The Classics Club

/ 28 Mar 2017

I’m doing this. Yes. It may sound insane, but it also makes sense. The Classics Club is a blog which offers the following proposal: make your own list of 50 classics or more, and read those in the span of 5 years (or longer).

classicsclub

Looking back, I have read 50 classics in the last 5 years of my life. I know, as a christian, I’ve learned to say that, if the Lord wills… and that’s what I’m saying now, if the Lord wills, I’d have read these classics in the next five years (or less, or more, who can tell?), and, if the Lord wills, I’ll be writing about these books and linking to the Classics Club site.

These is my list of classics, and my deadline is March 2022. (Wow, it sounds so far away!)

ADDITIONS will have “added +” at the end, and those titles abandoned will show like this

Read:

  1. La Iliada, Homero, VIII AC
  2. Meditaciones, Marco Aurelio, 161-180 added +
  3. Confessions, Agustín de Hipona, 397 – 400 added +
  4. Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by Omar Khayyám, Edward FitzGerald, 1048-1131, added +
  5. The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono No Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan, translated by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani, 900 – 1000, added + 
  6. Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, 1597 added + 
  7. Guzmán de Alfarache, Mateo Alemán. 1599  added +
  8. Don Quijote, Cervantes, part 1, 1605, added +
  9. Don Quijote, Cervantes, part 2, 1615, added +
  10. Candide, Voltaire, 1759 added +
  11. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen, 1803
  12. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen, 1811 added +
  13. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen, 1814, added +
  14. Persuasion, Jane Austen, 1817 added +
  15. Temor y temblor, (Fear and Trembling), Kierkegaard, 1919 added + 
  16. Sonnets from the Portuguese, Elizabeth Browning poetry, mid 1845-46 added +
  17. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1851
  18. Moby Dick, or The Whale, Melville, 1851, added +
  19. La novela en el tranvía, Benito Pérez Galdós, 1871 added +
  20. La corte de Carlos IV, Benito Pérez Galdós, 1873
  21. Bailén, Benito Pérez Galdós, 1873 added +
  22. El 19 de marzo y el 2 de mayo,  Galdós, 1873, added +
  23. Los hermanos Karamazov, by Dostoevsky, 1880
  24. The Death of Ivan Illych (La muerte de Ivan Illich, by Tolstoy, 1886 added +
  25. Los Pazos de Ulloa, Emilia Pardo Bazán, 1886
  26. Aves sin nido, Clorinda Matto de Turner, 1889 added + 
  27. El prisionero de Zenda, Anthony Hope, 1894
  28. Nazarín, Galdós 1895 added + 
  29. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, 1899 added + 
  30. The Ambassadors, Henry James, 1903 added + 
  31. La Ruta de Don Quijote, Azorin, 1905 added + 
  32. Soledades. Galerías. Otros poemas. Antonio Machado, *re-read, 1907 added + 
  33. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton, 1911 added + 
  34. The Scarlet Plague, Jack London, 1912 added + 
  35. Look Back on Happiness, Knut Hamsun 1912 added + 
  36. The Trial, Kafka, written from 1914 – 1915 added + 
  37. My Antonia, Willa Cather, 1918
  38. My Man Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse, 1919 added + 
  39. The Cross, (book III in the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy), 1922
  40. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Stories, Fitzgerald, 1922 added +
  41. Simonetta Perkins, L.P. Heartly, 1925 added +
  42. Antología poética, Alfonsina Storni, poems from 1925 and earlier. added +
  43. La Deshumanizacion del Arte y Otros Ensayos de Estetica, by José Ortega y Gasset, 1925 added +
  44. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925 added +
  45. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Christie, 1926 added +
  46. Lud in the Midst, Hope Mirrlees  1926 added +
  47. El perro canelo, The Yellow Dog, Georges Simenon, 1931 added + 
  48. Murder on the Orient Express, Christie, 1934  added +
  49. Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers, 1935 added +
  50. Estudios sobre el amor, Ortega y Gasset, 1939 added +
  51. Diez negritos, And Then There Were Non, Agatha Christie, 1939
  52. Kallocain, Karin Boye, 1940, added +
  53. N or M, Agatha Christie, 1941 added +
  54. At Mrs Lippincote’s, Elizabeth Taylor, 1945 added +
  55. Pavilon of Women, by Pearl S. Buck, 1946
  56. The Lottery and Other Short Stories, Shirley Jackson, 1948 added +
  57. Cry, The Beloved Country, Alan Paton, 1948
  58. El laberinto de la soledad, Octavio Paz, 1950 added + 
  59. The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey, 1951
  60. Alfanhuí, Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, 1951
  61. The Illustrated Man, Bradbury, 1951 added + 
  62. Speak Memory, Nabokov, 1951
  63. The End of the Affair, Graham Green, 1951 added +
  64. East of Eden, Steinbeck, 1952 added +
  65. The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis, 1953, added + 
  66. The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor, Gabriel García Márquez, 1955 added + 
  67. After You, Marco Polo, Jen Shor, 1955 added +
  68. El Jarama, Ferlosio, Rafael Sanchez, 1956
  69. The Art of Loving, (El arte de amar), Erich Fromm, 1956 added + 
  70. The Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino, 1957 added +
  71. The Wonderful O, James Thurber, 1957 added +
  72. The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut, 1959 added +
  73. The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis, 1960 added +
  74. The Winter of Our Discontent, Steinbeck, 1961 added + 
  75. An Experiment in Criticism, C.S. Lewis 1961 added + 
  76. A Grief Observed, by C. S. Lewis, 1961 added + 
  77. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark, added + 
  78. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John Le Carré, 1963
    added +     
  79. The Scent of Water, Goudge, 1963
  80. The Rector of Justin, by Louis Auchincloss, 1964
  81. Ten Fingers for God, by Dorothy Clarke Wilson, Philip Yancey, 1965
  82. Volverás a Región, Juan Benett, 1967 added +
  83. Cien Años de Soledad, Gabriel García Márquez, 1967 added +
  84. Selected Poems, by Nathaniel Tarn, Pablo Neruda (Published in 1970, but poems are from the sixties and earlier.) added +
  85. True Grit, Charles Portis, 1968 added +
  86. Ubik, Dick Philips, 1969 added +
  87. I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings, 1969, Maya Angelou added + 
  88. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut, 1969 added +
  89. A Circle of Quiet, L’Engle, 1971
  90. The Gods Themselves, by Isaac Asimov, 1972 added + 
  91. Las ciudades invisibles, Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino, 1972 added +
  92. Watership Down, Richard Adams, 1972 added +

To Be Read:

  1. The Frogs, Aristophanes, 405
  2. Beowulf, Heaney’s translation, between 975 and 1025
  3. La Celestina, Fernando de Rojas, 1499
  4. Utopia, Thomas More, 1516
  5. Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, 1599 added +
  6. Henry V, Shakespeare, 1600
  7. Otelo, Shakespeare, 1603
  8. Pascal Pensees and Other Writtings, 1670
  9. Gargantúa y Pantagruel, François Rabelais, cc 1694 added +
  10. Eothen, Alexander William Kinglake, 1844 added +
  11. The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne *re-read, 1850
  12. Villette, Charlotte Bronte, 1853 added +
  13. North and South, Gaskell, 1855
  14. Glaucus, or The Wonders of the Shore, Charles Kingsley, 1859
    added +
  15. Fathers and Sons, Turgenev, 1862
  16. Far from the Madding Crowd, Hardy, 1874 added +
  17. La familia de León Roch, Galdós, 1878
  18. Washington Square, Henry James, 1880
  19. The Spendthrifts, Galdós, 1884 added +
  20. Miau, Galdós, 1888
  21. Hambre, Knut Hamsun 1890
  22. Narraciones, Anton Chejov, cc 1892, added + 
  23. The Scarlett Pimpernel, by Emmuska Orczy, 1905
  24. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton, 1905 added + 
  25. Por el camino de Swan, Proust, 1913
  26. Rashomon and Other Stories, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, 1915 added + 
  27. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein,1921 added + 
  28. La montaña mágica, Thomas Mann, *re-read, 1924
  29. The Glorious Adventure, Halliburton, 1927
  30. Cheerfulness Breaks In, by Angela Thirkell, 1940
  31. The Power and the Glory, Greene, 1940 added +
  32. The Mind of the Maker, Dorothy Sayers, *re-read, 1941
  33. Adventures with a Texas Naturalist, Roy Bedichek, 1947
  34. Kon Tiki, by Thor Heyerdahl, 1948
  35. The Crime of Galileo by Giorgio De Santillana, 1955 added + 
  36. Mother Night, Vonnegut, 1961
  37. The Moviegoer, Walker Percy, 1961 added +
  38. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1962
  39. I Am David, Anne Holm, 1963 added +
  40. A Movable Feast, Ernest Heminway, 1964 added +
  41. Tres Tristes Tigres, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, 1965 added +
  42. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard, 1966 added +
  43. The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia, by Esther Hautzig, 1967

I prefer to leave my list of classics to books around 50+ years old, and these are additional titles that would have become classics by 2022 under that guideline.

  1. Selected Poems, Bertol Bretch, 1971
  2. Meditations on Hunting, Ortega y Gasset, 1972

Other titles of interest:

  1. My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell, 1956
  2. Shogun, Clavell, 1975
  3. The Brendan Voyage, by Tim Severin, 1978
  4. Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry, 1989
  5. Olvidado Rey Gudú, Ana María Matute 1996
  6. La ciudad de las bestias, Isabel Allende, 2002
  7. The Scarlet Letters, by Louis Auchincloss, 2003
  8. Home, Marilyn Robinson, 2008

I like having lists, they provide me with guidance when they are of books I want to read, and they are a great way for me to look back, assess and record my reading life.

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51 thoughts on “The Classics Club”

  1. Pingback: Plans and projects | Silvia Cachia

  4. Would you mind posting your 2019 reading list, or reading intentions? (Though you’ve told me 3 books I’m reading too), we need to plan so that we can read at least those 3 together. 🙂

  5. Ah, got it! I knew you mentioned five years, but for some reason, I thought this was just a list of the first year!

    Slowing down can be so hard, and I do find that writing a review does so much for slowing the pace – as does reading many books at one time, which I’ve become the queen of, except that right now, 90% of my attention is on The Gray House because that’s the kind of book it is.

  6. No, Katie, I am definitely NOT expecting to read all of those in one year! I am not a fast reader, and my continual goal is to become an even slower one. It’s a five year list, inspired by Silvia joining the five year Classics Challenge. I will be surprised if I manage it in five years.

    Silvia, thank you for the invitation! I look forward to doing an end of the year review–that’s the kind of thing that can help me slow down and read more contemplatively.

  7. This is a formidable list! Are you reading all 70 in 2017?? I really like your challenge. My lists gravitate too much to what I already know. Your list and Silvia’s encourage me to step out of my comfort zone more when considering books.

    I love the idea of focusing on the literature of one part of the world. That would be really interesting.

    Letters To A Young Poet was one of my favorite books in my early 20’s. I’ve often wondered what I would think of it now, almost half a lifetime later. I also spent a lot of time with his poetry in those days. He had such passion and intensity.

  8. I started out reading that with the AO group, but I quickly fell behind because I couldn’t even keep up with the forum discussion! So, I’m on my own now and actually haven’t picked it up in a couple months. I am hoping to spend a good deal of time with it this summer – once my brain starts working again! Have you read it before?

  9. Wow, what a fascinating list.

    How am I so lucky to have Katie and Sherry’s list here with mine?

    It is an honor, I love it! I will definitely borrow from them.

    And at the end of the year, when I post a recap, (or at any time, really), don’t hesitate to publish changes, updates, and anything you like.

    I can publish a guest post with your reviews, lists, thoughts, anything, at anytime. And to add anything to the comments, you don’t need any permission at all. I love to find you have posted these lists!

  10. This was the reading challenge I created for myself for 2017:

    1. A book of poetry
    2. A Shakespeare play
    3. A play by someone other than Shakespeare.
    4. A novel by a French author
    5. A book by an early Christian
    6. A book by a native American
    7. A book by an African American
    8. An American history book
    9. A book I serendipiticiously find browsing through the library
    10. A book I’ve already read and loved
    11. A book about the Christian life
    12. A book about the arts

    Besides that, I’ve created a five year classics reading list. This is definitely subject to change.

    This year my focus is French literature, so although I won’t be reading these books in order, many of the French titles are for this year (time permitting).

    1. The Stranger Camus (French) 1942
    2. Tartuffe Moliere (French) 1664
    3. Pensees Pascal (French) 1669
    4. Le Petit Prince Saint Exupery (French) 1946
    5. The Misanthrope Moliere (French) 1666
    6. The Charterhouse of Parma Stendahl (French) 1839
    7. Democracy in America Toqueville (French) 1835
    8. Madame Bovary Flaubert (French) 1856
    9. Swann’s Way Proust (French) 1913
    10. Antigone Anouilh (French) 1944
    11. The Count of Monte Cristo Dumas (French) 1844
    12. Confessions Augustine (Early Christian) 397
    13. Fortunata and Jacinta Galdos (Spanish) 1887
    14. Yerma Lorca (Spanish) 1934
    15. Border of a Dream Machado (Spanish) pre-1939
    16. Up From Slavery Washington (African American) 1900
    17. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (African American) 1845
    18. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Brown (Native American) 1970
    19. Final Harvest Dickinson (American poetry) 19th century
    20. Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck (American) 1939
    21. Story of My Boyhood and Youth Muir (Scottish American) 1913
    22. Last of the Mohicans Cooper (American) 1826
    23. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God Edwards(American) 1741
    24. Death Comes For the Archbishop Cather (American) 1927
    25. Best Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe Poe (American) 1833
    26. Absalom! Absalom! Faulkner (American) 1936
    27. Something Wicked This Way Comes Bradbury(American) 1962
    28. Life and Diary of David Brainerd Brainerd (American) 1749
    29. The Fire Next Time Baldwin (African American) 1963
    30. Their Eyes Were Watching God Hurston (African American) 1937
    31. House of the Seven Gables Hawthorne(American) 1851
    32. Murder in the Cathedral Eliot (English) 1930
    33. The Moonstone Collins (English) 1868
    34. Tamburlaine Marlowe (English) 1590
    35. Reflections on the Revolution in France Burke (English) 1790
    36. The Man Who Was Thursday Chesterton(English) 1908
    37. A Little Princess Burnett (English) 1905
    38. A Tale of Two Cities Dickens (English) 1859
    39. I, Claudius Graves (English) 1934
    40. The Picture of Dorian Gray Wilde (English) 1891
    41. Of Human Bondage Maugham (English) 1915
    42. The Quiet American Greene (English) 1955
    43. Vanity Fair Thackery (English) 1847
    44. The Inferno Dante (Italian) 1320
    45. Orlando Furioso Oriosto (Italian) 1516
    46. The Aeneid Virgil (Roman) 17 B.C.
    47. Letters to a Young Poet Rilke (German) 1929
    48. Imitation of Christ Kempis (German) 1418
    49. Life Together Bonhoeffer (German) 1939
    50. Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky (Russian) 1880
    51. The Idiot Dostoevsky (Russian) 1868
    52. The God Who Is There Schaeffer (American) 1968
    53. Night Wiesel (Romanian; Holocaust) 1958
    54. The Odyssey Homer (Greek) 800 B.C.
    55. Lysistrata Aristophanes (Greek) 411 B.C.
    56. The Mind of the Maker Sayers (English) 1941
    57. Midaq Alley Mahfouz (Egyptian) 1947
    58. The Chosen Potok (Jewish American) 1967
    59. Cancer Ward Solzhenitsyn (Russian) 1968
    60. Leaves of Grass Whitman (American poetry) 1855
    61. Homage to Catalonia Orwell (English) 1938
    62. Julius Caesar Shakespeare (English) 1599
    63. King Lear Shakespeare (English) 1603
    64. Collected Poems Yeats (Irish poetry) 1889
    65. Growth of the Soil Hamsun (Norwegian) 1917
    66. Their Father’s God Roolvag (Norwegian American) 1931
    67. City of God Augustine (Early Church) 426
    68. On the Incarnation Athanasius (Early Church) 318
    69. The Problem of Pain Lewis (English; Christian) 1940
    70. In This House of Brede Godden (English) 1969

  11. Katie, I love your list. I wish I were reading Norms and Nobility with you.

  13. Okay, here is my list for 2017. I won’t get to them all, but it’s nice to dream. My oldest will be in Y6 this year, and I hope to keep up with all his reading too. I’m looking forward to a lot of those selections!

    Fiction/Poetry:
    This Day, Collected and New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry (year long read)
    The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan (added mid-year, currently reading)
    Brideshead Revisited by Waugh (added mid-year, currently reading)
    The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas (currently reading)
    Killer Angels by Shaara (currently listening on audio)
    Sense And Sensibility by Austen
    Silence by Endo
    Villette by Charlotte Bronte
    Rebecca by Du Maurier (read)
    Norse Mythology by Gaiman (added mid-year)
    Dandelion Wine by Bradbury (added mid-year)

    Non-Fiction:
    Norms and Nobility by Hicks (year long read)
    A Touch of The Infinite by Megan Hoyt (added mid-year)
    Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins
    Different by Sally and Nathan Clarkson (read)
    Jesus Outside The Lines by Sauls (currently reading)
    Befriend by Sauls
    Liturgy of The Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren (read)
    You Are What You Love by James K. A. Smith
    Beauty Will Save The World, Recovering The Human In An Ideological Age by Wolfe
    The Worship Pastor by Zak Hicks (currently reading)
    Orthodoxy by Chesterton
    Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

  14. Katie, you don’t need permission to post your list. Feel free to do so. I would love to see it.And Sherry’s, of course.

  16. Mind, you say? I’d be elated and honored. I’ll have a tag for you, and you can make the changes that you like (I think I can add writers to my blog, so that you can alter that list on your own. But I don’t mind taking care of posting it or updating it either! (Actually, this is your space too, at any time you want to share anything you write.

  17. Me, too, Katie! Do you want to share your list here (if Silvia doesn’t mind) or by email? I could share mine, too. 🙂

  18. Exactly. As long as we see them as provisional and ever-changing, or not oppressing but encouraging, they are fun, I agree. (Looking at others’ lists inspires me too)

  19. I love this idea. And I love lists. Every January I make a list of the books I hope to read in the coming year, but I like this long view and how it encourages great diversity.

  20. You know what? , I am not updating my reviews at their site, or adding them to twitter, I am not doing other than reading from my list.

    And I do have a category, though, at goodreads, with the books. That, like you say, makes me happy in itself.

    I am glad you still see purpose. You are so positive. I do love reading your thoughts or reviews of books, but I guess I am satisfied with your activity at Goodreads. I know you are busy with life and reading itself, and sometimes writing about the books is difficult.

    Now, if you want to have a simple blog where to record your lists, it’s not that difficult, and it’s free, but if you are happy the way you are, don’t let anything ruin that joy! I love to have your company as a reader, and a reader of classics.

  21. I had so much fun making my list, but I didn’t realize that I can’t officially participate without having a blog. Oh, well! I still intend to read through my list. I am especially excited about reading all the classics that I already own.

  22. Thanks, Fiction Fan!
    And… who cares about being behind!, what matters is the fun we are having, and I’m having lots of fan already. I’ve met wonderful new people, fellow readers. I’m visiting your blog, and getting to know you a bit through your readings.

  23. Belated welcome to the club, Silvia! Hope you enjoy it as much as I do – I’m just about to finish my first year (and am already way behind!) Lots of variety on your list – I look forward to hearing what you think of them. 🙂

  24. Making lists of books to read is so fun. 🙂 Henry V is my favorite book on your list. Have fun!

  25. What a fun idea. I see so many books I love on your list – The Prisoner of Zenda is one of my favorites. I had never even heard of it until we read The Scarlet Pimpernel on the AO forum, someone recommended Zenda, and I fell head over heels in love.

    Cheers,
    Sarah

  27. Oh, wow, I’m so happy to hear you ordered Fortunata and Jacinta. I believe you’d love it. I’ll join you reading Yerma and re-reading Machado with you.
    I plan to read Alfanhui, and it’s in English for almost nothing, https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&an=&tn=alfanhui&kn=&isbn=
    I believe we will both love this book written in 1951.
    I also have Los Pazos de Ulloa, by Emilia Pardo Bazán, also in English for not much, https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=21577075511&searchurl=kn%3Demilia%2Bpardo%2Bbazan%26sts%3Dt%26sortby%3D17 (The House of Ulloa), it’s highly praised here (but I did not read it all, just the beginning, for I don’t want to spoil it).
    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/20/house-ulloa-emilia-pardo-bazan
    I’m going to send you a book or two by a Spanish from Spain author, but I’ll keep it a surprise until I send them.
    I’m so happy you’ll be reading Spanish lit, I believe our authors are in general characterized by humor and drama, and Frenzen said in one of his essays that they are truly one and the same, right?

  28. I have been spending WAY too much time working on a list! It is fun, though, and addictive.

    I want to stick with this year’s list, which includes several French classics. But next year I want to read several Spanish classics. What would you suggest? I ordered Fortunata and Jacinta last night (yippee!) and I am planning Yerma by Lorca, and some poetry of Machado. Any must-reads I should know about?

  29. I don’t think is snobbish or “bad snobbish”, and Kim and I talked yesterday about this same thing, we feel the same you do.
    That’s why we pick that order, instead of very light books, we do light or more uplifting titles after or along the more demanding ones.
    Wow, your oldest is a wonderful reader. Watership Down is a book I want to read with my girls too.
    I always love to see what you read (actually, I need to read your last post).

  30. Wow. Amazing list, Silvia. You are the Classics Queen!!! I didn’t make a list this year, because I was being lazy, but I *am* trying really hard to look for “better” light reads. If that makes any sense. I’m actually finding that I can’t stand reading many of the books I used to read *ahem, cough Christian fiction* much any more. So, maybe my taste is finally changing a bit. I think I sound book snobbish, but oh well. I really would like to read Watership Down as my oldest devoured it and really, really enjoyed it. Happy Friday to you. Amy

  31. I also love picking up a book that interests me and reading it when I want.

    I agree with you there too, Karen.

    I saw the list as not imposing, it’s more a place where to record classics I’d love to read, and yes, some inner motivation. At the Classics Club they let you decide which are modern classics.

  32. What a neat idea! After reading a lot of contemporary fiction in February and then mostly Children’s literature books in March, I have been so ready for more classics! My husband and I are both reading A Tale of Two Cities now and are discussing it together. And I *need* to get back to reading The Brothers Karamazov!

    Just yesterday, I pulled out a book on my shelf that’s all about classic literature and entertained the thought of possibly reading through the classics talked about in the book. At least many of them anyway. But I’ve been tossing around several ideas recently for my reading. That’s just one idea. Another idea I have been thinking about for some time now is reading through a history series and pairing up classics to go along with it. And trying to be more intentional with narrating at least the history series. 😉 The planner in me loves the thought of having a reading plan like that. But I also love picking up a book that interests me and reading it when I want. 🙂

  33. Pingback: Ongoing Reading Log | Silvia Cachia

  34. How funny, I have two friends who, having read Dostoievsky’s BK and Tolstoy, prefer Tolstoy. I think I prefer Solzhenitsyn, just by reading his Cancer Ward, but I have high expectations with BrothersK or BK as I call it.

    I wonder if my girls will re-read some of these books, such as Daughter of Time, and realize too they’ve missed much. I’m intrigued about Wolf, because I gravitate to books that are usually described as beautifully written, for some reason. It must be our love for language?, or for philosophy/psychology in other cases?, but some books get to my soul in a straight line, and cut deep!

  36. Thanks! Hamlet has been my favorite Shakespeare play since I was 17, and I’ve been using Hamlette as an alias almost as long.

    I really like finding people whose CC lists are far different from my own. Helps me discover new authors and books!

  37. I love The Brothers! I saw the movie when I was about 12 ~ very dark & atmospheric. I fell in love so looked up the book. I like Solzhenitsyn also but Tolstoy not so much. 🙂

    Daughter of Time I have read several times. The first time I was still in primary school & missed a lot. I was surprised @ how much when I reread it as an adult. The Lighthouse is beautifully written too but I have never had the patience to finish it. Let me know. 🙂

  38. I will let you know about Tey, I’m excited to read her Daughter of Time. I’ve read The Glimpses of the Moon and I liked that Wharton, but I want to read this longer title for whom she got the Pulitzer Prize.
    Dostoevsky is your all time favorite? I’m excited about Brothers K. I’ve read (1866) Crime and Punishment
    (1867) The Gambler (novella), and (1869) The Idiot, but Brothers K is, I believe, his last novel, 1880. I am starting in April, along with my friend Kim.

  39. Some wonderful reads, Silvia. I should love to know what you think of Wharton & Tey but my all time favourite is Dostoevsky.

  40. Nothing will make me more happy than to see your list. And yes, I think you don’t give yourself enough credit. It’s a nice way to have your titles nicely tucked into a list that we all can look at. (And the Back to the Classics plan overlaps with this one too).

  41. Thanks, Hamlette (I love your alias. Hamlet is my favorite play, even though I don’t understand it in full, it’s just wonderful).
    I love finding ‘different’ authors, genra, and to try to unearth titles from my youth, or forgotten classics or books in general, and being from Spain, I’m finding interesting authors that surprisingly are translated into English, such as Galdós or Ortega y Gasset (compound last name for one person, ha ha ha). I’m looking forward to his Meditations on Hunting.

  42. Thanks! I might try something similar…giving a good amount of time like five years to work though that long of a list makes it seem less daunting 🙂

  43. I think I will do this too! And I was surprised to see that I’ve actually read 10 of the books on your list! Perhaps I’m better read than I give myself credit for. Now all I have to do is come up with my own 5 year plan! That might be difficult considering how many I have to choose from!

  44. What a great list! I see several books here that I love (Persuasion and Northanger Abbey and Kon-Tiki and North and South, especially), and some that are on my own CC list (like The Age of Innocence and The Scarlet Pimpernel). You have a really varied list, and it’s rich with authors I’ve barely heard of, or am not familiar with at all — it all looks excellent!

  45. I started to place titles from my ‘want to read’ list, added other books, re-reads, and I came up with those 58. But anything over 50 is what they indicate.
    I like the fact that, right now, apart from a few other titles that may come my way, this list is a good indicator of where I am and where I am going with my reading. (Looking at it, also, reminds me of other possibilities I may add to the mix, and 5 years seems gentle and not intimidating).
    I also wanted to be linked to that wonderful Classics Club blog, because they have nice members who expand and enrich my reading horizon, and a very comprehensive list of books and reviews).
    I would love for you and Sherry (and everyone, 🙂 to do this too. Then we’ll have wonderful lists full of old friends, and possible new ones.

  46. Love this Silvia! Such a good idea to spread this reading over the next five years 🙂 Lord willing of course! I might join in with a few of these as well in addition to the ones you and I are reading…I’ve never read The Scarlet Letter! How did you come up with the number 58?

  47. Great list! I’m happy you decided to sign up, looking forward to reading your reviews.

    I’ve only read two of the books on your list: Northanger Abbey and Mother Night. I really enjoyed both of them. Northanger Abbey is definitely a story for book lovers, and I thought Mother Night was one of Vonnegut’s best, out of what I’ve read so far.

  49. Just think, by the time this reading cycle ends, we’ll have high school students! 😍 I think it will be fun. I love making book lists.

  50. It seemed crazy initially, but the more I pondered about it, the more it grew on me. 5 years seem (and are) long. I don’t know if I’ll be here. Reading. Writing. But I know who I am today as a reader. I loved searching for the dates, trying to lay out some books from different times. It’s lovely to make lists. I’m not slaved to them (and they can be modified).
    The club is nice because sometimes they do a ‘spin’ thing, and they give you a number for your list, to encourage you to contemplate that title. (You can also pick some less liked, or abandoned, etc, and they have another time where they encourage you to pick that one, etc.)
    I know I’ll read much from that list. It’s fun. (The Classics Club is at goodreads too, -in case you are interested on doing this yourself).

  51. I love this idea, Silvia! How fun! I would enjoy making a list, even if I don’t manage to read all of them.

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