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A Five-Year Challenge: The Classics Club

classic clubI am pledging to read 50 classics in 5 years. Hopefully it won’t take that long.

I envy those who read classics in school when they are at their teens but I only started them in my middle 30’s which means I have lost a good many years of not reading great literature (but mired in textbooks and management books).. I’m a bit anxious as well. I’m well into my middle age and wonder how many years more I could live before I could read most of the great works on earth. Still I’m not being selective and if there is only one reason to hope that I live longer, is to live long enough to read most of the books I wanted to read.

I’m starting from 1 January 2013 and hope to finish the challenge in 31 December 2017. If you would like to be a part of this challenge, do hop over to Classics Club blog for updates.

1 Pride and Prejudice Austen, Jane
2 Emma Austen, Jane
3 Eugenie Grandet Balzac, Honoré de
4 Catherine De Medici Balzac, Honoré de
5 The Secret Garden Burnett, Frances Hodgson
6 Alice in Wonderland and through the Looking-Glass Carroll, Lewis
7 The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich
8 The Woman in White Collins, Wilkie
9 Lord Jim Conrad, Joseph
10 The Heart of the Darkness Conrad, Joseph
11 The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757 Cooper, James Fenimore
12 A Christmas Carol Dickens, Charles
13 A Tale of Two Cities Dickens, Charles
14 Bleak House Dickens, Charles
15 Great Expectations Dickens, Charles
16 Crime and Punishment Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
17 The Idiot Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
18 Brother Kamarazov Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
19 The Man in the Iron Mask Dumas, Alexandre
20 Howards End E.M. Forster
21 The Longest Journey E.M. Forster
22 Middlemarch Eliot, George
23 Madame Bovary Flaubert, Gustave
24 North and South Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
25 Dead Souls Gogol, Nikolay
26 The Wind in the Willows Grahame, Kenneth
27 Far from the Madding Crowd Hardy, Thomas
28 Tess of the d’Urbervilles Hardy, Thomas
29 The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne, Nathaniel
30 Les Misérables Hugo, Victor
31 Three Men in a Boat Jerome, Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka)
32 The Jungle Book Kipling, Rudyard
33 The Arabian Nights Lang, Andrew
34 Lady Chatterley’s Lover Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)
35 Of Human Bondage Maugham, W. Somerset (William Somerset)
36 The Painted Veil Maugham, W. Somerset (William Somerset)
37 Bel Ami Maupassant, Guy de
38 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Stevenson, Robert Louis
39 Treasure Island Stevenson, Robert Louis
40 Dracula Stoker, Bram
42 Vanity Fair Thackeray, William Makepeace
43 War and Peace Tolstoy, Leo
44 Dr Thorne Trollope, Anthony
41 Bridehead Revisited Waugh, Evelyn
45 Daddy-Long-Legs Webster, Jean
46 In Morocco Wharton, Edith
47 House of Mirth Wharton, Edith
48 The Age of Innocence Wharton, Edith
49 The Picture of Dorian Gray Wilde, Oscar
50 Orlando Woolf, Virginia

Discussion

5 thoughts on “A Five-Year Challenge: The Classics Club”

  1. I’m so glad you’ve decided to join The Classics Club too 😀 You’ve got a really interesting mixture of books on your lists; some of them I’ve chosen myself while others I haven’t heard of before. I am really looking forward to reading your thoughts on these books.

    Posted by jessicabookworm | January 1, 2013, 4:05 pm
    Reply to this comment

  2. I’ve always been curious about Orlando. I may have to add that to my list. Welcome to the club!

    Posted by The Classics Club | January 4, 2013, 8:23 pm
    Reply to this comment

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Ratings Defined

0 = Abandon the book after first chapter

1 = Waste of paper, we will see what the environmentalist say about this!

2 = Skip it, read the book if you have got nothing better to do

2.5 = An average book, easily forgettable.

3 = A good read.

3.5 = A good entertaining read, a page-turner

4 = So glad that I read the book, a book with substance and invaluable for future reference

4.5 = So glad that I read the book, would pester everyone to read it, invaluable, I would want to own it and wouldn't mind a second read (something that I seldom do)

5 = The book is so good that I feel like I am on scale 4 and 4.5, and more, it blew me away and lingers on my head for weeks!

Books Read

JoV's bookshelf: read
Hold Tight
The Fault in Our Stars
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
The Thief
Mockingjay
Catching Fire
A Tale for the Time Being
Into the Darkest Corner
The Liars' Gospel
Goat Mountain
Strange Weather In Tokyo
Strange Shores
And the Mountains Echoed
Ten White Geese
One Step Too Far
The Innocents
The General: The ordinary man who became one of the bravest prisoners in Guantanamo
White Dog Fell from the Sky
A Virtual Love
The Fall of the Stone City


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Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)