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Be sure to scroll down the page today

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There are TWO posts today...Sorry about that :)

The Classics Club


The Classics Club is hosted by Jillian from A Room of One's Own.  The basic premise is to read at least 50 classics in five years.  The definition of classic is very loose, and basically encompasses the usual suspects, such as Dickens or Austen, but also any book that you believe is a classic.  A classic book or story is not easily defined.  To me, it means those books usually termed as "classics", in addition to, those books that resonate or have meaning to me.  For example, The Outsiders, by S.E, Hinton had a profound impact on my young life.  I easily identified with the Greasers, the have-nots.

I am also a big fan of science fiction, so I included several sci-fi titles on the list.  Mostly this list consists of books I've always wanted to read; what I have always considered classics.  I also own quite a few of these titles, so it serves two purposes.  Reading classics and reading from my bookshelves.

This page will serve as my tracking page for the classics I will read.  If I start a classic and it stinks and I can't finish it, I will substitute something else.  I've already started a substitute list at the bottom of the original list and will add to this this as I think of classics I missed.

My date range for this reading list is April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2017.  (Wow so far into the future...weird!).

As for personal prizes for milestones, I don't have any.  Reading books = fun!  That's my prize, plus the personal satisfaction I will receive upon completing this club.

Jenny's list of 60 Classics

  1. Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank
  2. Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane
  3. Divine Comedy - Dante
  4. The Three Musketeers - Alxandre Dumas
  5. Middlemarch - George Elliot
  6. Bleak House - Charles Dickens [post one] [post two]
  7. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
  8. Behind a Mask - Louisa May Alcott (short story)
  9. Romance of Tristan and Iseult - ?? (short story)
  10. 1984 - George Orwell
  11. Animal Farm - George Orwell
  12. Beloved - Tony Morrison
  13. Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence
  14. East of Eden - Steinbeck
  15. The Princess Bride - William Goldman (Self proclaimed fairy tale classic)
  16. The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre
  17. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
  18. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
  19. Casino Royale - Ian Fleming (Self proclaimed spy classic)
  20. The Monk - Matthew Gregory Lewis
  21. Wrinkle in Time -   Madeleine L'Engle
  22. Rebecca - Daphne duMaurier (re-read)
  23. The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde
  24. ?? - Guy de Maupassant (short stories)
  25. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
  26. ?? - H.G. Wells
  27. Evelina - Fanny Burney
  28. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
  29. The Princess of Cleves - Contesse de La Fayette
  30. Fanny Hill - John Cleland
  31. Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
  32. Atonement - Ian McEwan
  33. Howards End - E.M. forester
  34. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
  35. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
  36. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
  37. Tess of the D'ubervilles - Thomas Hardy (re-Read)
  38. The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole
  39. My Antonia - Will Cather
  40. The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
  41. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
  42. Call of the Wild - Jack London
  43. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
  44. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
  45. The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton
  46. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
  47. Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne
  48. Talented Mr. Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
  49. Arrow of Gold - Joseph Conrad
  50. Katherine - Anya Seton
  51. Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespere
  52. The Island - 
  53. The Thornbirds - Colleen McCullough
  54. There Be Dragons - Sharon Kay Penman
  55. To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis
  56. Possession - A.S. Byatt
  57. Hedda Gabler - Henrik Ibsen
  58.  Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  59. I am Legend - Richard Matheson
  60. The End of Eternity - Isaac Asimov

Others that I will choose if one of the above sucks;
  1. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
  2. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card