Hello readers! It's been a while! A couple of months ago, I posted about finishing the 50 books on my Classics Club list and solicited your suggestions on what to add to list #2. Thanks to everyone who commented. I took some of your suggestions and a few more from an online book club, and I'm back to share my second Classics Club list.
To recap, the Classics Club encourages people to choose a list of classic books to read within a given time frame. The idea is that you add some of the books that you have been meaning to read one day, enough that it is a challenge, but not so many that it feels impossible and you spend all your days pouring over Proust. Well, unless that's your thing. ;) I chose 50 books to read within the next five years. You can use your own interpretation of what a classic is. I tended towards books that are more than 50 years old. I checked a few "read before you die" lists to see what are considered books that have stood the test of time, and also did a bit of research trying to find classics from non-English speaking countries, especially trying for some African and African American works, and made sure to have some Canadian works too. I added some Russian classics too because I just really like Russia. I also limited myself to a maximum of two books per author. However, I also made sure everything that I added to the list was available either at the Toronto Public Library or through Amazon Kindle.
My full list is below. The aim is to finish this list by August 31, 2023, which to be honest sounds like a crazy futuristic date at this point. LOL. I kicked off the challenge yesterday by starting #15 on the list, The Count of Monte Cristo!
1. U.R. Ananthamurthy - Samskara
2. Isaac Asimov - I, Robot
3. James Baldwin - Go Tell It On The Mountain
4. Pierre Boulle - Bridge On The River Kwai
5. Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
6. Mikhail Bulgakov - Heart Of The Dog
7. Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan Of The Apes
8. Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep
9. Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone
10. Charles Dickens - Little Dorrit
11. Charles Dickens - Our Mutual Friend
12. Alfred Doeblin - Berlin Alexanderplatz
13. Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Notes From The Underground
14. Arthur Conan Doyle - The White Company
15. Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo
16. Daphne DuMaurier - My Cousin Rachel
17. Frantz Fanon - The Wretched Of The Earth
18. Henry Fielding - Tom Jones
19. F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tender Is The Night
20. Ian Fleming - Casino Royale
21. John Galsworthy - The Forstye Saga
22. Elizabeth Gaskell - Wives And Daughters
23. Stella Gibbons - Cold Comfort Farm
24. Guenter Grass - The Tin Drum
25. Graham Greene - The Third Man
26. Alex Haley - Roots
27. Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises
28. Hermann Hesse - Steppenwolf
29. Henry James - The Golden Bowl
30. Margaret Laurence - The Diviners
31. Doris Lessing - The Golden Notebook
32. Hugh MacLennan - Two Solitudes
33. Herman Melville - Billy Budd, Foretopman
34. Thomas Mofolo - Chaka the Zulu
35. Flannery O'Connor - Wise Blood
36. George Orwell - Burmese Dayss
37. Sir Walter Scott - Rob Roy
38. Isaac Bashevis Singer - The Magician of Lublin
39. Fyodor Sologub - The Petty Demon
40. Ngugi wa Thiong'o - A Grain Of Wheat
41. Leo Tolstoy - The Kreuzer Sonata
42. Anthony Trollope - Phineas Finn
43. Ivan Turgenev - Spring Torrents
44. Jules Verne - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
45. Jules Verne - Journey To The Centre Of The Earth
46. Evelyn Waugh - Decline And Fall
47. P.G. Wodehouse - Thank You, Jeeves
48. Richard Wright - Native Son
49. Emile Zola - Germinal
50. Emile Zola - Nana
