The Classics Club Spin #8: My Spin List

The Classics Club is doing another Spin.  Even though I said I wouldn’t do any challenges this month, this will be my first Spin, and since I’ve got until Jan. 5th to complete one book, I decided to participate.  Part of the challenge is to choose five of my Classics Club books I’m hesitant to read, five I can’t wait to read, five I’m neutral about, and five free choice.  The problem with that is I didn’t put any books on my Classics Club list that I knew I wouldn’t want to read.  So, instead, I chose five books that I think are lengthy/dense and/or difficult for the modern reader.  Those are in bold.  The five I can’t wait to read are italicized, and the five neutral books are in regular text.  The five underlined books are my free choices.  I’ve either read them many years ago, started them but never finished, or I already own them and it’s a matter of convenience.

  1. Kafka, Franz: The Trial
  2. London, Jack: White Fang
  3. Melville, Herman: Moby Dick
  4. Bronte, Anne: Agnes Grey
  5. Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Karenina
  6. Dickens, Charles: Oliver Twist
  7. Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter
  8. Hugo, Victor: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  9. Dumas, Alexandre: The Count of Monte Cristo
  10. Wells, H.G.: The Time Machine
  11. Carroll, Lewis: Alice in Wonderland
  12. Yeats, William Butler: Irish Faerie Tales
  13. Scott, Sir Walter: Ivanhoe
  14. Flaubert, Gustav: Madame Bovary
  15. Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
  16. Burnett, Frances Hodgson: The Secret Garden
  17. Proust, Marcel: Swann’s Way
  18. Cooper, James Fenimore: The Last of the Mohicans
  19. Gogol, Nikolay: Dead Souls
  20. Verne, Jules: Journey to the Center of the Earth

Once the Spin number is announced (Monday, Nov. 10th), I’ll post which book I’ll be reading.  Depending on which book it is, I might create a read-along for those of you who would like to read it too.

Are you in the Classics Club?  If so, are you participating in the Spin?

What I’m Reading Monday #10

Currently Reading:  The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, which I wasn’t able to finish before Halloween, and Villette by Charlotte Brontë, which I’m picking back up now that all the Halloween activities are done, Tears of a Heart by Chase Blackwood, a review book, and The Hobbit and Philosophy, another book I’m returning to.

  Historian Villette1.52.qxd Tears Hobbit Philosophy

Finished: The Nightingale Bones by Ariel Swan, which I reviewed, and Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.

Nightingale Something Wicked

Total pages read for the week: 482

Total number of books for the year: 52.  It’s such a relief to have surpassed my goal for the year.  Now I’m concentrating on finishing books I had started as well as reading the review books I’ve got lined up for this month.  I’m not going to be participating in any read-alongs, read-a-thons, or challenges this month, since the holidays are just around the corner, and I’ve got Finals in December.  I need to relax, and I want to get back to a consistent schedule while I can.  That means Thursday’s Quotables will be every week (except on Thanksgiving), instead of being cancelled due to other posts.  I have a few ideas for new features, but I’m going to wait until at least mid-December before I start those.

What are you reading this week?