Back to the Classics Challenge

This year, one of my reading goals was to read more classics. Of the 73 books I have read to date, 5 were classics. Not the best showing, really. The problem is not that I do not like classics, just that I don't seem to pick them up. But I'm going to do better next year, and in order to motivate myself, I've signed up for my first official challenge - Back to the Classics. Here's what I'm thinking of reading:

Any 19th Century Classic:
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Any 20th Century Classic
Anything by Fitzgerald
Anything by Hemingway (also part of my 26 by 26 list)
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

Reread a classic of your choice
Dubliners by James Joyce
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene
The Aeneid by Virgil

A Classic Play
Shakespeare. Shakespeare. Shakespeare.

Classic Mystery/Horror/Crime Fiction
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arther Conan Doyle

Classic Romance
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Lady Chatterly's Lover by D. H. Lawrence

Read a Classic that has been translated from its original language to your language 
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (also on my 26 by 26 list)
The Illiad or The Odyssey by Homer

Classic Award Winner
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (Pulitzer, 1947)
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (Pulitzer, 1940)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre (Edgar, 1965)

Read a Classic set in a Country that you will not visit during your lifetime
The Once and Future King by T. H. White
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

I'm sure my list will change as the year progresses, but at least it's a starting point. As an added bonus, I own the majority of these titles already, so I can at least work on my continued to goal to read books I already own.

What classics are you hoping to read next year? Will you participate in a challenge to reach your goal?
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5 comments

  1. BNovember 12, 2011 at 6:24 PM

    Ok I read Little Women for the classics challenge this year and did not like it. Though, I am in the minority with my opinion, it seems to be one of those books that if you didn't read it as a young woman, it seems to lack something.

    I also read Lady Chatterley's Lover for the classics challenge this year and liked it quite a bit! Id' recommend that any day.

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  2. MysticaNovember 12, 2011 at 6:28 PM

    This is a comprehensive list to start with! and you have many of them you say so you will get to it eventually.

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  3. AnnNovember 12, 2011 at 9:14 PM

    Gone with the Wind. The best. I keep thinking I will read War and Peace someday. My mom loved it.

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  4. RedNovember 13, 2011 at 3:47 PM

    Awesome list, especially the choice of Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare for the play.

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  5. Kerry MNovember 14, 2011 at 5:26 PM

    Brenna - Really? I've heard so many good things! You might be on to something with the age at which you read it though. I've heard similar arguments about Catcher in the Rye.

    Mystica - I'm really glad to be reading (or aiming to read, at any rate) books that I already own.

    Ann - I have so many books like that! War and Peace is on my 26 by 26 list, and I've heard only wonderful things about Gone with the Wind.

    Red - Thanks! I've read a lot of his works, but not all of them. Although I have read some of the less common ones, that means I haven't read some of the most famous ones. Like the Henries. And The Tempest.

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