And the lucky Spin number is:
Classics Club Spin # 25 … And The Winner Is ……
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Category Archives: Classics Club
Classics Club Spin #25
The Classics Club Spin #25 has arrived and I’ve decided to jump right in and participate. With my reduced reading time, I wonder why, but I did finish my #23 spin and might even have finished my #24 spin if I didn’t misplace the book. 🙄 In any case, here we go again.
Classics Club Spin #24 ….. and The Winner Is ,,,,,
Classics Club Spin #24 ~ and Here We Go A-Spinning!
We have another Spin in the works from the Classics Club and I’m joining in right under the wire! I’m happy to report that I did finish my book for the last spin, Lord of the Flies in spite of not reviewing it yet. Hopefully I can repeat that performance!
Classics Club Spin #23 ……. and the Winner is ……
Classics Club Spin #23
With everything going on of late, instead of targeting specific books to read, I’ve preferred to let my reading tastes wander to what I feel like reading at a particular moment. Which makes me wonder with great puzzlement, why I’m choosing to participate in the recent Classics Club Spin. Perhaps it’s because I’ve hardly focussed at all on my list. But it’s more likely peer pressure from all you other bloggers who have jumped right in. So here I go!
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
“Whan that April with his shoures soote
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;….”
Twenty-nine pilgrims and the narrator meet in Southwark, in Harry Bailey’s Tabard Inn, before setting off on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, where they will behold Thomas Becket’s shrine. On the journey each pilgrim will tell four tales, two on the way there and two on the way back. A free dinner will be awarded to the one with the best story. And so begins Geoffrey Chaucer’s famous poem, a medley of lively stories that gives the reader a captivating window into 14th century England.
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| The Gateway at Canterbury (1889) Childe Hassam source Wikiart |
Classics Club Spin #20
It’s been awhile since I’ve participated in a Classics Club spin. I think the last one I participated in was #14 and it was a dismal failure which made me realize that I simply don’t have time to read the way I used to. So I stopped. However, with my new Classics Club list up, I really need to start to focus on some of these books before it’s too late. So here I am again, hoping for success.
Classics Club List #2 ~ Here I Go!
With my first Classics Club list complete, it’s time for another. This time it was easy, as I used unfinished books from my first one. So without further ado, here is my second Classics Club List with 50 books to read from November 30, 2018 to November 29, 2023!
Ancients (5000 B.C. – A.D. 400):
The Republic (380 B.C.) – Plato
Aristotle, Ethics (330 B.C.) – Aristotle
Lives (75) – Plutarch
The Twelve Ceasars (121) – Suetonius
Meditations (170-180) – Marcus Aurelius
Address to Young Men (363) – Saint Basil
Classics Club List #1 – Finished! ….. and not finished ….
November 18, 2018 has come and gone and I can’t believe that my five year anniversary date with the Classics Club has come around so quickly! It seems like only a year or so ago I was compiling my list and wondering how I was going to read so many books. So how did I do with it? Well, here’s what I accomplished ….
First of all, I went completely overboard and instead of choosing the recommended 50 books, I chose 170 books! Eh, not particularly my most wise decision, especially considering the content of some of them. Needless to say, I didn’t finish my list but, on a brighter note I did manage to read 66 of them, which is better than 50. I also had a few of them (The Histories, Paradise Lost, Metamorphoses, Hamlet and History of the Peloponnesian War come quickly to mind) where I posted by chapter/book/act, so that was a big task in itself and expanded my reading time. I’ve also started Bleak House, City of God, Crime and Punishment and Dead Souls from my original list, I just didn’t finish in time. 🙁
So here is my first Classics Club list, which I will call complete!
My list:Ancients (5000 B.C. – A.D. 400): (9 books read)
The Odyssey – Homer (end of the 8th century B.C.) March 23, 2014
The Histories (450 – 420 B.C.) – Herodotus (because I love my Greeks!) April 17, 2017
The History of the Pelopponesian War (431 B.C.) – Thucydides (a very
interesting war. I can’t wait to get Thucydides viewpoint) June 15, 2017
Oedipus Rex (429 B.C.) – Sophocles (Sophocles is one of my favourite
Greek playwrights) May 25, 2014
Oedipus at Colonus (406 B.C.) – Sophocles June 24, 2014
Antigone (441 B.C.) – Sophocles December 28, 2014
Apology (after 399 B.C.) – Plato December 12, 2013
Defense Speeches (80 – 63 B.C.) – Marcus Tullius Cicero (I’ve started this
and love it!) August 20, 2014
Metamorphoses (8) – Ovid (I will finish this!) March 31, 2016
Medieval/Early Renaissance (400 – 1600 A.D.): (6 books read)
The Rule of Saint Benedict (529)? – Saint Benedict December 2, 2015
The Canterbury Tales (1390s??) – Geoffrey Chaucer (groan! It intimidates
me but I must overcome!) November 15, 2015
The Book of Margery Kempe (1430) – Margery Kempe August 1, 2014
Le Morte d’Arthur (1485) – Thomas Mallory (this read is coming up soon!) December 6, 2014
Utopia (1516) – Thomas More (looking forward to reading a good Utopian
novel) December 15, 2014
Selected Essays (1580) – Michel de Montaigne November 30, 2015Late Renaissance/Early Modern (1600 – 1850 A.D.): (17 books read)
me but I must overcome!) November 15, 2015
The Book of Margery Kempe (1430) – Margery Kempe August 1, 2014
Le Morte d’Arthur (1485) – Thomas Mallory (this read is coming up soon!) December 6, 2014
Utopia (1516) – Thomas More (looking forward to reading a good Utopian
novel) December 15, 2014
Selected Essays (1580) – Michel de Montaigne November 30, 2015Late Renaissance/Early Modern (1600 – 1850 A.D.): (17 books read)
Romeo and Juliet (1591 – 1595) – William Shakespeare October 13, 2014
Richard II (1595) – William Shakespeare November 30, 2014
Henry IV Part I (1597) – William Shakespeare December 21, 2014
Henry IV Part II (1596 – 1599) – William Shakespeare December 24, 2014
Henry V (1599) – William Shakespeare June 22, 2016
Othello (1603) – William Shakespeare October 28, 2014
Hamlet (1603 – 1604) – William Shakespeare January 27, 2015
King Lear (1603 – 1606) – William Shakespeare December 3, 2014
Paradise Lost (1667) – John Milton (time to use my guide by C.S. Lewis) February 27, 2014
Gulliver’s Travels (1726) – Jonathan Swift (I wonder if I’ll like it) January 3, 2015
Candide (1759) – Voltaire March 21, 2014
Sense and Sensibility (1811) – Jane Austen January 25, 2015
Persuasion (1818) – Jane Austen (I have read every other Austen novel but
this one. For shame!) February 21, 2015
Eugene Onegin (1825 – 1832) – Alexander Pushkin December 1, 2013 & February 8, 2014
The Pickwick Papers (1836 – 1837) – Charles Dickens (a fun read!) November 5, 2017
Wuthering Heights (1847) – Emily Brönte February 1, 2014
David Copperfield (1850) – Charles Dickens January 15, 2014
Modern (1850 – Present): (34 books read)
Villette (1853) – Charlotte Brönte March 31, 2016
The Warden (1855) – Anthony Trollope (looking forward to starting The
Barchestershire Chronicles) April 8, 2014
Madam Bovary (1856) – Gustave Flaubert (just because) April 4, 2014
Barchester Towers (1857) – Anthony Trollope August 7, 2014
Doctor Thorne (1858) – Anthony Trollope September 25, 2014
Framely Parsonage (1860 – 1861) – Anthony Trollope December 8, 2016
Fathers and Sons (1862) – Ivan Turgenev September 19, 2014
The Small House at Allington (1864) – Anthony Trollope March 31, 2017
The Moonstone (1868) – Wilkie Collins (for a light read) January 1, 2016
War and Peace (1869) – Leo Tolstoy (going on and on and on ……) August 3, 2014
Erewhon (1872) – Samuel Butler May 16, 2015
La Curée (1871 – 1872) – Emile Zola (continuing the Rougon-Macquart
series) April 23, 2014
Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) – Thomas Hardy (I dislike Hardy’s
novels but should include one.) June 23, 2016
novels but should include one.) June 23, 2016
Daniel Deronda (1876) – George Eliot February 24, 2014
Son Excellence Eugène Rougon (1876) – Emile Zola January 31, 2014
A Doll’s House (1879) – Henrik Ibsen July 27, 2016
The Brothers Karamazov (1880) – Fyodor Dostoevsky (I can’t wait for this
one!) November 10, 2016
The Black Arrow (1888) – Robert Louis Stevenson November 20, 2013
L’Argent (1891) – Emile Zola August 21, 2015
The Time Machine (1895) – H.G. Wells January 11, 2016
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) – Oscar Wilde September 18, 2014
The Well at the World’s End (1896) – William Morris October 5, 2016
Dracula (1897) – Bram Stoker (scary ….. not my favourite genre) October 19, 2015
The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) – G.K. Chesterton (love Chesterton!) August 20, 2014
Ethan Fromme (1911) – Edith Wharton May 11, 2015
The Great Gatsby (1925) – F. Scott Fitzgerald (double groan. Since the
first time I read this was in high-school, I need to do a re-read to
confirm that I despise it) January 2, 2014
Mrs. Dalloway (1925) – Virginia Woolf January 13, 2014
The Pilgrim’s Regress (1933) – C.S. Lewis (I think this is a more simpler
Lewis) {No – this was incredibly complex!} November 30, 2013
Out of the Silent Planet (1938) – C.S. Lewis (love his Space Trilogy – a re-
confirm that I despise it) January 2, 2014
Mrs. Dalloway (1925) – Virginia Woolf January 13, 2014
The Pilgrim’s Regress (1933) – C.S. Lewis (I think this is a more simpler
Lewis) {No – this was incredibly complex!} November 30, 2013
Out of the Silent Planet (1938) – C.S. Lewis (love his Space Trilogy – a re-
Seven Story Mountain (1948) – Thomas Merton (looking forward to it) March 15, 2014
East of Eden (1952) – John Steinbeck (I hated Mice & Men but I will attempt
to keep an open mind with this one) February 17, 2015
To Kill A Mockingbird (1960) – Harper Lee April 5, 2016
Where do I go from here …..?? I’m going to condense my original list to 66 and roll many of the ones I didn’t read into my second list. Which I’m going to keep to 50. See! I do learn by experience!! Stayed tuned for the second list which I’ll post soon!
