The Classics Club

The List

On 23/6/16, I joined The Classics Club. In fact, it won’t change my reading patterns much at all, since I routinely read a fair number of classics every year. Most of the items on my list are already on my TBR, wishlist or bookshelves, while many of the rest are part of the ongoing Great American Novel Quest. Many of them are also re-reads, since re-reading favourite classics is always a pleasure, and I haven’t done enough of it since I got distracted by all the shiny new books for review.

The rules of the club are relatively simple. Basically, a list of at least 50 books is required, along with a commitment to read and post about them within 5 years. The list part is no problem, and I guess no-one will throw me in a rat-infested dungeon should my commitment falter over the years.

Will they??

The benefits of joining are primarily that it’s a good way to meet other book bloggers who enjoy reading classic fiction too.

In terms of defining what is a classic, I’ve decided quite simply that any book originally published more than 50 years ago counts, therefore my cut-off date is 1965.

So here’s my list – 90 books which I “commit” to reading and posting about within the next five years. As I review them, I will update the titles to include links to the reviews.

The American Section

Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851)
The American by Henry James (1877)
My Antonia by Willa Cather  (1918)
Passing by Nella Larsen (1929)
Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald (1934) – re-read
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936)
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (1940)
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (1940)
Mildred Pierce by James M Cain (1941)
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren (1946)
The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw (1948)
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (1951)
East of Eden by John Steinbeck (1952)
Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin (1953)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960) – re-read
Rabbit, Run by John Updike (1960) – re-read
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey (1962)
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr (1964)
In the Heat of the Night by John Ball (1965)
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1965)

The English Section

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (1814) – re-read
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818) – re-read
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (1838) – re-read
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens (1840)
Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens ( 1841) – re-read
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens (1855) – re-read
No Name by William Wilkie Collins (1862)
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (1864)
Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor by RD Blackmore (1869)
Middlemarch by George Eliot (1872)
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (1891) – re-read
Nada the Lily by H Rider Haggard (1892)
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1902)
Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence (1913) – re-read
The African Queen by CS Forester (1935)
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (1938) – re-read
The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse (1938) – re-read
Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp (1944)
The Go-Between by LP Hartley (1953) – re-read
Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer (1955) – re-read

The Scottish Section

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett (1771)
Marriage by Susan Ferrier (1818)
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg (1824)
The Fair Maid of Perth by Sir Walter Scott (1828) – re-read
The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter’s Tale by Robert Louis Stevenson (1889)
The House with the Green Shutters by George Douglas Brown (1901)
Flemington by Violet Jacob (1911)
The New Road by Neil Munro (1914)
Children of the Dead End by Patrick McGill (1914)
The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1915) – re-read
Imagined Corners by Willa Muir (1931)
Cloud Howe by Lewis Grassic Gibbon (1933) – re-read
The Gowk Storm by Nancy Brysson Morrison (1933)
No Mean City by Alexander McArthur and H. Kingsley Long (1935)
The Silver Darlings by Neil M Gunn (1941)
Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie (1947)
The Bull Calves by Naomi Mitchison (1947)
The Cone Gatherers by Robin Jenkins (1955)
The White Bird Passes by Jessie Kesson (1958)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961) – re-read

The Crime Section

The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers (1903)
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (1915)
The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett (1929)
The Conjure-Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher (1932)
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain (1934)
The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr (1935)
The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White (1936)
I, The Jury by Mickey Spillane (1947)
Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith (1950)
The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham (1952)
She Who Was No More by Boileau-Narcejac (1952)
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (1953)
Cop Hater by Ed McBain (1956) – re-read
4.50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie (1957) – re-read
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré (1963)

The Sci-fi Section

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas by Jules Verne (1870)
The Island of Dr Moreau by HG Wells (1896)
The First Men in the Moon by HG Wells (1901)
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1912)
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915)
We by Yevgeny Samyatin (1924)
Wild Harbour by Ian Macpherson (1936)
Earth Abides by George R Stewart (1949)
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (1951) – re-read
Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951) – re-read
Childhood’s End by Arthur C Clarke (1953)
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (1956)
On the Beach by Nevil Shute (1957) – re-read
The Society of Time by John Brunner (1962)
Way Station by Clifford D Simak (1963)

* * * * * * *

The list will undoubtedly change over time. But, meantime, what do you think (assuming you’re still awake)? Any there that you don’t think deserve a place? Or that you love? Or any different ones you’d like to see added?