I Joined a Classics Book Club!

classicsclub1I have had a literary bucket list up on my blog for quite some time, and I am steadily making my way through the books – albeit slowly.

Recently, a lovely blogger commented on a post of mine and introduced me to a group of likeminded people, called The Classics Club. The club is dedicated to uniting “those of us who like to blog about classic literature, as well as to inspire people to make the classics an integral part of life.”

To join this club, you have to choose at least 50 classics books and read and review them all within five years. Easy peasy! I hope. You also choose your own start and end date, but the maximum is five years.

Considering I already had a goal to read as many classics books as possible, I decided to join this group, hoping that their passion for classics books will rub off on me and inspire me to read more.

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Challenge start date:

31st October, 2017.

Challenge end date: 

31st October, 2022.

The Books:
  1. 1984 by George Orwell
  2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
  3. Animal Farm by George Orwell
  4. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  5. At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O’Neill
  6. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  7. Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx
  8. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  9. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  10. The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield by Katherine Mansfield
  11. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  12. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
  13. Dracula by Bram Stoker
  14. Dune by Frank Herbert
  15. Emma by Jane Austen
  16. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
  17. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
  18. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  19. The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
  20. The Godfather by Mario Puzio
  21. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
  22. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
  23. A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  24. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  25. IQ84 by Haruki Murakami
  26. It by Stephen King
  27. Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Malory
  28. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
  29. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
  30. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
  31. Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert
  32. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
  33. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
  34. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
  35. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
  36. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
  37. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
  38. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
  39. Persuasion by Jane Austen (reread)
  40. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
  41. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
  42. Richard III by William Shakespeare
  43. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
  44. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  45. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  46. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  47. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
  48. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  49. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
  50. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

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Please cheer me on as I attempt this feat! I think it’s pretty doable. As I have chosen 50 books to read within five years, that breaks down to 10 books a year! I’m sure I can accomplish this goal!

This is the official page with my tbr and other info on the Classics Club. Each time I finish a book, I will cross it off on the list on the page and then include a link to my review.

38 thoughts on “I Joined a Classics Book Club!”

      • Jillian says:

        I realize I’ve been present at your blog a lot over the last couple days. May I intrude once more to encourage you on Gone with the Wind? I might as well make a complete nuisance of myself! 🙂 I realize you’re reading some large tomes right now, & I don’t mean to pressure you on Gone with the Wind. Only to inform & inspire, for future reference.

        So, GWTW is a feminist story about a sixteen year old girl in Georgia who has been taught that her only role in life (her only weapon) is her ability to flirt. And her only possibly future is marriage. And the only way to get married is to pretend you are stupid & agree with everything a man says. When she begins the novel, she buys into all this. But then the war arrives, & her world is completely torn apart. She is faced with the sudden truth that she must save herself. That men aren’t going to protect and defend her in such a world, and that POSSIBLY everything she has been taught about life is a gigantic fiction which has crippled her completely. But she has A LOT of trouble seeing this, because she has been warped by the society that gave birth to her. The novel is a gigantic test of her endurance. And it reads FAST. I have read it six times. 🙂

        Here’s a trailer. Sorry to be such a pest about it! I just hope you get to read it someday & discover it’s nothing like you expect when you look at that HUGE text. It starts a little slow, laying out the foundation that defines who she is as the novel progresses. But it’s GOOD. As in, can’t-put-it-down, my-heart-is-in-my-feet good. Thunder & lightning good.

        Liked by 1 person

      • thebookcorps says:

        Hahahah not at all, I love talking about books!! I definitely will be reading Gone with the Wind! My mum has a copy already, so I’ll borrow hers when I’m ready to read it 😀

        GWTW sounds awesome! I’m going to take a look at it 😀
        Thank you

        Like

  3. Jillian says:
    Reply

    I’m not currently blogging, so I don’t have a list posted right now, but I joined the club in 2012 when they began. I just thought I’d share the titles I read & journaled about with the group, as inspiration for you. YOU CAN DO IT. 🙂

    1 – {The Dead by James Joyce} – 3/17/12
    2 – {A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.} – 3/23/12
    3 – {The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett} – 3/30/12
    4 – {Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf} – 5/29/12
    5 – {The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë} – 6/18/12
    6 – {On Fairy-Stories by J.R.R. Tolkien} – 7/5/12
    7 – {Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier} -8/13/12
    8 – {Renascence and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay} – 11/21/12
    9 – {Christmas Collection by Truman Capote} – 12/24/12
    10 – {The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle} – 12/27/12
    11 – {Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs} – 12/28/12
    12 – {Xingu by Edith Wharton} – 12/30/12
    13 – {The Snows of Kilimanjaro & Stories by Ernest Hemingway} – 2/23/13
    14 – {The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway}- 3/25/13
    15 – {Summer by Edith Wharton.} – 8/31/13
    16 – {Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe} – 9/7/13
    17 – {East of Eden by John Steinbeck} – 10/17/13
    18 – {The Rover by Aphra Behn} – 11/7/13
    19 – {Oroonoko by Aphra Behn} – 11/15/13
    20 – {The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton} -11/15/13
    21 – {The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane} – 11/26/13
    22 – {March by Geraldine Brooks} – 11/26/13
    23 – {The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald} – 12/8/13
    24 – {The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan} – 12/19/13
    25 – {The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara} – 12/29/13
    26 – {Stoner by John Edward Williams} – 1/7/14
    27 – {Little Men by Louisa May Alcott} – 5/14/14
    28 – {Jo’s Boys by Louisa May Alcott} – 5/14/14
    29 – {A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen} – 6/19/14
    30 – {Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen} – 6/1/14
    31 – {The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter} – 7/20/14
    32 – {Lady Susan by Jane Austen} – 8/29/14
    33 – {Mansfield Park by Jane Austen} – 10/25/14
    34 – {Emma by Jane Austen} – 11/10/14
    35 – {Lovers’ Vows by August von Kotzebue} – 11/21/14
    36 – {A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens} – 11/25/14
    37 – {Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson}- 12/28/14
    39 – {A Defense of Poetry by Percy Shelley} – 4/1/15
    40 – {Prometheus Unbound by Percy Shelley} – 4/1/15
    41 – {The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank} – 5/25/15
    42 – {Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston} – 6/8/15
    43 – {Frankenstein by Mary Shelley} – 7/1/14
    44 – {To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee} – 7/26/15
    45 – {The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath} – 7/26/15
    46 – {Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee} – 7/26/15
    47 – {Ariel by Sylvia Plath} – 8/2/15
    48 – {Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain} – 8/29/15
    49 – {Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte} – 9/19/15
    50 – {Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill} – 9/19/15
    51 – {A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf} – 10/16/15
    52 – {Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery} – 10/15/15
    53 – {Sula by Toni Morrison} 11/22/15
    54 – {Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell} – 1/8/16
    55 – {Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder} – 12/24/15
    56 – {The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare} – 8/21/16
    57 – {Richard III by William Shakespeare} – 8/21/16
    58 – {The Tempest by William Shakespeare} – 8/21/16
    59 – {Hamlet by William Shakespeare} – 8/21/16
    60 – {Henry IV Part One by William Shakespeare} – 8/21/16
    61 – {Henry V by William Shakespeare} – 8/21/16
    62 – {Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare} – 8/21/16
    63 – {Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare} – 8/21/16
    64 – {As You Like It by William Shakespeare} – 8/21/16
    65 – {Lost Laysen by Margaret Mitchell} – 5/17/16
    66 – {David Copperfield by Charles Dickens} – 6/11/16
    67 – {The Story of My Life by Helen Keller} – 7/13/16
    68 – {Behind the Scenes by Elizabeth Keckley} – 7/23/16
    69 – {A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe} – 1/5/17
    70 – {The Time Machine by H.G. Wells} – 1/5/17
    71 – {The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells} – 1/5/17
    72 – {Common Sense by Thomas Paine} – 1/5/17
    73 – {The Story Girl by Lucy Maud Montgomery} –
    74 – {Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup.} – 1/5/17
    75 – {Little Women by Louisa May Alcott} – 1/28/17
    76 – {The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss} – 2/26/17
    77 – {The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James} – 2/26/17
    78 – {The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant} – 3/3/17
    79 – {Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee} – 4/10/17
    80 – {Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl} – 4/14/17
    81 – {Journal of a Novel by John Steinbeck} – 5/1/17

    Since I finished this list, I’ve also read the full Lord of the Rings trilogy & The Hobbit. 😀 I journaled on all of the above at my blog, but the blog is currently gone while I work on school! Right now I’m reading a 1928 epic poem called John Brown’s Body by Stephen Vincent Benét, which I am finding INCREDIBLE. It won the Pulitzer.

    Liked by 1 person

    • thebookcorps says:
      Reply

      Wow, that’s amazing, Jillian! Thank you so much for sharing! I hope I can read as many as you 😀 I can’t wait to read the Lord of the Rings as well – I’ve tried so many times over the years, and can’t get into it! I’m hoping now that I’m older, and I have this group, that I can read the books. I’m going to look up that poem, it looks awesome 😀 I think the good thing about a group like this is that the more classics you read, the more you come to like the genre 😀

      Liked by 1 person

    • hamlettethedame says:
      Reply

      Hello! I’m just popping over to welcome you to the Classics Club and reiterate what Jillian said — you are 100% welcome to join my LOTR read-along! It’s starting Nov. 1, and we only do about 3 chapters a week, so it’s a very comfy pace, nothing strenuous.

      I finished my first Classics Club list at the end of 2016 and enjoyed it so much, I “re-enlisted” with a fresh list of 50 books. It’s such a great way to keep track of what you read and challenge yourself to get to some of those books you keep “meaning to read” but not getting around to. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

      Liked by 1 person

      • thebookcorps says:

        Thank you!! I think I might join – I finish uni at the end of October, so I’ll have plenty of time dedicated to reading 😀 That’s great to hear that it’s only a few chapters a week. I’ve always tried to read LOTR before, and I give up way too soon – spacing it out might be easier, and reading it with other people helps.

        That’s great to hear! Makes me feel like I’ll be able to accomplish mine! I completely agree – there’s so many classics books I’ve wanted to read for years, but never get around to! Thank you 😀

        Like

      • hamlettethedame says:

        Congratulations on your impending graduation, then! When I graduated from college, I basically wallowed in books for like a year. Reading alllllllll the things I’d been wanting to read for four years but couldn’t because of assignments always being due, etc. Enjoy!

        Liked by 1 person

  5. Mandy *on hiatus* (@_bookprincess_) says:
    Reply

    For a second, I thought that the end date was a mistake, but then I’m like, oh, that’s actually really smart to space them out. You have some big ones on there, but they do sound quite intriguing. I really enjoyed Frankenstein and The Princess Bride is a lot of fun. 🙂 I hope you enjoy, and I can’t wait to see what the five years brings! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    • thebookcorps says:
      Reply

      Hahaha, I have to! I can easily read 50 books in a year, but not all classics! Especially the ones I’ve chosen 😀 You know what, I have studied Frankenstein at uni twice now, and I never read it 😂 I think it’s about time I do. Oh, and I have a gorgeous copy of the Princess Bride, so I hope I love it! Glad to know you love these books Mandy 😀
      Thank you so much 💕😘

      Like

  7. ireadthatinabook says:
    Reply

    Glad to see that others are just starting with their lists. I have just begun mine (1 finished so far…) and am fascinated by how different everyones lists are. I believe we only had three in common. I look forward to follow your reading.

    Liked by 1 person

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