This is not a challenge but a book club with the idea that participants commit to reading a number of classics in a certain time from a list chosen by themselves.
After a few months the club grew so much it was decided to create a separate blog which now has newsletters, a monthly meme and other events to keep members inspired and interacting - The Classics Club
My Goal: To read 60 books in five years from the following list. This list, compiled rather quickly and which I've tried to make as varied as possible is subject to change as I go.I would like more Aus/NZ classics but I need to seek out some I haven't read. If at any time I feel my progress needs rewarding I shall treat myself to a book on my list.
Start date: 9 March, 2012
Finish date: 9 March, 2017
NZ & Australia
The Godwits Fly by Robin Hyde (August 2012) NZ
Janet Frame
The Story of a New Zealand River by Jane Mander
The Harp in the South trilogy by Ruth Park (July 2013)
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay (reread) Jan 2013
The Shiralee by D'Arcy Niland
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
We of the Never-Never by Mrs Aeneas Gunn ( Nov 2014)
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson - (June 2014)
Rest of the World
Beowulf by Anonymous (May 2015)
Persuasion by Jane Austen (August 2012)
Emma by Jane Austen
Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett (Jan 2013)
Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (June 2012)
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (reread) Jan 2013
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (reread) Feb/Apr 2015
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte - ( Jan 2015)
Possession by A S Byatt
My Antonia by Willa Cather (April 2012)
Wild Swans by Jung Chang
Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley
No Name by Wilkie Collins ( Aug/Sep 2014)
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delderfield
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (June 2012)
Bleak House by Charles Dickens - Feb/Mar 2013
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Helen by Maria Edgeworth
Middlemarch by George Eliot (2013)
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot ( June 2012)
Adam Bede by George Eliot
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (April 2013)
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford
Howard's End by E M Forster (May 2012)
Maurice by E M Forster
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy ( Jan-Apr 2015))
Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (Mar 2015)
Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
Westwood by Stella Gibbons (June 2013)
The Odd Women by George Gissing
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy ( Nov 2012)
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway ( Dec 2013)
South Riding by Winifred Holtby (Sept 2013)
Washington Square by Henry James
Three men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (June 2012)
Good Behaviour by Molly Keane - (May 2014)
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford (July 2012)
A Fine Balance by Rohantin Mistry
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
The Good Companions by J.B.Priestley
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (August 2012 )
Clarissa by Samuel Richardson - 2012
All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West (Oct 2015)
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
. ?? by Muriel Spark
East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Oct 2012)
Dracula by Bram Stoker ( Oct 2012)
The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington - March 2013
Vanity Fair by William M Thackeray
High Rising by Angela Thirkell ( Jan 2015)
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope (July 2012)
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (2015)
Rachel Ray by Anthony Trollope
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev - August 2014
Kristin Lavransdottir by Sigrid Undset
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim
Helbeck of Bannisdale by Mrs Humphry Ward (Feb'15)
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West (April 2013)
The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (Sept 2012)
Frost in May by Antonia White (Feb 2014)
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (August 2012)
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Germinal by Emile Zola ( June 2014)
The Fortune of the Rougons by Emile Zola
The Kill by Emile Zola (May 2015)
Novellas - 4 = 1 book
The Third Miss Symons by F M Mayor (March 2012)
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James ( Sept 2014
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle ( Sept 2014)
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton ( Nov 2014)
The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns ( Jan 2015)
The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M.Forster (Apr 2015)
Short Stories by Saki
Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield
We've got a lot of the same titles on our lists! I've read half of Vanity Fair so far. Oh my goodness, it is SOOO good. (I have trouble reading books when I love them because I want them to last.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'm happy you've joined, Cat!! I hope you have a blast reading all of these. I love that you're giving yourself a proze whenever you feel like it. :P
Thanks Jillian - really looking forward to it.
DeleteI love that you have The Harp in the South on your list!
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping to have a few more from Aus/NZ on the list as well.
DeleteI have Memento Mori by Muriel Spark on my list, and I've read a couple of Angela Thirkell's books: http://www.semicolonblog.com/?p=204
ReplyDeleteThirkell's book are all similar: village life , romantic entanglements, domestic drama. I really liked the two I read.
Happy classics reading to you!
Your list reminds me that I still have plenty of books I don't know about. Looking forward to your posts about these book, so I can have a glimpse of the stories.
ReplyDeleteHappy reading.
great list Cat! some of your choices were in my original list for the challenge. glad to see my favorite classic Dracula on your list.
ReplyDeletehappy reading and good luck!
i'm a new follower.
A couple of Aussie classic suggestions: Robbery Under Arms by Rolfe Boldrewood and A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute.
ReplyDeleteThanks Carol. I have read A Town like Alice but the other title is new to me. I'll check the library shelves.
DeleteI read Wild Swans by Jung Chang a long time ago and I LOVED it. Since I too am also from NZ - although I dont live there any more - I have put The Garden Party and other Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield on my Classics Club list, but that is the only Kiwi book I have. I also have Emma and East of Eden on my Classics list, but none of the others. Which means your list and mine are vastly different. I think this means I am not as widely read as I thought I was.
ReplyDelete