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Monday, August 17, 2015

Classics Club Book List


I decided to join the Classics Club. I'm hoping this will be a good way to meet other bloggers with an interest in literature. I arbitrarily consider books published 25 years or more ago to be "classics." Below is a list of books that I want to read over the next 5 years:


  1. Mimesis, by Erich Auerbach
  2. Iliad, by Homer
  3. Odyssey, by Homer
  4. Holy Bible, anonymous
  5. The Apocrypha, anonymous
  6. The Analects of Confucius
  7. The Oresteia, by Aeschylus
  8. Mêdeia, Euripides
  9. Antigone, by Sophocles
  10. Aeneid, by Virgil
  11. Bhagavad Gita
  12. Beowulf
  13. The Jakata
  14. Kathasaritsagara
  15. Pañcatantra
  16. Poems of Wang Wei
  17. The Kokinshu
  18. Man’yoshu
  19. The Tale of Genji
  20. The Divine Comedy, Alighieri
  21. The Canterbury Tales, by Chaucer
  22. The Arabian Nights
  23. Monkey, by Ch’eng-en
  24. Heptameron, by Marguerite of Navarre
  25. The Plays of Shakespeare
  26. Don Quixote, by Cerventes
  27. Molière, the comedies
  28. Candide, by Voltaire
  29. The Story of the Stone, by Xueqin
  30. Faust, by Goethe
  31. Wuthering Heights, by Bronte
  32. Eugene Onegin, by Pushkin
  33. Madam Bovary, by Flaubert
  34. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
  35. Roots, Alex Haley
  36. Sons, Pearl S. Buck
  37. The Chimes, Charles Dickens
  38. Missing Person, Patrick Modiano
  39. Cotillion, Georgette Heyer
  40. The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels, Alexander Heidel
  41. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
  42. The Corinthian, by Georgette Heyer
  43. A Passage to India, by E. M. Forester
  44. The Reivers, by Faulkner
  45. Mrs Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
  46. The Epic of Gilgamesh, anonymous
  47. The Hobbit, J R R Tolkien
  48. Lord of the Rings, J R R Tolkien
  49. Carmilla, J. Sheridan Le Fanu 
  50. Persuasion, Jane Austen

21 comments:

  1. This is a great list. I have read about 16 of these books over the years and every single one was well worth the time.

    I do not know if you have read most of the Bible or not in the past. Having read most of it a couple of times, what worked for me was reading one book at a time, between other books.

    If you have not already read the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad-Gita, or the Ramayana you are in for a real treat. I found those works not just meaningful and important, but extremely entertaining.

    Either way, happy reading!

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    1. Hi Brian! I've read about 7 of them already, but mostly when I was a teen. I HAVE read the Bible before, and I agree that splitting it up is the best way to go.

      I have not read the Hindu works yet, and look forward to them. About a decade ago I was living with a group of about 10 Indians, so I have some sense of Hinduism, but would like to delve in more deeply.

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  2. Nice list! I've read a few and have a few of those on my Classics Club list, too. Welcome to the CC and blogging.

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    1. Thanks Chris! A few of them are rereads for me. :) I'm excited to be blogging.

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  3. Persuasion is my favorite Austen novel. I hope you enjoy it! - Melissa

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    1. I read Persuasion a long time ago, and don't really remember the book very much. However, I enjoy the movies quite a bit and I suspect that when I reread it, it will be my favorite as well. It is certainly her most mature book.

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  4. Nice list! I don't know Andrew Lang but now you have me curious. You have a good mix here, enjoy.

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    1. Thanks! I tried to get a variety. Andrew Lang was a collector of fairy tales / folklore in Victorian England. He published them in a series of fairy books. They're fun to read, especially the stories that I'm not familiar with.

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  5. Sylvia Plath's poems are incredible & electric. I hope you enjoy these books! x

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    1. Thanks! I've only read one of Plath's poems - way back in undergrad. I think it should be quite eye-opening, since I'm not much of a poetry reader.

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  6. I hope you enjoy the Classics Club! I joined almost 3 years ago & have loved the community and the books that I've read!

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    1. Thanks Christine. I'm already enjoying the community, though I've only partly reviewed one classic so far.

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  7. Idon't have a Cl;assics Club List but hese sound like a great idea

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    1. It IS a great idea. You should try it out. They're great people in the club.

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  8. I just joined The Classics Club too! Love your list. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are both fantastic. I also love Jane Eyre. Middlemarch, North and South, and The Grapes of Wrath made my list. Excited to read more classics in the coming years! Good luck!

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    1. Hi Jane! Yeah, I think the reason I found your blog is because of your Classics Club post. I like to follow people who read literature and nonfiction - even though I read a lot of fluffy stuff, too. I find that people who read literature and nonfiction tend to have more interesting content on their blogs overall.

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  9. Excellent list! I love Tolkien, Doyle, and Austen (Persuasion is my favorite of hers). Jane Eyre is my favorite novel, and I just read both North and South and Middlemarch this year, both for the first time! Good luck with your reading :-)

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    1. I've read the Tolkien, Austen, and Bronte novels in the past - they're rereads. I just want to enjoy them yet again. North and South and Middlemarch I have never read.

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    2. My list has lots of re-reads on it too. I love that they allow that for the Classics Club!

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  10. Hooray for the Fairy Books! And you have some interesting non-fiction picks too. That's sadly missing on my list.

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    1. :) Yeah, I want to read the Fairy books, though I feel like I got a little lazy at the end there and threw in a bunch of them. :)

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