- Go to your blog.
- Pick twenty books that you’ve got left to read from your Classics Club List.
- Try to challenge yourself: list five you are dreading/hesitant to read, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favorite author, rereads, ancients — whatever you choose.)
- Post that list, numbered 1-20, on your blog by next Monday.
- Monday morning, we’ll announce a number from 1-20. Go to the list of twenty books you posted, and select the book that corresponds to the number we announce.
- The challenge is to read that book by April 1, even if it’s an icky one you dread reading! (No fair not listing any scary ones!)
That's real fun, so I'm joining, and here's my list:
5 I can't wait to read:
1) Eco, Umberto: The Name of the Rose
2) Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Great Gatsby
3) Maugham, W. Somerset: Of Human Bondage
4) Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited
5) Woolf, Virginia: Mrs. Dalloway
5 I'm hesitant to read:
6) Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury Tales
7) Joyce James: Ulysses
8) Milton, John: Paradise Lost
9) Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables
10) Ovid: Metamorphoses
5 I really don't know what to expect from
11) Stoppard, Tom: Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead
12) Rand, Ayn: Atlas Shrugged
13) Du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
14) Eliot, George: Middlemarch
15) Apuleius, Lucius: The Golden Ass
1 I just can't finish:
16) One Thousand and One Nights
4 Random:
18) Twain, Mark: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
19) Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Lost World
20) Kerouac, Jack: On the Road
So now I'm keeping my fingers crossed while waiting for February 18. Hope it'll be something nice!) But even if it isn't I'll still make some progress, and this is a good thing!
------------------------
UPD! The chosen number is 14!
Which means I'll read Middlemarch by George Eliot before April 1st. Well, it's not a bad choice at all!
UPD! The chosen number is 14!
Which means I'll read Middlemarch by George Eliot before April 1st. Well, it's not a bad choice at all!
Wow, good luck with this! You've got some big options there. But, like you say, it's progress whatever you end up reading.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Yes, I'm afraid that with work and Uni I will not be able to finish the big ones, but... the process is more important than the result here))
DeleteNot that it matters but I thought I'd share in some small way since I am not actually participating.
ReplyDelete2) Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Great Gatsby--I have always felt that this novel was over-rated but it is one that others love. I preferred East of Eden. That's just me. Like I said, most people love it.
5) Woolf, Virginia: Mrs. Dalloway--I love this. I've read it thrice and it just gets better every time I read it.
6) Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury Tales--I prefer The Decameron. Not sure why. Just do.
7) Joyce James: Ulysses
8) Milton, John: Paradise Lost--Very interesting and enlightening in that it shows how Milton strongly influenced Protestant thinking.
9) Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables--Love this novel. My son is reading it now (amongst other things) and I am so excited!
10) Ovid: Metamorphoses--I've read bits and pieces but never the whole thing and I want to do so someday.
12) Rand, Ayn: Atlas Shrugged--Boredom. Guaranteed.
16) One Thousand and One Nights--I really want to read this too, as you already know.
17) Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations--Love this novel too. If you read Dickens then you should read Hugo because the former influenced the latter a great deal. Stylistically similar, for better or worse, but I love them both.
20) Kerouac, Jack: On the Road--Another on my list of books I really want to read but haven't. :(
There you go. My random thoughts to your random list. :)
You know what I like best? Your "comment" on Ulysses :) Something like "well, you know you don't really need to say anything here". Although I know I'm imagining things and it's just a typo :) You actually have a rather good opinion about my "scary" ones, so now I'm not that nervous about getting one of them)
DeleteGood luck with your list and what you end up reading for the Spin
ReplyDeleteI LOVE Les Miserables, although it's so long it would probably be hard to finish in the time allotted...I also love Mrs. Dalloway and The Great Gatsby, and those are super easy reads. I have a gigantic rant about Atlas Shrugged; it's one of those books I love to hate. After I read it I heard from numerous people that The Fountainhead is basically the same message and much shorter (but by that time I was Ayn Rand-ed out so I've never read it and I'm not sure I ever will). It might be a better introduction to Rand than Atlas Shrugged.
ReplyDeleteWell, its length is the main problem with Les Mis, it seems like I've meaning to read it forever, but I never actually do because it's sooo damn long) I think I'll manage to read Mrs. Dalloway this month for the Modern March, and I'm really looking forward to it!
DeleteI like your 1-5 list. Mrs Dalloway was one of my surprises last year - didn't think I'd like it and couldn't have been more wrong.
ReplyDeleteWell, I like my 1-5 list as well, but I got Middlemarch 900 pages long, and it's no way I'm finishing it until April 1st))
Delete