted.
So here goes with my list:
- Canterbury Tales
- Pamela (ugh)
- Wives and Daughters
- Dr Thorne
- Anna Karenina
- Daisy Miller/Washington Square (oh no, not James please!)
- Things Fall Apart (please, please pick me!)
- Love in the Time of Cholera
- Age of Innocence
- Robinson Crusoe (Mr BookerTalk had better be right about this one)
- Grapes of Wrath (if I must)
- The Pursuit Of Love
- Mrs Dalloway
- Farewell to Arms
- Silent Spring (need a bit of non fiction)
- Castle of Otranto
- Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
- The Infinite Plan
- A Parisian Affair and other stories
- Old Gariot
So now the die is cast – bring it on!
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Don’t fear Steinbeck! Cannery Row is not half as good as Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden. Both are so totally amazing! He was a fantastic writer. And as I remember Robinson Crusoe from my childhood, it was a good read too (although I probably read an abridged version…).
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Some great stuff on your list!! I, too was terrified of Steinbeck until I read Travels with Charley, which I loved. Then I read Grapes of Wrath and I realized I love Steinbeck (well, a lot of Steinbeck. Not so much Of Mice and Men, and The Pearl, which was just too sad.)
But not all those books are depressing!! Wives & Daughters is just delightful, and I LOVED Dr. Thorne, one of my favorites by Trollope so far. Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is also wonderful.
I can’t remember the last time I looked forward to a Monday!! And I just remembered I have the day off — I hope they post the number early so I can start reading it!
That’s reassuring about Steinbeck Karen. I think it was Cannery Row I tried reading but found it rather depressing. Dropped into Monteray while on holiday many years ago and found that Row is now jammed with tourist type shops selling overpriced sweets and gifts. Steinbeck would probably have cringed at the effect his book had.
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I was going to post my list last night, but I already have lined up my classics list for March and April. I wouldn’t want to disrupt that. Have fun!
Go on Angus live dangerously. I had my reading planned also but thought what the heck I can read them another time. Go spin that wheel
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There you go. You made me change my mind. 🙂
Your list almost wants me to join just to share a book with you. Great list. I wouldn’t want to reread Grapes of Wrath either. But James? I love — or maybe loved James. Years ago I read almost everything by him and a very long biography about him. I’m not sure I want to go back there though.
Well I confess I have only read one Henry James – Portrait of a Lady – which made me want to scream often because it was so darn slow. But a fellow Open University student kept telling me that some of his other books were great so I thought I should give him another chance. Steinbeck though is not one I relish the prospect of….
I considered doing this too but in the end thought better of it. I read by mood which wouldn’t work well with this idea. Could be interesting though, so good luck 😛
Hi Jessica. I always used to read whatever appealed at the moment – and then I started a blog and got wrapped up in all the discussions and challenges and before I knew what was happening I was making lists of books to read. I have little self discipline though and do keep going off the plan according to what I feel like at the time.