Fifty in Five Years

The Classics Club was created in 2012 to inspire bloggers to read and write about classic books and has since become a well-established community of serious readers. I had been shilly-shallying over joining for some time but, after watching a succession of blog buddies take part, could resist no longer.

I was surprised and rather pleased to discover works by one of my favourite authors, Margaret Atwood on the Big Book List. However, I have included both modern classics and old favourites on my list, reflecting my diverse taste in books. In fact, I’ve gone for a real mishmash of titles in a variety of genres – a couple are rereads (also half-reads), but the majority are fresh off my TBR list.

What Constitutes a Classic?

In this instance, I will go with the official Club definition of ‘classic’:

“For the purposes of your project list, it’s your choice, really. Modern classics, ancient classics, Eastern canon, Western canon, Persephone, Virago, African literature, children’s classics… You make your own goal, and you decide what is “a classic.”

The Rules Made Simple

• Choose a minimum of 50 classics.
• Create a post in which to list them on your blog.
• Choose a completion date (up to 5 years hence) and note the date on your list.
• E-mail the Club moderator with the link to your list.
• Write a post on each title as you finish reading and create a link from your list.
• When you’ve written about every single title on your list, let the moderators know.

Start Date: 1st August 2018
End Date: 1st August 2023

Running Total: 15/50

My List of 50 Classics

1. Allatini, Rose: Despised and Rejected
2. Atwood, Margaret: Alias Grace ✓
3. Bach, Richard: Jonathan Livingston Seagull ✓
4. Baldwin, James: Giovanni’s Room
5. Barnes, Djuna: Nightwood
6. Beerbohm, Max: Zuleika Dobson
7. Borges, Jorge Luis: Ficciones ✓
8. Bradbury, Ray: Fahrenheit 451 ✓
9. Brontë, Emily: Wuthering Heights
10. Bulgakov, Mikhail: The Master and Margarita
11. Calvino, Italo: If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller
12. Capote, Truman: Breakfast at Tiffany’s
13. Capote, Truman: In Cold Blood
14. Colette: Chéri ✓
15. Conan Doyle, Arthur: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ✓
16. Dahl, Roald: Matilda ✓
17. Davies, W.H.: Autobiography of a Super-Tramp ✓
18. Dinesen, Isak: Out of Africa
19. Drabble, Margaret: The Millstone ✓
20. Du Maurier, Daphne: My Cousin Rachel ✓
21. Fallada, Hans: The Drinker
22. Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Great Gatsby
23. Gautier, Théophile: Mademoiselle de Maupin
24. Gibbons, Stella: Cold Comfort Farm
25. Gide, André: The Immoralist
26. Gissing, George: New Grub Street
27. Grahame, Kenneth: The Wind in the Willows ✓
28. Greene, Graham: Brighton Rock
29. Hemingway, Ernest: The Old Man and the Sea
30. Henry, O.: The Gift of the Magi
31. Huxley, Aldous: Brave New World ✓
32. Jackson, Shirley: The Haunting of Hill House ✓
33. Jackson, Shirley: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
34. Jerome, K. Jerome: Three Men in a Boat
35. Kafka, Franz: The Trial
36. Lee, Laurie: Cider with Rosie
37. Lindgren, Astrid: Pippi Longstocking
38. Mansfield, Katherine: The Garden Party & Other Stories
39. Miller, Arthur: The Crucible
40. Plath, Sylvia: The Bell Jar
41. Prichard, Caradog: One Moonlit Night ✓
42. Sackville-West, Vita: No Signposts in the Sea
43. Smith, Dodie: I Capture the Castle
44. Stevenson, Robert Louis: Treasure Island ✓
45. Tolstoy, Leo: The Death of Ivan Ilyich
46. Townsend Warner, Sylvia: Lolly Willowes
47. Wells, H.G.: The Invisible Man
48. West, Rebecca: The Return of the Soldier
49. Wiesel, Elie: Night
50. Williams, John: Stoner

Categories: The Classics Club

Tags: Book Reviews, Classic Fiction, Classic Novels, Classics, Fiction, Modern Classics, Non-Fiction, The Classics Club