Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part I (1605) For the last Classics Club spin book, I drew Don Quixote, which I’ve been meaning to read for quite some time. I did read an abridged version in high school, but I remember absolutely nothing about it except the Quentin Blake drawing on the cover. (Does anyone […]
John Steinbeck, East of Eden (1952) East of Eden is one of those books that I’ve seen mentioned by many readers as an all-time favorite (though there are a few haters as well). When the Folio Society did a poll to gather suggestions for publication, it was at the top of the list … and […]
Last week I posted my Classics Club Spin list, and this is the moment of truth — the chosen number is 4, which means I’ll be reading: Somewhat daunting, but I’m actually glad because this edition of Don Quixote has been sitting on my shelf for more than a year after I won it in […]
It’s time for another Classics Spin! What is the spin? It’s easy. At your blog, before next Friday, November 17th, create a post to list your choice of any twenty books that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list. This is your Spin List. You have to read one of these twenty books by the end […]
Barbara Pym, Excellent Women (1952) As I read Excellent Women, the best-known work by the once-neglected, now widely praised English novelist Barbara Pym, I was reminded of another acclaimed comic novel that I read not long ago: Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. On the surface, Amis’s hard-drinking, buffoonish misogynist Jim Dixon may seem to have […]
Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native (1874) This was one of the first nineteenth-century classics I ever encountered in school — in my high school freshman class on British lit, along with Hamlet, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations, and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (a rather odd assortment, now that I come to think of it). […]
Jane Langton, The Fledgling (1980) Although I read and enjoyed the first three books in Jane Langton’s “Hall Family Chronicles” as a child, I never ventured further for some reason. So when I saw book four, The Fledgling, on the Phoenix Award list, I wanted to finally catch up with it. Like the first three […]
It’s been three years since I joined The Classics Club, and I’m on track for meeting my goal of reading 50 books in 5 years! Here are the twelve books I’ve read in the past year. Ethan Frome Lucky Jim Three Men in a Boat A Fugue in Time Long Day’s Journey into Night; Ah, […]
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) This year, I decided to add some categories to my Classics Club list. Though I’m still aiming to read 50 books in 5 years, there are now 80 books on my list from which I can pick and choose. This helps me feel a little less constrained. One […]
Daphne Du Maurier, My Cousin Rachel (1951) The 1951 Club is the latest in a series of events put together by Simon of Stuck in a Book and Karen of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, which encourages us to read books published in a particular year. Please visit Simon’s blog for links to other 1951 books — […]