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Classics Club Challenge

I have decided to sign up for The Classics Club reading challenge this year. Based on this sign-up post and this FAQs post, we can choose our own criteria for what maketh a “classic” and then we have to make a list of 100 classics that we want to read – not immediately – but over the next 5 years.

For my own “classics” criteria, I’m going with a mixed bag of books famous in a specific genre* OR any books published before 1974 (i.e. more than 50 years ago). Here follows the list!

  1. Precious Bane by Mary Webb (1924)
  2. The Death of Ivan Illych by Leo Tolstoy (1886, novella)
  3. He Who Whispers by John Dickson Carr (1946)
  4. She Died a Lady by John Dickson Carr (1943)
  5. Tour de Force by Christianna Brand (1955)
  6. Death of Jezebel by Christianna Brand (1948)
  7. Miss Buncle’s Book by D. E. Stevenson (1934)
  8. The Forsaken Inn by Anna Katharine Green (1889)
  9. *The Essential Groucho (published 2000, but anthology of older “classic” pieces)
  10. The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain (1869)
  11. The New Magdalen by Wilkie Collins (1873)
  12. *James Thurber on Writing Humor & Himself by Michael Rosen (published 1989, but anthology of older “classic” pieces)
  13. Listen, O King! Five-and-Twenty Tales of Vikram and the Vetal by Sivadasa (original 11th century CE, trans. Deepa Agarwal 2016)
  14. Quality Street by JM Barrie (1901, play)
  15. *Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (1992, SFF Masterworks)
  16. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (1942)
  17. Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot (1857)
  18. High Rising by Angela Thirkell (1933)
  19. Chartreuse of Parma by Stendhal (1839)
  20. The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes (1963)
  21. The Duke’s Daughter by Angela Thirkell (1951)
  22. The Brandons by Angela Thirkell (1939)
  23. Smith of Wootton Major by J.R.R. Tolkien (1967, novella)
  24. *Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter (1981) or Pippi Longstocking (1945) by Astrid Lindgren (children’s classics)
  25. Notes from Underground by F. Dostoevsky (1864)
  26. *What’s Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies (1985 but well known mystery classic)
  27. A Laodicean; or, The Castle of the De Stancys by Thomas Hardy (1880)
  28. The Red Carnelian by Phyllis A. Whitney (1943)
  29. The Quicksilver Pool by Phyllis A. Whitney (1955)
  30. Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey (1946)
  31. Clothes-Pegs by Susan Scarlett/ Noel Streatfeild (1939)
  32. The Midnight Folk by John Masefield (1927)
  33. Winnie The Pooh by A.A. Milne (1926)
  34. The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien (1939)
  35. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (1952)
  36. The Odyssey by Homer (original 8th century BC, ed. Emily Wilson 2017)
  37. Jill the Reckless by P. G. Wodehouse (1920)
  38. The Foundling by Georgette Heyer (1948)
  39. Dawn’s Early Light by Elswyth Thane (1943)
  40. Kathasaritsagar: Sea of Stories by Somadeva (original 1070 CE, transl. Meena Nayak 2020)
  41. Lucy Carmichael by Margaret Kennedy (1951)
  42. The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy (1924)
  43. Desire by Una Lucy Silberrad (1908)
  44. Katherine by Anya Seton (1954)
  45. Avalon by Anya Seton (1965)
  46. Till Death Do Us Part by John Carr (1944)
  47. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (1922)
  48. Florence Nightingale by Laura E. Richards (1909)
  49. The Day of the Storm by Rosamunde Pilcher (1971)
  50. Red Moon and Black Mountain by Joy Chant (1970)
  51. Abraham Lincoln by Lord Charnwood (1916)
  52. *The Writing Life by Annie Dillard (1989)
  53. Don’t Tell Alfred by Nancy Mitford (1960)
  54. The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden (1859)
  55. The Wolf Leader by Alexandre Dumas (1857)
  56. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
  57. *Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (2000)
  58. The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley Cox (1929)
  59. Appleby’s End by Michael Innes (1945)
  60. Warrior Scarlet by Rosemary Sutcliff (1958)
  61. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1926)
  62. Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (1944)
  63. Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
  64. The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux (1907)
  65. The Tragedy of Y by Ellery Queen (1932)
  66. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (1966)
  67. The Game of Kings: Lymond Chronicles 1 by Dorothy Dunnett (1961)
  68. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
  69. Time and the Gods by Lord Dunsany (1906)
  70. *The Wheel of Life by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1997, well-known spiritual classic)
  71. *Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg (1987, well-known humor classic)
  72. The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton (1904)
  73. The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott (1819)
  74. Guy Mannering by Walter Scott (1815)
  75. The Heart of Midlothian by Walter Scott (1818)
  76. Jirel of Joiry by C. L. Moore (1969)
  77. And So To Murder by John Dickson Carr (1940)
  78. *The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005, well-known biographical classic)
  79. Augustus Carp, Esq. by Himself, Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man by Henry Howarth Bashford (1924)
  80. The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace (1906)
  81. Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope (1857)
  82. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (1937)
  83. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (1954)
  84. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (1911)
  85. Woman of Straw by Catherine Arley (1956)
  86. The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart (1970)
  87. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (1952)
  88. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (1978)
  89. The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas (1850)
  90. The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki (1847)
  91. The Outcast Spirit & Other Stories by Emilia Dilke (1891)
  92. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand (1897, play)
  93. The Tale of Tales by Giambattista Basile (1634)
  94. *Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore (2002)
  95. Leave It to Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse (1923)
  96. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis (1956)
  97. Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell (1853)
  98. Candide by Voltaire (1759)
  99. Letters From a Stoic by Seneca (c. 65 AD)
  100. A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes (1957)

Last updated: 7-February-24

6 replies on “Classics Club Challenge”

Impressive choices, and so wide ranging! I’ve only read eleven of these – the titles by Lewis, Stewart, Wharton, Huxley, Herbert, Borges, Townsend Warner, Hesse, Grahame, Masefield and Lundgren – and watched the Stoppard decades ago in the theatre. The Robertson Davies and the Trollope are on my nominal to-read list, but I look forward to reading what you think of any your hundred classics!

I‘ve read only 5 of them. What’s Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies was excellent. Dune is one of my favourite books. Pippi Longstocking is good, but not my favourite Lindgren.

Wow, welcome to the club, so cool to see you joined!
Actually, you can also choose the number of titles you want, a lot of participants choose 50.
You have a great list, I read only 18. I so loved 87, and many others, but I hated 10 – he was so condescending, I thought.
Looking forward to your reviews of Carr’s.
Have fun, and the Classic Spin is always a cool event.

Originally, I thought we all had to have 50, but it went way too fast for me. So now I am in my 4th list, and this list has 150 titles:
https://wordsandpeace.com/2022/09/15/the-classics-club-september-2022-2027/

I’ve read about 25 of these; not sure about the Phyllis Whitneys but I seem to recall a summer where I read all of hers. I say, start with Dawn’s Early Light. I still remember the day my mother left it on my pillow (I hope I had a pillow sham as it was a shabby library copy). It took years to get my own set of this wonderful series but I have an extra copy of either the third or fourth books that I will send you if you read and like the first two.

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