The Classics Club Spin is making another appearance and I’m using this to give me a nudge towards finishing this project.
I have only 3 books left to read towards the target of 50. Which sounds as if I’ve done a great job with this challenge but in reality I am way behind. The intention was to read 50 classics in 5 years, a timescale that went completely out of the window for me. No member of the Classics Club police force came knocking on my door however so I suppose my crime wasn’t that heinous.
Nevertheless I’d like to finish this soon. Then I can start again but with a new list…
If this is the first time you’ve heard of this, the idea is to create a list of any twenty books remaining from your Classics Club list, numbering them 1-20. On Sunday 22nd December the Classics Club will announce a number. This is the book I will need to read by 31st January.
When I put my original list together I included more than 50 titles to give me flexibility in case I didn’t like some of my chosen titles. Even so I don’t have 20 titles left unread so I’m having to be creative. Numbers 16-20 are new additions.
- The Black Sheep — Honore Balzac 1842
- Basil— Wilkie Collins 1852
- Framley Parsonage — Anthony Trollope 1861
- New Grub Street— George Gissing 1891
- O pioneers — Willa Cather 1913
- Gone to Earth — Mary Webb 1917
- Age of Innocence — Edith Wharton 1920
- The Last September — Elizabeth Bowen 1929
- Frost in May — Antonia White 1933
- Old Soldiers Never Die— Frank Richards 1933
- Turf or Stone — Margiad Evans 1934
- The Grapes of Wrath — John Steinbeck 1939
- Never No More— Maura Laverty 1942
- The Quiet American — Graham Greene 1955
- Alone in Berlin — Hans Fallada 1947
- To the Lighthouse — Virginia Woolf 1927
- No Name — Wilkie Collins 1862
- The Lifted Veil — George Eliot 1859
- The Fall – Albert Camus 1953
- Anna of The Five Towns – Arnold Bennett 1902
I’m rather hoping for The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope or Turf or Stone by the Welsh author Margiad Evans , a dark novel about an abusive marriage. I’ve never read anything by her previously but she features in the Library of Wales collection of Welsh ‘classics.’
Keep your fingers crossed for me ..