Classics Club Spin #6
Here we are, in a spin again with the classics of literature. The Classics Club is holding the sixth Classics Club spin.
The rules are:
- by next Monday, May 12, list any twenty books left to read from our Classics Club list. They could be five Classics Club books you are dreading/hesitant to read, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favorite author, rereads, ancients — whatever you choose.)
- On May 12, the Classics Club hosts will announce a number from 1 through 20.
- The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on our Spin List, by July 7.
I’ve taken a slightly different approach from the one suggested in order to get to my spin list. My version doesn’t involve making any choices! Since my list is in order of publication date, I simply took the first five, the last five and ten from the middle.
Admittedly, there are some here that I might not be thrilled at the prospect of reading but I wouldn’t dread them if they came up. I don’t really understand the point of listing a book that you’re dreading reading – the Classics Club is meant to be fun, not the equivalent of taking medicine.
Here’s my list:
- Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer c1380
- Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe 1719
- Candide – Voltaire 1759
- Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith 1766
- Evelina – Frances Burney 1778
- Washington Square/Daisy Miller – Henry James 1880
- The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner 1883
- The Diary of a Nobody – George Grossmith 1888
- The Invisible Man – H G Wells 1897
- The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers 1903
- Nostromo – Joseph Conrad 1904
- The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf 1915
- Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton 1920
- Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf 1925
- The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf 1927
- Silent Spring – Rachel Carson 1962
- The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov 1967
- Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1985
- The Infinite Plan – Isabel Allende 1991
- Half a Yellow Sun- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006
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You have some good reads on your list, though the thought of Henry James sort of gives me hives. Good luck!
I’ve only read one by him in full – Portrait of a Lady – and found his style hard going. But he is one of the BIG names so thought I should give him another go.
We will be sharing The Silent Spring if no. 16 is spun on Monday 🙂
Good luck
I think you must be the only other person I’ve heard pf that has this book on their list
Interesting list, I haven’t actually read any of them! I hope the spin chooses you a book you’ll enjoy. Good luck!
I have Love in the Time of Cholera on my spin list, too. I would be very pleased if it was picked. While I’m very keen to read Story of an African Farm, it managed to be left out of my spin selections this time. If you get that one, I’ll definitely be interested in your thoughts on it
Of the others on your list, I’ve only read a few. I recently read and enjoyed Candide. I wasn’t expecting it to be so wonderfully (if darkly) funny! The Master and Margarita is a favorite, but it’s quite fantastical, and I seem to recall that isn’t your favorite sort of book. If it is chosen, I hope the other good things (language, character, plotting, historical and satirical elements – all excellent) elevate it for you.
Best of luck with your spin choice!
Thanks for the advice re Master and Margarita, you are right than fantasy isn’t my thing but I kept hearing such good things about the author that I thought I should give him a go
There are a number on there that I would dread turning up but if you haven’t read ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ then I hope that turns up for you. Otherwise I would opt for the Edith Wharton.
I will be reading Half a Yellow Sun whether it comes up on the spin anyway since I am going to be seeing Adichie at the Hay Festival on June 1 so want to be at least a little familiar with her work
Plenty of interesting options there and no, I can’t really see the point of including ‘dread reading’ books either. Though I admit I would dread reading Chaucer…memories of school-day horrors re-surfacing. It’s amazing how school could kill an author stone dead… 😉
I’m thinking if Chaucer doesn’t come up this time then I might put it on the schedule for next April and read it at the time he is supposed to have set the tales
I don’t understand the “can’t WAIT” category either. Obviously, you can wait! I guess it is a metaphor.
That is a fine list, to the extent that I have read it. I believe the Olive Schreiner is a bit older – 1883.
Thanks Tom, you’re right about the date of Schreiner’s book (I just checked it out).Not sure where I got 1927 from…. oh well now that really has mucked up my spin list rationale hasn’t it……