Reviving the Classic Club project – Spin #18

The Classic Club is entering a new era with a changing of the guard (in other words we have a new set of moderators). They’re fired up with bags of enthusiasm and some of that has clearly rubbed off on me because it’s prompted me to revisit my Classics Club list.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Classics Club the idea is that we list 50 classics that we’d like to read over the course of 5 years. The definition of ‘classic’ is very fluid so there’s no compunction to be reading Tristram Shandy if it doesn’t appeal.

I put my list together in August 2012 and made good progress for the first few years. But I’ve neglected it for the last twelve months. I read only two from the list last year and so far it’s just been one – The Ladies Paradise by Emile Zola  So naturally I didn’t make the “deadline’ of completing 50 by the end August 2017. I still have 14 titles to go. But really it doesn’t matter. It’s a self imposed deadline and I can’t imagine any of the club moderators are going to throw me out as punishment.

To coincide with the ‘relaunch’ of the club, we get to play in the Classics lub spin where the idea is to choose 20 titles from our Classics Club, number then in sequence starting with 1. On August 1, 2018  the wheel will turn and reveal the winning number. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List, by 31 August 2018.

The moderators would like us to put the list together in four categories:

• 5 books you are dreading/hesitant to read
• 5 books you can’t WAIT to read
• 5 books you are neutral about
• 5 books which are free choice

I don’t really understand the point of creating a reading list that includes books I am dreading to read. So I don’t have any in that category. Nor do I have any that I can’t wait to read – if I truly couldn’t wait then I would have read them long ago. So I’m going to have to go with just a free choice list. Since I don’t have 20 titles remaining, I’ve had to add in a few to the original list just in case a number between 15-20 comes up on Wednesday.

My list is as follows: it’s a mixture of eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I’ve included two Welsh authors and an Australian to bring a little diversity

1. The Vicar of Wakefield  — Oliver Goldsmith 1766
2. The Black Sheep  — Honore Balzac 1842
3. Basil— Wilkie Collins 1852
4. Framley Parsonage — Anthony Trollope 1861 
5. New Grub Street— George Gissing 1891
6. Lord Jim —  Joseph Conrad 1899
7. Age of Innocence  — Edith Wharton 1920
8. All Passion Spent — Vita Sackville West 1932
9. The Pursuit Of Love  — Nancy Mitford 1945
10. The Quiet American  — Graham Greene 1955
11. My Brilliant Career — Miles Franklin  1901
12. O pioneers —  Willa Cather  1913
13. The Last September —  Elizabeth Bowen 1929
14. Old Soldiers Never Die— Frank Richards 1933
15. Troy Chimneys  — Margaret Kennedy 1952
16. Gone to Earth  — Mary Webb 1917
17. Never No More— Maura Laverty 1942
18. Return of the Solider  — Rebecca West 1917
19. A Kiss Before Dying  — Ira Levin 1953
20. Turf or Stone  — Margiad Evans 1934

If I had to choose a few that I would most like to read it would be Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton whom I read many years ago but don’t feel I appreciated her enough at the time. I would be quite happy with some of the Virago classics too such as the Mary Webb or the Maura Laverty.

All will be revealed on August 1.