CLASSICS CLUB I

Button for the Classics Club book event

FINISHED

I finished my Classics Club list as of November 5, 2023!

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

I followed 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 in alphabetical order by author's name. I'm reading them in any old order. As I read a book, I noted that I finished it.

Many of these books are on other book lists I'm working on. I've linked to those lists.

MY CLASSICS CLUB LIST

The Egyptologists by Kingsley Amis FINISHED

Dangling Man by Saul Bellow FINISHED

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (MLA 30FINISHED

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (Radcliffe’s Top 100FINISHED

The Stranger by Albert Camus (College BoardFINISHED

The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (Edgar AwardFINISHED

Cheri by Colette (French ConnectionsFINISHED

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1899 Top 100FINISHED

The Stars Look Down (1935) by A. J. Cronin FINISHED

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (Observer’s Top 100FINISHED

The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens (1899 Top 100FINISHED

The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble (Top 100 20th Century Novels by WomenFINISHED

So Big by Edna Ferber (Pulitzer PrizeFINISHED

A Cordiall Water: A Garland of Odd and Old Receipts to Assuage the Ills of Man and Beast by M. F. K. Fisher (Cookbook LibraryFINISHED

Tender Is the Night (1934) by F. Scott Fitzgerald FINISHED

Rat Race by Dick Francis FINISHED

Lady Into Fox by David Garnett (James Tait Black PrizeFINISHED

Party Going by Henry Green (Anthony Burgess FavoritesFINISHED

The Wall by John Hersey (Well Stocked BookcaseFINISHED

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley (Anthony Burgess FavoritesFINISHED

The Bostonians by Henry James (Radcliffe Top 100FINISHED

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carre (All-TIMEFINISHED

The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis (National Review Top 100FINISHED

The British Museum Is Falling Down by David Lodge FINISHED

Assignment in Brittany by Helen MacInnes FINISHED

The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud (National Book AwardFINISHED

The Late George Apley by John P. Marquand (Well-Stocked BookcaseFINISHED

Venice Observed by Mary McCarthy FINISHED

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller (Image Top 100FINISHED

A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch FINISHED

Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov FINISHED

Something to Answer For by Percy Howard Newby (Booker PrizeFINISHED

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell (National Review Top 100FINISHED

Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter (Top 100 20th Century Novels by WomenFINISHED

Afternoon Men by Anthony Powell FINISHED

Call It Sleep by Henry Roth (All-TIMEFINISHED

When She Was Good by Philip Roth FINISHED

Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers FINISHED

Katherine by Anya Seton (BBC's Big ReadFINISHED

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (Nobel LaureateFINISHED

The Masters by C. P. Snow (James Tait Black PrizeFINISHED

The Red and the Black by Stendhal (Easton PressFINISHED

The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron (Pulitzer PrizeFINISHED

Walden by Henry David Thoreau (College BoardFINISHED

If Morning Ever Comes by Anne Tyler FINISHED

The Poorhouse Fair by John Updike FINISHED

God Save the Mark by Donald E. Westlake (Edgar AwardFINISHED

Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson (Campus NovelsFINISHED

The Man with Two Left Feet by P. G. Wodehouse FINISHED

Collected Poems by William Butler Yeats (Easton PressFINISHED


NOTES

Updated January 7, 2024. Finished! I finished the list in November 2023. Now I'm planning ahead to my second Classics Club list. 

I picked the classics on this list because they are books I particularly wanted to read, were on my TBR shelves, and were most likely on some list I'm working on. But I often read other books that qualify as a classic under The Classics Club guidelines. Other classics I've read since I started this list:

War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Lord Peter: The Complete Lord Peter Wimsey Stories by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham

Piccadilly Jim by P. G. Wodehouse

The Prince and Betty by P. G. Wodehouse

In Search of a Character: Two African Journals by Graham Greene

Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh

Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier

The Chosen by Chaim Potok

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

French Ways and Their Meaning by Edith Wharton

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

Trouble For Lucia by E. F. Benson

Lucia's Progress by E. F. Benson

Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier

Mapp & Lucia by E. F. Benson

The Birds and Other Stories  by Daphne du Maurier

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

The Holy Bible, King James Version

The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne du Maurier

The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade 

The Man Who Was Thursday by G. H. Chesterton

Rule Britannia by Daphne du Maurier

The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark

The Wasteland and Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot

The King's General by Daphne du Maurier

Waverley by Sir Walter Scott

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy

Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

The Big Four by Agatha Christie

The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier

The Intrusion of Jimmy by P. G. Woodhouse

The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier

The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler

The High Window by Raymond Chandler

The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier

The Underdog and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Beautiful Cassandra by Jane Austen

The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie

Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie

At Bertram's Hotel by Agatha Christie 

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

Little Big Man by John Berger

These Ruins are Inhabited by Muriel Beadle

The House in Good Taste by Elsie de Wolfe

Hope of Heaven by John O'Hara

A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym

Lolly Willowes by Silvia Warner Townsend

The Scandal of Father Brown by G. H. Chesterton

The Secret of Father Brown by G. H. Chesterton

Final Curtain by Ngaio Marsh

My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Reflections on the Psalms by C. S. Lewis

Peril at End House by Agatha Christie

House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday

Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

Funerals are Fatal by Agatha Christie

The Incredulity of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton

BUtterfield 8 by John O'Hara

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O'Connor

Passage to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie

Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Jeeves in the Offing by P. G. Wodehouse

The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald

The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

Dead Cert by Dick Francis

Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome

Three Men on a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

The Valley of Fear by Sir Author Conan Doyle

The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

Not Now, But NOW by M. F. K. Fisher

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

The Stars Look Down by A. J. Cronin

The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie

Room at the Top by John Braine (Burgess list)

The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Adventures of Sally by P. G. Wodehouse

Prospero's Cell: A Guide To The Landscape And Manners of The Island Of Corfu by Lawrence Durrell

A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch

The Unmaking of a Mayor by William F. Buckley, Jr. 

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Shackle by Colette

The Vagabond by Colette

Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers

Gigi by Colette

The Last of Cheri by Colette

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell

The Professor's House by Willa Cather

The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

The Heart-Keeper by Francois Sagan

Something Special by Iris Murdoch

Uneasy Money by P. G. Wodehouse 

The Quiller Memorandum by Adam Hall

Endless Night by Agatha Christie

To Let by John Galsworthy

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot

In Chancery by John Galsworthy

The Man of Property by John Galsworthy

The Poorhouse Fair by John Updike

A Look Around the Estate: Poems by Kingsley Amis

A Case of Samples: Poems by Kingsley Amis

A Woman of Means by Peter Taylor

Agents and Patients by Anthony Powell

The Day of the Scorpion by Paul Scott

The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott

6 comments:

  1. Welcome! Looks like a fun list & I'm very much looking forward to what your thoughts are.

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  2. Nice to see you joining he Classics Club. So many interesting books on your list. Have fun with the challenge!

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  3. Great list that you cherry-picked from several lists of books available in the internet!
    It makes your reading so varied.
    John Hersey The Wall is one of the books I want to read.
    So Big...was wonderful.
    Looking forward to your reviews with hashtag #CCBookReviews

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  4. Yeah! congrats for joining! You need to read Robinson Crusoe BEFORE reading The Moonstone, you will see why! I just finished the Moonstone and am preparing my review. My list is here: https://wordsandpeace.com/2016/01/01/the-classics-club-2016-2020/ Just 8 more to go (before end of 2020). I'm hoping to be done soon and start a new list!

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  5. Reese: Thank you! And congratulations again on winning the Jet Setter Prize in the 2018 European Reading Challenge! Good luck in the 2019 Challenge!

    Christina: Thank you -- I have been meaning to sign up forever and finally had time and bandwidth to pull my list together. I'm excited.

    Nancy: Yes, the lists I pulled from are all lists I've been keeping track of here on Rose City Reader. SO reading my CC books will help me make progress on some of my other lists! I can't resist a list!

    Emma: Thanks for the tip on RC and Moonstone! Will do! I love storyline serendipity, so I will try to read those early on and find out the secret.

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  6. You have quite a few on your list I haven't even heard of but also some favourites: Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Abolition of Man (which I found heavy going but extremely interesting), Assignment in Brittany. I've read a couple of A. J. Cronin books but not the one you mentioned. My favourite so far of his has been 'Keys of the Kingdom.'

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