I love reading, and Classics have always been my favorite genre, yet there are plenty of classics I haven’t read (and even some I don’t want to read…like anything by Hemingway), and when I stumbled upon this reading challenge known as The Classics Club I decided to give it a try! Here’s my own personal list of classics I wish to read in 5 years; I’ve listed them in chronological order, not because I intend to read them that way, but because I thought it would be an interesting viewpoint. I’ve included English, American, Russian, and French authors, spanning from the 16th-20th centuries. I may also add or take away from this list, as long as I have at least 50 novels to choose from. Also, a lot of these titles made the list just because I want to watch the movie adaptation(s) afterwards!
Start/End Date: August 2, 2013 – August 2,2018
Progress: 36/50 books read
Most Excited About Reading: Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
Most Nervous About Reading: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Most Enjoyed Novel Thus Far: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Least Enjoyed Novel Thus Far: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
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(Titles marked with a * are re-reads; titles marked with a ° are also on my 2014 Back to the Classics list)
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (finished 4/19/14)
All’s Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare
*Macbeth by William Shakespeare (finished 10/28/13)
*Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (finished 9/2/15)
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (finished 8/24/13)
Emma by Jane Austen (finished 9/8/13)
°Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (finished 2/25/14)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (finished 10/7/13)
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (finished 12/7/17)
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
*°Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (finished 1/22/14)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (finished 9/13/13)
Villette by Charlotte Brontë (finished 5/24/16)
*°North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (finished 12/14/14)
Silas Marner by George Eliot
*Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
°Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
°Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (finished 12/28/14)
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell (finished 7/28/15)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (finished 10/5/13)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
°Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (finished 5/24/14)
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (finished 7/23/16)
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (finished 2/28/17)
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (finished 11/4/17)
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (finished 8/17/17)
The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells (finished 8/29/17)
Kilmeny of the Orchard by L.M. Montgomery (finished 1/30/18)
°Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie (finished 10/20/14)
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery (finished 1/5/18)
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (finished 5/20/16)
Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne (finished 1/26/17)
The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (finished 3/21/16)
Demelza by Winston Graham (finished 4/3/16)
Jeremy Poldark by Winston Graham (finished 10/3/17)
Animal Farm by George Orwell
We Have Always Lived In the Castle by Shirley Jackson (finished 11/12/17)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (finished 1/14/17)
*°A Separate Peace by John Knowles (finished 12/19/14)
°To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (finished 4/9/14)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (finished 12/29/17)
Slaugherhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Hitchhiker’s Guchael Crichton (not really a classic, but I wanna read it all the same!) (finished 6/20/15)
Welcome to the club Maggie! It looks like you have a great list. I’m always thrilled when people want to read both Austen and Douglas Adams! (Melissa)
Thanks Melissa!
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Well, I don’t see Gone with the Wind on this list, but I checked out your Goodreads list and see it there, waiting to be devoured. :)
You should come read with a few of us in May. It’s a long book, so we’re giving ourselves three months, starting May 1. You’re most welcome to join us!
The author (Margaret Mitchell) thought the French translation was hilarious because the Irish figure who is the patriarch in the novel constantly says “Oh! La la!” :D The French translation was the only one she could read, but it made her chuckle.
Anyway, details are in my sidebar! I’m a fellow clubber. Cheers!
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Hi, I’m just checking to see if you are continuing to work on your Classics Club challenge. Let me know, if you can, at theclassicsclubblog at gmail dot com