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I have struggled with the readings, to be sure. Even so very recently I axed the entire thought of returning to or possibly finishing this list that I changed my blog site to exclude the button (the mere thought) of Classics Book Club. I mean really - How bloody arrogant of me to propose such a thing!
So Today I have come before you to propose yet another list. Oh dear, maybe I'm just a compiler of lists. I don't know. But I have read some of the books on the other list, so there is a bit of hope for me. And I want to be reminded that great and classic fiction is worth the time invested! I read entirely too much non-fiction, which in reality is fiction too. Who are we kidding?!
But to read a great story - that is a fine goal to strive towards.
So here I go again. (Again with help.) A list of classic books to read.
January
The Call of the Wild by Jack London 1903
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner 1929
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 1961
February
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck 1937
March
The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle 1936
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck 1931
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 1937
April
The Stranger by Albert Camus 1946
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton 1948
Beloved by Toni Morrison 1987
May
A Separate Peace by John Knowles 1959
Tales by Edgar Allan Poe 1952
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 1952
June
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 1884
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 1960
Native Son by Richard Wright 1940
July
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson 1919
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 1929
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 1939
August
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane 1895
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway 1952
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham 1915
September
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes 1612
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 1936
October
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 1952
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton 1911
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 1932
November
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 1859
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy 1891
December
My Antonia by Willa Cather 1918
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe 1719
In addition, I would like to include The Letters of E.B. White, The Best Short Stories by O. Henry, Shakespeare Plays and Sonnets, Tennessee Williams Plays, and a lot more Poetry.
Even though I have also taken *much* time to get through the original list, I'm happy you proposed the first Classics Book Club, Judy. I have needed something definite to strive for with reading. I enjoy reading for itself, but also what I love about it, is that it makes me a better writer. It always feels so much more effortless to write when I've been reading books a lot. You've got some great selections on this new list, and out of 33 listings, I've only read about 6.25 (haha, half each of Don Quixote and Native Son, many but not all of Edgar Allen Poe's stories). After I finish the original list, I may like to incorporate some of them in my new "every other book is a classic" plan for 2013. Catch-22 I have been meaning to read forever, since I borrowed it from my friend Rebecca, and ought to return it to her sometime.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, if you choose to write about these books, I will be very interested to read what you think of them. Well, the five that I have read in entirety anyway. :)