Spinning the Classics Club Spin
The Classics Club Spin is beginning again. i’ve failed miserably with the last two efforts but since we have until early January to read the selected book, I think I’m in with a good chance of success.
The rules are the same as always:
- Pick twenty unread books from your list.
- Number them from one to twenty.
- On Monday a number will be drawn.
- That’s your book, to read by 5th January.
I’m going to mix things up a little by adding my own rules:
- My 20 books have to be from my TBR pile (i.e., I already have them in my possession). That way I get to clear some space in my bookshelf … or floorspace.
- And just to make life a little more fun (challenging), I have chosen titles that I’ve owned for more than three years.
So here is my list. Many of them are re-reads – books I read when I was much much younger and feel I didn’t fully appreciate or understand at the time. These are marked **
- Candide – Voltaire 1759
- Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith 1766
- Evelina – Frances Burney 1778
- Mansfield Park – Jane Austen 1814**
- Old Gariot – Honore Balzac 1835
- Wives and Daughters – Elizabeth Gaskell 1864
- Can You Forgive Her – Anthony Trollope (re-read) 1864
- The Way we Live Now – Anthony Trollope 1875
- Dr Thorne – Anthony Trollope 1858
- Adam Bede – George Eliot 1859**
- Daniel Deronda – George Eliot 1876 **
- A Parisian Affair and other stories – Maupassant 1880s
- Washington Square/Daisy Miller – Henry James 1880
- The Diary of a Nobody – George Grossmith 1888
- The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers 1903
- The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf 1915
- Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton 1920
- Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf 1925 **
- The Pursuit Of Love – Nancy Mitford 1945
- Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1985
Which one do you think I would enjoy the most?
I haven’t read any from your list so can’t recommend one but I have also only listed books I already have a copy of. I am hoping to get my to-be-read pile down. Good luck with the spin 🙂
This is an interesting list. I hadn’t heard of Grossmith or Childers. I’ll have to look them up!
Glad to be able to enrich your reading horizons. I’ve no idea what they’ll be like but Grossmith is someone whose name has cropped up several times in reference books
Such diverse books – it will all depend on your mood at the time, but Age of Innocence is divinely gorgeous, Nancy Mitford is fun,fun, fun, MP proved to be a much better Austen than I remembered from my first reading & the Marquez will stretch your mind 🙂
I added Mitford because i thought the list was getting a bit gloomy otherwise. I read MP but remember not being very taken with it but am hoping a re-read will prove my first impression wrong
I’m impressed yiuve read all these authors Brona. I have brought Mitford with me on my trip to Belgium and hoping I can get to read some of it
The Diary of a Nobody is wonderful if you are looking for lots of hilarity! Candide is rather an odd book but I enjoyed it. Balzac and Maupassant look interesting too. I hope you have a great spin and meet with success this time! Best of luck!
~ Cleo ~
I do want to get to read Balzac – I probably just need to pluck up the courage
Thanks for those insights Cleo on Candide. I am a little daunted by the idea of reading Voltaire but on the plus side it is rather short.
The Age of Innocence is one of my personal favorites, but I’d be curious to hear how you like Wives and Daughters. I hope the Spin will work out well for you this time around.
Is it better than House of Mirth? I enjoyed that one
I personally like The Age of Innocence better. I couldn’t quite warm up to Lily Bart.
this is funny – you and whispering gums are giving me completely opposite points of view
Nope, I think The house of mirth is better! But each to his/her own! I’ve read a lot of Wharton – maybe 7 or 8 books – and The house of mirth is my favourite BUT I like all her writing really (and still have more to go).
Since I’m reading my second book by Maupassant now and really enjoying it, I would be happy with A Parisian Affair. Love in the Time of Cholera almost ended on my list too. So lucky spin for you!
i’ve not read any Maupassant but asked for the book one Christmas and then went off the idea. good to know it’s enjoyable
A book of de Maupassant short stories was my bedtime reading during uni student days – my bit of pleasure after a day’s study. But that’s so long ago now I only remember the most famous story. I still have my cheap little Pan Paperback though.
I was always so behind with reading for the course that I never got to the bit of pleasure.
Haha … I didn’t always manage my bedtime leisure reading but it often helped me sleep after the intensity of study!
The Pursuit of Love would be my choice – very funny and very short – perfect for the upcoming busy season. Good luck with the spin.
Wives and Daughters is a great read as well as Love in the Time of Cholera – hope you do better this time 😉
Too many. I loved Daniel Deronda when I read it at university. Mansfield Park is worth looking at again, but depends on how big an Austen fan you are. Have you read Wharton at all? If not, Wharton would be good. Then again, since we are talking Xmas and New Year, the Diary of a nobody might be a great one. I’ve wanted to reread it for the longest time, but as I recollect it would be a good one for holiday times.
I’ve read a few of the others too, and not several others of course, but these are my picks.