I joined The Classics Club five years ago with the intention of reading 50 books in five years. I managed to read and review 71 books in that time so now I'm starting again.
So here we go with some of the books I'd like to read in the next five years. I'm adding some 'modern classics' in - books that were written in the last 25 years and including some that I've already read years ago and want to re-visit.
Novels
Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers (1927)
Strong Poison (1930) re-read
Have His Carcase (1932)
Gaudy Night (1935) re-read
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928)
The Nine Tailors (1934)
Busman's Honeymoon (1937)
Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie (1945)
The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)
Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey (1946)
A Mind to Murder by P.D. James (1963)
Shroud for a Nightingale (1971)
In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden (1969)
The Dean's Watch by Elizabeth Goudge (1960)
The Scent of Water (1963)
Pilgrim's Inn (1948)
Gentian Hill (1949)
The White Witch (1958)
The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1924)
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis (1956)
Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
Perelandra (1943)
That Hideous Strength (1945)
Chocky by John Wyndham (1968)
The Lord of the Rings by J.R. Tolkien (1937-1949)
War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1869)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1866)
The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1924)
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis (1956)
Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
Perelandra (1943)
That Hideous Strength (1945)
Chocky by John Wyndham (1968)
The Lord of the Rings by J.R. Tolkien (1937-1949)
War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1869)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1866)
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (1957-8)
The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (1878)
Non-Fiction
In the Steps of the Master by H.V. Morton (1934)
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (1952)
Modern Classics
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré (1974)
The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (1878)
North & South (1855)
The Life of Charlotte Bronte (1857)
Wives & Daughters (1864)
Bleak House by Charles Dickens (1852) re-read
Hard Times (1854) re-read
Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4)
Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4)
The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton (1922)
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson (1917-1929)
The Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume (1886)
Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811) re-read
John Macnab by John Buchan (1924)
Germinal by Emile Zola (1885)
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (1967)
The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki (1943)
A Woman in Berlin (1954)
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1938)
Under the Yoke by Ivan Vazov (1888)
Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar by Jules Verne (1876)
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (1875)
Villette by Charlotte Bronte (1853)
Requiem for a Wren by Nevil Shute (1955)
What Happened to the Corbetts (1939)
Non-Fiction
In the Steps of the Master by H.V. Morton (1934)
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (1952)
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton (1908)
Come, tell me How You Live by Agatha Mallowan Christie (1946)
Modern Classics
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré (1974)
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (1993)
Educational Classics
Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason (1925) re-read
Ourselves (in progress)
For the Children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay (1984)
14 comments:
This is a list of great books. Of the books that I have read, I liked or lived them all. I want to read every single one of the books that you have listed that I have not read. These lists remind me ion just how many great books there are there out there.
I look forward to your upcoming posts. Happy reading!
I agree with Brian, this is a great list and my interest is piqued for almost all of them. One lone exception would be The Gulag Archipelago. I LOVED The Cancer Ward by Solzhenitsyn and very much enjoyed The Day in the Live of Ivan Denisovich. But I found the Archipelago to be impenetrable. This was many years ago, however, when I tried it. Maybe I would have more patience now! :D
What a great list of classics! Dracula and Middlemarch are two of my favorites. :)
Nice list, Carol! You have a good balance between heavy and lighter reads. I have intentions to read more Goudge soon, as the couple of books I've read so far have been wonderful. Gaskell is great .... have you read Ruth? It's my favourite so far. The Gulag Archipelago is my nemesis. I tried to read the unabridged version and I think I'm going to have to go against my firm rule and read an abridged version to get through it. Good luck though and have fun with your second Classics Club list!
Thanks, Brian. Yes, the more I read, the more I find out how much I haven't read :)
Ruthiella, I loved Cancer ward also. I was dubious at first with a title like that, but wasn't it great?!
I did read The Gulag when I was about 19 I think and I started reading it again about a year ago but it's probably going to take me till the end of this year to finish it! And I have an abridged version!! I just think it's such an important book.
Hi Lark, I think I've skiummed Middlemarch in the past or maybe listened to it on audio as it sounds familiar but I want to read it properly.
After reading some very positive responses about Dracula from various bloggers I thought it sounded worthwhile. Two of my boys bought me lovely HB copies of both books for my birthday.
Cleo, I haven't read Ruth yet but plan to at some stage. I might add it above although I don't have a copy of it yet. I mentioned to Ruthiella that I'm reading the abridged version of The Gulag - at leas=t I think it is?? Even so it will take me another year to get through it.
What a fantastic list!! I keep meaning to join this challenge myself; it's very inspiring to see what others choose to read. I'm SO jelly you get read some of these for the first time (Dracula, Villette, and Till We Have Faces). Enjoy! :)
Hi Marian, it’s a no pressure challenge. You pick books you were planning to read anyway & you read on your own schedule. Yes, I’m going to enjoy getting into these books.
So many favorites!
War & Peace
Return of the Native
Dr. Zhivago
Dracula
Sense & Sensibility
The Gulag
Mere Christianity
How Should We Then Live?
And I want to read The Four Loves for my next CS Lewis!
Best of Luck!
Hi Ruth, I bought a copy of Lewis's 'God in the Dock' which is a collection of his essays. Hope to read at least some of it this year.
Enjoy your reading year :)
I found your blog while I was googling the publishing date for Keeper of the Bees for my blog post listing my 50 Classics in 5 Years, which I am starting this month. How fun to see that you have been doing this challenge for some time now (your second round??) and that we have so many similar authors on our list! Dorothy Sayers, Elizabeth Gaskell, Elizabeth Goudge, C.S. Lewis, Bronte, Dickens, Tolkein, Agatha Christie, and Francis Schaeffer!
One thing that I wasn't sure about with reviewing the books read for the challenge, does each book need its own post to qualify for the challenge? I review all my books (classics and contemporary) on my blog at the end of the month. Would the link to that post suffice?
Hi Elena, I can tell you're a woman of good taste!! I love all those authors. Yes, this is my second time around - there are just so many great classics out there.
I've done a couple of reviews in a block & I know others have as well. It's a fairly relaxed challenge and I've enjoyed 'meeting' other bloggers through it.
I look forward to seeing the list you come up with.
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