This is my list for The Classics Club, which I probably knew about at the time of inception 2012, but the time wasn’t right for me. Since then I read classics more and more, and now it was easy to come up with 50 classics I want to read (and more), so I’m joining the club!
I pondered about my definition of classics and at the end decided on cut off year of 1966, which is 50 years ago from now (almost, it’s now December 2015 — let’s pretend we’re in 2016). Also there are surprisingly a number of classics I want to read that were published in 1966, e.g. The Bell Jar, In Cold Blood, Season of Migration to the North, and I just finished Silence by Shusaku Endo (which I don’t count here as I finished it before I compiled the list). I made one exception for The Master and Margarita, which was published in 1967, but was written a couple of decades before and was basically banned to be published until 1967. I feel good about 1966 as the cut off year. (Edit: As the year goes over the period of the challenge, I’ll count the book that is 50 years old or older at the time of reading.)
My completion goal date is 1 December 2020, as I started in 1 December 2015. It’s kinda terrifying to think that I will be nearly 40 by then, and may not even finish reading all 50 books in the initial list!
Oh, and the list will change. Every time I read a classic that is not in the list I will insert it here and take one out (will make a record of what’s being taken out at the bottom of the 50 books list – see Candidates). For my initial list I only include one book per author. I’m not worried about reading multiple books from the same author for now, because I generally like to distribute my reading, and never, as I recall, read more than one book from the same author in the same year. Though I could read more than one book from the same author in 5 years time.
I guess that’s it for now. See you on the other side of enlightenment! 🙂
Read: 25 / 50
- Akutagawa, Ryunosuke – Hell Screen (1918)
- Ariyoshi, Sawako – The Doctor’s Wife (1966)
- Baldwin, James – Giovanni’s Room (1956)
- Bulgakov, Mikhail – The Master and Margarita (1967)
- Capote, Truman – In Cold Blood (1966) Read: Breakfast at Tiffany’s
- Chopin, Kate – The Awakening (1899)
- Collodi, Carlo – Pinocchio (1883)
- Conrad, Joseph – The Secret Agent (1907)
- Dermout, Maria – The Ten Thousand Things (1958)
- Didion, Joan – Slouching Towards Betlehem (1961-1968)
- Doyle, Arthur Conan – The Sign of Four (1890) Read: A Study in Scarlet
- Eliot, George – Middlemarch (1871-2)
- Enchi, Fumiko – The Waiting Years (1957)
- Fisher, Dorothy Canfield – The Home-maker (1924)
- Flaubert, Gustave – Madame Bovary (1856)
- Forster, E. M. – A Room with a View (1908)
- Frank, Anne – The Diary of a Young Girl (1947)
- Grahame, Kenneth – The Wind in the Willows (1908)
- Greene, Graham – The End of the Affair (1951)
- Hartley, L. P. – The Go-Between (1953)
- Haasse, Hella – The Black Lake (1948)
- Hemingway, Ernest – The Sun Also Rises (1926) / Moveable Feast Read: The Old Man and the Sea
- Ibuse, Masuji – Black Rain (1965)
- Inoue, Yasushi – The Hunting Gun (1949)
- Jansson, Tove – The Invisible Child and The Fir Tree (1962)
- Jerome, Jerome K. – Three Men in a Boat (1889)
- Kafka, Franz – The Trial (1925) Read: Metamorphosis
- Laski, Marghanita – The Victorian Chaise-Longue (1953)
- Lessing, Doris – The Grass is Singing (1950)
- Mahfouz, Naguib – Palace Walk (1958)
- Marlowe, Christopher – Doctor Faustus (1604)
- Maugham, W Somerset – Of Human Bondage (1915)
- Mishima, Yukio – The Sound of Waves (1954)
- Okakura, Kakuzō – The Book of Tea (1906)
- Orwell, George – 1984 (1949) Read: Animal Farm
- Plath, Sylvia – The Bell Jar (1963)
- Sagan, Francoise – Bonjour Tristesse (1954)
- Salih, Tayeb – Season of Migration to the North (1966)
- Stevenson, Robert Louis – Treasure Island (1882)
- Strindberg, August – Miss Julie (1888)
- Tanizaki, Junichiro – The Makioka Sisters (1943)
- Thurber, James – The 13 Clocks (1950)
- Turgenev, Ivan – First Love (1860)
- Waugh, Evelyn – Brideshead Revisited (1945)
- Wilde, Oscar – Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) Read: Complete Short Stories and The Importance of Being Earnest
- Wilder, Thornton – The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927)
- Williams, Tennessee – A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
- Wodehouse, P. G. – Carry On, Jeeves (1925)
- Woolf, Virginia – Mrs Dalloway (1925) / A Room of One’s Own Read: To the Lighthouse
- Zola, Émile – Thérèse Raquin (1867) / Ladies of Paradise
In Chronological Reading Time
- Dermout, Maria – The Ten Thousand Things (1958) – Read in December 2015
- Didion, Joan – Slouching Towards Betlehem (1961-1968) – Read in December 2015
- Doyle, Arthur Conan – The Sign of Four (1890) – Read in December 2015
- Enchi, Fumiko – The Waiting Years (1957) – Read in January 2016
- Forster, E. M. – A Room with A View (1908) – Read in February 2016
- Salih, Tayeb – Season of Migration to the North (1966) – Read in March 2016
- Wilde, Oscar – Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) – Read in April 2016
- Mahfouz, Naguib – Palace Walk (1958) – Read in May 2016
- Orwell, George – 1984 (1949) – Read in July 2016
- Okakura, Kakuzō – The Book of Tea (1906) – Read in August 2016
- Akutagawa, Ryunosuke – Hell Screen (1918) – Read in September 2016
- Plath, Sylvia – The Bell Jar (1963) – Read in October 2016
- Inoue, Yasushi – The Hunting Gun (1949) – Read in January 2017
- Capote, Truman – In Cold Blood (1966) – Read in February 2017
- Baldwin, James – Giovanni’s Room (1956) – Read in February 2017
- Stevenson, Robert Louis – Treasure Island (1882) – Read in April 2017
- Conrad, Joseph – The Secret Agent (1907) – Read in July 2017
- Ibuse, Masuji – Black Rain (1965) – Read in August 2017
- Frank, Anne – The Diary of a Young Girl (1947) – Read in September 2017
- Marlowe, Christopher – Doctor Faustus (1604) – Read in October 2017
- Strindberg, August – Miss Julie (1888) – Read in November 2017
- Mishima, Yukio – The Sound of Waves (1954) – Read in December 2017
- Jansson, Tove – The Invisible Child and The Fir Tree (1962) – Read in December 2017
- Tanizaki, Junichiro – The Makioka Sisters (1943) – Read in December 2017
- Ariyoshi, Sawako – The Doctor’s Wife (1966) – Read in January 2018
IN Order of Publication
- Marlowe, Christopher – Doctor Faustus (1604)
- Stevenson, Robert Louis – Treasure Island (1882)
- Strindberg, August – Miss Julie (1888)
- Doyle, Arthur Conan – The Sign of Four (1890)
- Wilde, Oscar – Picture of Dorian Gray (1890-1891)
- Okakura, Kakuzō – The Book of Tea (1906)
- Conrad, Joseph – The Secret Agent (1907)
- Forster, E. M. – A Room with A View (1908)
- Akutagawa, Ryunosuke – Hell Screen (1918)
- Tanizaki, Junichiro – The Makioka Sisters (1943)
- Frank, Anne – The Diary of a Young Girl (1947)
- Inoue, Yasushi – The Hunting Gun (1949)
- Orwell, George – 1984 (1949)
- Mishima, Yukio – The Sound of Waves (1954)
- Baldwin, James – Giovanni’s Room (1956)
- Enchi, Fumiko – The Waiting Years (1957)
- Dermout, Maria – The Ten Thousand Things (1958)
- Mahfouz, Naguib – Palace Walk (1958)
- Jansson, Tove – The Invisible Child and The Fir Tree (1962)
- Plath, Sylvia – The Bell Jar (1963)
- Ibuse, Masuji – Black Rain (1965)
- Ariyoshi, Sawako – The Doctor’s Wife (1966)
- Capote, Truman – In Cold Blood (1966)
- Salih, Tayeb – Season of Migration to the North (1966)
- Didion, Joan – Slouching Towards Betlehem (1961-1968)
Candidates
(Those removed from the original list because other books were read that were not in the original list)
- Thomas, Dylan – Under Milk Wood (1954)
- Collins, Wilkie – The Moonstone (1868) Read: The Woman in White
- Sayers, Dorothy L. – Whose Body? (1923)
- Austen, Jane – Emma (1816) Read: Pride and Prejudice
- Stevenson, Robert Louis – Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
- Yates, Richard – Revolutionary Road (1961)
- Conrad, Joseph – Heart of Darkness (1899)
- Simenon, Georges – The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By (1938)
- Zweig, Stefan – Beware of Pity (1939) Read: Chess
- Wharton, Edith – Age of Innocence (1920) Read: The House of Mirth
- Kipling, Rudyard – Kim (1901) Read: The Jungle Book
- O’Brien, Edna – The Country Girls (1960)
- Pasternak, Boris – Doctor Zhivago (1957)
- Stead, Christina – The Man Who Loved Children (1940)
- Tolstoy, Leo – Anna Karenina (1873-7) / War and Peace (1869)
