CLASSICS CLUB II

 

THE CLASSICS CLUB

The Classics Club is a group of book bloggers who sign up to read at least 50 "classics" within five years. This is my second list. I finished my first Classics Club list at the end of 2023. I signed on to finish the 50 books on this second list by the end of 2028.

I follow the lead of the organizers and consider a "classic" to be any book older than 50 years (at the time I read it) that is of lasting literary value. By this standard, an Agatha Christie or Josephine Tey mystery makes the list. But a random mystery that I found in a vintage edition, that has been out of print since it's first publication, doesn't make the cut.

My list is not in alphabetical order. It is in order by the lists I'm working on, which are noted and linked. As I read a book, I noted that I finished it.

MY CLASSICS CLUB II LIST

• The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens, Booker Prize

• The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell, Booker Prize

• Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay, Edgar Award 

• A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong, Edgar Award 

• The Light of Day by Eric Ambler, Edgar Award FINISHED

• The King of the Rainy Country by Nicolas Freeling, Edgar Award FINISHED

• The Secret City by Hugh Walpole, James Tait Black

• Without My Cloak by Kate O'Brien, James Tait Black

• England, Their England by A. G. Macdonell, James Tait Black

• Eustace and Hilda by L. P. Hartley, James Tait Black

• Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh, James Tait Black FINISHED

• Officers and Gentlemen by Evelyn Waugh FINISHED

• Unconditional Surrender by Evelyn Waugh

• The Devil's Advocate by Morris West, James Tait Black

• The Ice Saints by Frank Tuohy, James Tait Black

• Langrishe, Go Down by Aidan Higgins, James Tait Black

• Jerusalem the Golden by Margaret Drabble, James Tait Black

• Eva Trout by Elizabeth Bowen, James Tait Black

• The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch, James Tait Black

• The Field of Vision by Wright Morris, National Book Award

• The Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter, National Book Award

• Them by Joyce Carol Oates, National Book Award

• The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor, National Book Award

• Chimera by John Barth, National Book Award

• Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge, Pulitzer Prize

• Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes, Pulitzer Prize

• The Store by T. S. Stribling, Pulitzer Prize

• Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis, Pulitzer Prize

• Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair, Pulitzer Prize

• Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin, Pulitzer Prize

• The Reivers by William Faulkner, Pulitzer Prize FINISHED

• The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth, All-TIME Top 100

• The New Men by C. P. Snow, Anthony Burgess Top 99, James Tait Black FINISHED

• The Aerodrome by Rex Warner, Burgess Top 99

• The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary, Burgess Top 99 FINISHED

• Indian Summer by William Dean Howells, Burgess Top 99

• The Fox in the Attic by Richard Hughes, Burgess Top 99

• The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk, Burgess Top 99, Pulitzer Prize

• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, BBC Big Read

• The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, The College Board

• The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling, Easton Press Greatest

• Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, Easton Press Greatest

• The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, Easton Press Greatest

• Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe, Radcliffe's Top 100

• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray FINISHED

• Collected Poems by Emily Dickinson

• Tom Jones by Henry Fielding FINISHED

• Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope FINISHED

• Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope FINISHED

• Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott 

NOTES

Updated February 29, 2024.