I’m getting rather behind on my Classics Club list, so I hope this little challenge will get me going again. The idea is to choose 20 books remaining on your list, and when the “spin” number is announced, read that book by August. I’ve selected an assortment from all the categories of my list, including some that I find quite intimidating (Midnight’s Children, Don Quixote, Love in the Time of Cholera), and will trust to luck to give me the perfect one that I might not have chosen for myself!
UPDATE: And the spin number is 15, so I’ll be reading Lucky Jim. A campus novel for summer reading sounds perfect.
- The Fledgling – Jane Langton
Will this be my summer reading? - White Peak Farm – Berlie Doherty
- Dubliners – James Joyce
- The Ghost of Thomas Kempe – Penelope Lively
- A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne
- The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. LeGuin
- Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens
- Love – Elizabeth von Arnim
- The Makioka Sisters – Junichiro Tanizaki
- Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
- Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- July’s People – Nadine Gordimer
- My Brilliant Career – Miles Franklin
- Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
- Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
- Three Men in a Boat – Jerome K. Jerome
- Excellent Women – Barbara Pym
- Troy Chimneys – Margaret Kennedy
- The Rise of Silas Lapham – William Dean Howells
- Looking Backward – Edward Bellamy
- Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes
Have you read any of these? Any on your list?
The Emerald City Book Review Archive 
I’ve read only two — The Left Hand of Darkness and Midnight’s Children — though I’ve not chosen to participate this year, waiting for just such a challenge in 2017. I did see the classic 1957 film of Lucky Jim with Ian Carmichael in my teens on TV but have little remembrance of what was going on. Tempted now to seek it out, if only to compare my own uni experiences a decade later!
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Since I’m shortly leaving for my college reunion, I think it will be a perfect book to take along.
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I haven’t heard of Lucky Jim but the title seems appropriate for the pot luck Spin event. I got Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne 🙂
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Ha ha, you’re right – that had not occurred to me (and for spin #13 too)! I haven’t read any Verne since childhood, but that should be a fun summer read.
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I should do this sometime…but first I’d have to limit my list to twenty classics. 🙂 Congrats on your spin. I hope you enjoy it.
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Yes, picking out the twenty was somewhat challenging – but fun! I’m looking forward to this read, it’s been on my list for a long time.
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That is exactly why I like challenges (in moderation), they make me pick up those titles that have been languishing on my TBR, whether because I am afraid of their complexity, or length, or whatever. I work OK with a little bit of structure, but not too much.
I hope you enjoy the book! I have an unread copy of it too, so if you like it, maybe I will give it a go.
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I’ll be sure to share my thoughts, and I can’t wait to see what everyone else got.
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Lucky you, looks like you dodged that huge Don Quixote bullet this time! 😉
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Whew, it would be a bit chunk to bite off this summer.
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I believe people should read sparks notes for Don Quijote part 1, and read part 2, the best part not many read because of the length.
Sad we don’t get this book in installments during the years, that would be more doable.
I also understand it’s not for everyone. I am still preparing for The Brothers Karamazov, Les Miserables, and a few other bricks, hahaha. But now I do appreciate long books, when our time for them is ripe, the trip is epic.
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Interesting point about Don Quixote. When I do read it I will be prepared that I need to make it through to Book 2.
I did actually read it in high school, but in an abridged version. The Brothers Karamazov, too (unabridged) and Les Miserables. But I’ve been thinking I should revisit all these books in adulthood. The world looks a bit different now than when I was seventeen!
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Lory, that to me has been the biggest reward as a non wavering reader, how much books grow as we mature, how much more they offer to me.
If you read DQ in the abridged, you would love the tone and philosophy of the second book. Many reviews I read on DQ focus mainly on the humor and adventures, while Sancho, life, philosophy, and a beautiful and painful side to Don Quijote (plus meta novel and good modern twists to the narrative) are the trade mark of part II, and I don’t hear as much. (I love the mention of DQ in The Rosemary Tree, though, in reference to friendship, but, unlike you, that’s the only Gouge title I have read, and I owe others, so I should read more of hers -she shows up frequently in other books and blogs I read-).I agree that The Rosemary Tree is a bit contrived, a friend and I thought it reminded us of Matilda, hahaha. But I love the way she talks about children and their world in that book, -yes, I need to keep reading her books!-.
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I think you would enjoy Elizabeth Goudge – she writes wonderfully about children (and also older people), and weaves philosophy and reflection into her stories too.
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The Makioka Sisters, as you know, it’s a big favorite of mine, and I loved My Brilliant Career.
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I am looking forward to those!
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Love in the Time of Cholera should not intimidate you, Lory, it’s longish, but it reads fast, it’s a saga, soap opera type, Latin American love and drama, and they call it magic realism, it’s like Latin tall tale if sorts, with reflections on life, love, and death.
Many intriguing titles.
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Oh good, you make me excited to read it.
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I’ve read Quixote, plus #s 13-16. My recommendation is Three Men in a Boat (followed immediately by Connie Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog).
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I love To Say Nothing of the Dog – one of the reasons I want to read Three Men in a Boat!
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