I'm psyched that I just found a great site for those who read and want to discuss classics. To join, one must put together a list of fifty (or more) classics to read within the next 5 years which would be January 31, 2018 for me. I figure I can read about 1 classic a month. So, I've made my list and am looking forward to the fun.
For the most part, I put books on the list if I think I need to read them for school. There is an off chance that I might apply at some time to be a reader for the AP English Literature exam. If accepted and asked to read the open question, I would need to be familiar with a wide variety of books and plays. Sad to say, I've spent the past 15 years reading the same classics over and over and over again. I can tell you anything you want to know about Wuthering Heights, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Frankenstein. Most of what you want to know about The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, The Kite Runner, The Crucible, Pride and Prejudice, and Heart of Darkness, and some of what you want to know about Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Obason.
I'd love to have meaningful discussions with my fellow teachers about other works. I hate when I'm at an AP conference and someone mentions a classic I haven't read, and everyone gives me the look which suggests I'm no kind of English teacher if I haven't read a particular book.
So, without further ado:
- Achebe, Chinua: Things Fall Apart
- Aeschylus: Oresteia
- Albee, Edward: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
- Anaya, Rudolfo: Bless Me, Ultima
- Angelou, Maya: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- Aristophanes: Lysistrata
- Atwood, Margaret: A Handmaid’s Tale - Finished on Feb. 6, 2013
- Beckett, Samuel: Waiting for Godot
- Bradbury, Ray: Fahrenheit 451
- Burgess, Anthony: A Clockwork Orange
- Burns, Olive: Cold Sassy Tree - Finished March 28, 2013
- Cather, Willa: Death Comes for the Archbishop - Finished April 6, 2013
- Crane, Stephen: Red Badge of Courage
- de Cervantes, Miguel: Don Quixote
- de Laclos, Choderlos: Dangerous Liaisons
- Defoe, Daniel: Moll Flanders
- Dickens, Charles: Little Dorrit - Finished on March 10, 2013
- Dostoevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment
- Dreiser, Theodore: American Tragedy
- Eliot, George: Middlemarch - Finished March 30, 2014
- Euripedes: Four Tragedies
- Forster, E.M.: Howard’s End
- Fowles, John: The French Lieutenant’s Woman
- Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
- Gaskell, Elizabeth: Wives and Daughters
- Hamilton, Edith: Mythology
- Hardy, Thomas: Jude the Obscure
- Hardy, Thomas: Mayor of Casterbridge - Finished December 15, 2013
- Heller, Joseph: Catch-22
- Hesse, Hermann: Siddhartha
- Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables
- Hurston, Zora Neale: Their Eyes Were Watching God - Finished April 23, 2013
- Huxley, Aldous: Brave New World
- Irving, John The World According to Garp
- Ishiguro, Kazuo: Remains of the Day - Finished on January 30, 2014
- James, Henry: The Wings of the Dove
- Kawabata, Yasunari: Snow Country
- Kerouac, Jack: On the Road
- Lady Muraski: The Tale of the Genji
- Marlowe, Christopher: Doctor Faustus
- Marquez, Gabriel Garcia: Love in the Time of Cholera
- McCullers, Carson: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
- Miller, Arthur: Death of a Salesman
- Morrison, Toni: Beloved - Finished May 31, 2013
- O’Connor, Flannery: Wise Blood
- Orczy, Baroness: The Scarlet Pimpernel
- Orwell, George: 1984
- Paton, Alan: Cry, the Beloved Country
- Proulx, Annie: The Shipping News - Finished on March 2, 2014
- Radcliffe, Anne: The Mysteries of Udolpho
- Salinger, J.D.: The Catcher in the Rye
- Seton, Anya: Katherine - Finished November 20, 2013
- Sinclair, Upton: The Jungle
- Sophocles: The Three Theban Plays (Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus)
- Soseki, Natsume: Kokoro
- Steinbeck, John: Cannery Row
- Thackeray, William Makepeace: Vanity Fair
- Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Karenina
- Turgenev, Ivan: Fathers and Sons
- Voltaire: Candide
- Vonnegut, Kurt: Slaughterhouse Five
- Walker, Alice: The Color Purple - Finished April 20, 2013
- Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited
- Welch, James: Winter in the Blood
- Williams, Tennessee: A Streetcar Named Desire - Finished on March 30, 2013
- Woolf, Virginia: To the Lighthouse
The following works were added after my original list.
67. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Anne Bronte
68. Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady: Samuel Richardson
69: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - Finished August 10, 2013
70. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (re-read finished March 19, 2013)
71. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
72. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
73. Parade's End by Ford Maddox Ford
74. The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather - Finished July 15, 2013
75. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather - Finished July 30, 2013
76. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte - Finished August 22, 2013
77. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe - Finished May 15, 2014
78. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
68. Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady: Samuel Richardson
69: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - Finished August 10, 2013
70. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (re-read finished March 19, 2013)
71. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
72. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
73. Parade's End by Ford Maddox Ford
74. The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather - Finished July 15, 2013
75. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather - Finished July 30, 2013
76. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte - Finished August 22, 2013
77. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe - Finished May 15, 2014
78. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
So many wonderful books! North and South is on my list as well. I really liked Cranford.
ReplyDeleteA fellow Classics Clubber! Thanks for the follow on my blog :) You have a great list here. I swear every time I look at someone's list, I think of more classics I'd like to eventually read! I hope five years from now, I'll be able to rejoin with a new list. Good luck with your list :)
ReplyDeleteOkay Jen I am making my list and will update my blog this weekend. Have a good break.
ReplyDelete