I can’t believe it’s already time for another Classics Club Spin — it feels like only a few weeks since the last one when I ended up with No Highway by Nevil Shute.
For the 43rd Classics Club spin, I’ve revamped the list I used last time around. For this new version I’ve added two Celtic authors in honour of Reading Ireland and Reading Wales month which take place in March.
From Ireland comes The Bitter Glass by Eilis Dillon published in 1958. The novel is set in Connemara at the time of the Civil War (1920s) featuring a group of young people who are isolated in a remote farmhouse by an IRA attack. It sounds a powerful novel.
From Wales I’ve chosen A Toy Epic by Emyr Williams which looks at life in Wales during the 1930s. The novel follows three boys from different backgrounds — one is the son of a bus driver, another a farmer’s son and the third, the most rebellious is a parson’s boy. Though they encounter the same challenges in life, their differing attitudes are affected by their backgrounds.
Here’s my new spin list.
- The Nose by Nikolay Gogol (1836)
- Cousin Bette by Honoré De Balzac (1846)
- A Sentimental Education by Gustav Flaubert (1869)
- A Study In Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle (1886)
- New Grub Street by George Gissing (1891)
- What Maisie Knew by Henry James (1897)
- Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan (1915)
- The Painted Veil by W Somerset Maugham (1925)
- Quartet by Jean Rhys (1929)
- Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (1932)
- Princes in the Land by Joanna Cannan (1938)
- On the Edge of Reason by Miroslav Krleža
- Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)
- Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry (1947)
- Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada (1947)
- The Far Cry by Emma Smith (1949)
- In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming (1953)
- The Bitter Glass by Eilis Dillon (1958) — Ireland
- A Toy Epic by Emyr Humphreys (1958) — Wales
- Strike for a Kingdom, Menna Gallie (1959) — Wales
I’ll get to discover on Sunday (8 February) which of these books has “won” the spin. Then all I have to do is read it by March 29 2026.
If this list was yours, which titles would you be hoping to see come up in the spin??
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