The Classics Club

Challenge accepted! What exactly is that challenge? At lunch today I was reading one of my bookstagram buddy’s blog and discovered this classics book club/ challenge and thought count me in! But wait let me see what it’s all about and if I can manage this amongst my other bookish shenanigans.

So here’s the 411 on The Classics Club — I’ve linked it here and included an abbreviated version of what’s required to participate below.

• Classics book club (of bloggers reading & discussing the classics)
• Choose 50 + classics to read in five years (you choose the start & finish date)
• Post the list on your blog
• Email the moderators of The Classics Club
• Write/review each book as you finish and link the review on your blog
• Finished? Tell the Classics Club (moderators)

I realized right before I started this blog: I love classic books! Last year I challenged myself to read at least 10 (total was 17!! too bad I didn’t know about this classics club before now but I digress). So needless to say I’m drawn more to them and have made it my business to incorporate them into my reading regime. In my quest to keep reading them (and encourage others to do the same) I thought I would give The Classics Club a try!

Side note from me: challenge yourself to #readmoreclassics even if you don’t blog. Coming soon is a blog post for tips to not just read but enjoy the classics so when I finish I will link it here. If my classics reading is anything like last year, who knows, I might just add a few more titles to the list but I’ll see how it goes!

Here’s my list (January 2018 – January 2023)

1. Emma by Jane Austen
2. Lady Susan by Jane Austen
3. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
4. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
5. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
6. Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
7. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
8. Villette by Charlotte Brontë
9. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
10. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (reread)
11. My Antonia by Willa Cather
12. Armadale by Wilkie Collins
13. The Lady and the Law by Wilkie Collins
14. No Name by Wilkie Collins
15. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (reread)
16. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (reread)
17. Hard Times by Charles Dickens
18. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
19. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
20. The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
21. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
22. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
23. Middlemarch by George Eliot
24. Silas Marner by George Eliot
25. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
26. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines (reread)
27. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest Gaines
28. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
29. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
30. The Odd Women by George Gissing
31. Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley
32. Tess of the d’Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy
33. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (reread)
34. Quicksand by Nella Larsen
35. How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn (reread)
36. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
37. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
38. Sula by Toni Morrison
39. Excellent Women By Barbara Pym
40. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
41. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith
42. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
43. The Pearl by John Steinbeck
44. The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
45. Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck
46. The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
47. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
48. Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim
49. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
50. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton