In March 2012, I joined The Classics Club and pledged to read 50 books in five years. At the time, I had just started blogging (in January) and was following The Well-Educated Mind reading list. All of the books on the novel list were considered classics, and that was all I was reading. Later I joined other challenges, too, and started reading three or four books at a time. It was obvious that I would reach my goal in plenty of time; so I added twenty-five more books to my challenge. Now I'm done!
Basically, I finished about 18 months sooner, and I could have kept going if I wanted to add another twenty-five books; but I think I am done. Yay!
I'm glad I participated, and I had a lot of fun when I was more involved. The best part was connecting with other book bloggers who were also reading the classics. The Classics Club is a great challenge for people who usually do not read the classics, but would like to be encouraged to read more.
Here is a review of my list:
Titles with * are rereads.
NOVELS:
1. Don Quixote - Miguel De Cervantes Completed 3/24/12
2. The Pilgrim's Progress * - John Bunyan Completed 4/11/12
2. The Pilgrim's Progress * - John Bunyan Completed 4/11/12
3. Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift Completed 4/28/12
4. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Completed 5/11/12
5. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens Completed 5/31/12
6. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë Completed 6/12/12
8. Moby-Dick - Herman Melville Completed 7/18/12
10. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert Completed 8/10/12
11. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky Completed 9/9/12
12. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy Completed 11/9/12
13. The Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy Completed 12/18/12
15. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain Completed 2/10/13
18. The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton Completed 5/11/13
19. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald Completed 5/30/13
20. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf Completed 6/27/13
21. The Trial - Franz Kafka Completed 7/18/13
23. The Stranger - Albert Camus Completed 9/6/13
25. Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison Completed 11/10/13
26. Seize the Day - Saul Bellow Completed 11/20/13
27. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez Completed 1/20/14
29. White Noise - Don DeLillo Completed 3/26/14
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AND MEMOIRS:
1. The Confessions - Augustine Completed 6/30/14
3. Essays - Michel De Montaigne Completed 9/30/14
4. The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself - Teresa of Ávila Completed 11/25/14
5. Meditations - René Descartes Completed 12/20/14
6. Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners - John Bunyan Completed 2/6/15
8. Confessions - Jean-Jacques Rousseau Completed 3/23/15
9. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Benjamin Franklin Completed 4/10/15
SUPLEMENTAL LIST: These are classics that are not on the Well Educated Mind list, but I have read them in between WEM titles. They are from my TBR list.
1. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain Completed 3/1/13
2. The Crucible - Arthur Miller Completed 3/7/13
3. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien Completed 4/2/13
4. O Pioneers! - Willa Cather Completed 8/1/2013
5. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde Completed 8/25/13
6. Persuasion*- Jane Austen Completed 2/20/15
7. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley Completed 10/28/13
8. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens Completed 12/15/13
9. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell Completed 1/28/14
10. A Christmas Carol *- Charles Dickens Completed 12/20/13
11. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (2014) Completed 2/16/14
12. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll Completed 2/24/14
13. Candide - Voltaire Completed 3/29/14
14. Germinal - Émile Zola Completed 4/13/14
15. Arthurian Romances - Chrétien de Troyes Completed 3/28/14
16. Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton Completed 5/15/14
17. The Story of Sir Lancelot and His Champions - Howard Pyle Completed 5/18/14
18. The Old Man and the Sea *- Ernest Hemingway Completed 7/22/14
19. The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger Completed 8/3/14
20. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Completed 9/23/14
21. The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur - Howard Pyle Completed 10/28/14
22. The History of the Kings of Britain - Geoffrey of Monmouth Completed 9/29/14
23. Little Woman - Louisa May Alcott Completed 10/31/14
24. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck Completed 8/5/15
25. My Ántonia - Willa Cather Completed 12/12/14
26. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy Completed 12/28/14
27. The Fortune of the Rougons - Émile Zola Completed 4/23/15
28. Lord of the Flies - William Golding Completed 7/21/15
29. Beowulf - unknown/translated by J.R.R. Tolkien Completed 1/4/15
30. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe Completed 1/18/15
31. Dracula - Bram Stoker Completed 10/1/15
32. East of Eden - John Steinbeck Completed 2/23/15
33. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson Completed 6/7/15
34. The Voyage Out - Virginia Woolf Completed 4/10/15
35. The Kill - Émile Zola Completed 8/19/15
1. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain Completed 3/1/13
2. The Crucible - Arthur Miller Completed 3/7/13
3. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien Completed 4/2/13
4. O Pioneers! - Willa Cather Completed 8/1/2013
5. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde Completed 8/25/13
6. Persuasion*- Jane Austen Completed 2/20/15
7. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley Completed 10/28/13
8. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens Completed 12/15/13
9. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell Completed 1/28/14
10. A Christmas Carol *- Charles Dickens Completed 12/20/13
11. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (2014) Completed 2/16/14
12. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll Completed 2/24/14
13. Candide - Voltaire Completed 3/29/14
14. Germinal - Émile Zola Completed 4/13/14
15. Arthurian Romances - Chrétien de Troyes Completed 3/28/14
16. Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton Completed 5/15/14
17. The Story of Sir Lancelot and His Champions - Howard Pyle Completed 5/18/14
18. The Old Man and the Sea *- Ernest Hemingway Completed 7/22/14
19. The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger Completed 8/3/14
20. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Completed 9/23/14
21. The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur - Howard Pyle Completed 10/28/14
22. The History of the Kings of Britain - Geoffrey of Monmouth Completed 9/29/14
23. Little Woman - Louisa May Alcott Completed 10/31/14
24. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck Completed 8/5/15
25. My Ántonia - Willa Cather Completed 12/12/14
26. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy Completed 12/28/14
27. The Fortune of the Rougons - Émile Zola Completed 4/23/15
28. Lord of the Flies - William Golding Completed 7/21/15
29. Beowulf - unknown/translated by J.R.R. Tolkien Completed 1/4/15
30. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe Completed 1/18/15
31. Dracula - Bram Stoker Completed 10/1/15
32. East of Eden - John Steinbeck Completed 2/23/15
33. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson Completed 6/7/15
34. The Voyage Out - Virginia Woolf Completed 4/10/15
35. The Kill - Émile Zola Completed 8/19/15
20 comments:
Wow! It seems like so many of us are finishing up. Are you going to make another list? What was your favorite title(s)?
Congrats, Ruth!! x
Yay! Well done! Excellent job, and well done too for reviewing them! :)
Echoing Jillian - will you make another list? :)
Thanks, Jillian. I probably won't make another list. This year I felt a little pressured about my reading challenges, and I think I won't join so many next year, if at all.
As for which were my favorites: I loved so many of them, especially from my WEM novel list. Reading through the books on TWEM list was an amazing experience for me that I want to start over from the beginning again. But I still have four more genres to go through. It would be easier to ask which books were my least favorite. Or maybe I just need more time to think about it.
Thanks, o. I'm glad I joined b/c it helped keep me accountable. But I probably won't make another list. I already only read the classics, or mostly classics. And I still have TWEM Reading Challenge to finish, and that will take me another 10 years, probably.
Brava! I'm envious of your accomplishment.
Congratulations on finishing! This is a really impressive list. :)
Way to go! I'm so impressed!! Were all these books on your list right when you initially started it, or did you add as you went along?
I have fallen off lately in reading from my classics list so you've given me inspiration to get back at it again.
Huzzah! Three cheers for you! I am just a little over half done with my list, but it keeps growing and growing, and I figure once I finish the first 50, I'll "re-up" and do another 50. But I might also decide to just quit there, we'll see.
You read an amazing amount of important literature -- well done.
Wow! Congratulations! I am sooooo far away from my goal, it feels a bit impossible right now, so I am very impressed. :)
Congratulations!
Well done! I keep adding to my initial list and I don't know that I'll ever finish.
Thank you, R.T.
Thank you!
Not at all. I started w/ 50, and they were mostly my WEM novels and some bios. Then I realized I was going to finish early, so I added more and more.
Thanks, Hamlette. It's easy to grow the list when you think of more things to read.
Thanks, Jean. It wasn't difficult to finish the list (early) b/c classics are really all I read; I can see how it may be a challenge for someone who either doesn't read classics usually, or mixes it up a bit, like you do, with a wide variety of books. But you'll do it.
Thank you, Luci.
Thank you, Carol. See, that is what I wish I did not do. I wish I stayed with my initial 50. But I added and added and changed out a lot of books, so it took longer. If I had to do it over, I wouldn't have altered it, and when I finished, I would have decided if I wanted to make another list and started again.
This is an impressive list! Congratulations! I'm excited for you. Are you going to keep reading from The Well Educated Mind?
Thank you, Heidi. Yes, I definitely will continue reading through the list. I'm reading through the biographies right now.
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