Classics Club Spin #4

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It's time for another Classics Club Spin!  The rules are just the same as the prior 3 times, so I won't repeat them again; if you're new to the Spin then you should go look and join the club.  (You will be assimilated.  Resistance to reading classic literature is useless.)


Five books that are really kind of scary to contemplate.

1  Confucius, China, 551-479 BCE. The Analects.
2  Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy.
3  Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum
4  Thomas Mann, Germany, 1924. The Magic Mountain. 
5  Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

Four that...(think up something random)....oh, start with a vowel.

6  Anton Chekhov, Russia, 1898. Uncle Vanya
7  VS Naipul, Trinidad, 1979. A Bend in the River. 
8  “Our Town,” Thornton Wilder
9  Carl Sandburg, 1940, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years 

Five books that I can't wait to read!

10  Thomas Hardy, England, Far From the Madding Crowd
11  Isak Dinesen, Winter's Tales. (appropriate to the season, right?)
12  Nikolai Gogol, Russia, 1842. Dead Souls
13  Junichio Tanizaki, Japan, 1943. The Makioka Sisters
14  Rudolofo Anaya, Bless Me Ultima  


Five, no six neutrals, because there were only four titles starting with vowels left. 

15  Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country.
16  Baldwin, James, 1953,  Go Tell It On the Mountain.
17  Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews.  
18  George Eliot, 1860, The Mill on the Floss. 
19  The Little Flowers of St. Francis
20  Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited. 

 I hope I don't get anything TOO heavy this time; with chocolating time and Christmas looming, I'll be lucky to get much reading in--and my TBR pile is still not finished!  I also had to make a bit of an effort to put books on the list that (I hope) would not be too hard to get, since the imminence of Christmas break might make ILLs harder than they are during the semester.

Comments

  1. Karen K.November 12, 2013 at 6:00 PM

    An eclectic list!! I read The Makioka Sisters for my TBR Pile Challenge this year and I just loved it. It's fairly long, but not a difficult read, one of my top books this year. I hope you get a good pick!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 12, 2013 at 6:25 PM

    I absolutely loved Bless Me, Ultima. It now sits firmly on my favorites list.

    Tanizaki is one of my favorite authors, although I have yet to read The Makioka Sisters. (It's on my full Classics Club list.) My favorites of his that I've read thus far have been the collection Seven Japanese Tales and the quirky family drama A Cat, A Man and Two Women.

    Best of luck with your spin pick!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousNovember 12, 2013 at 7:00 PM

    I haven't read any of these, but so far, your "dread" list is the scariest one I've seen for #1 and #5 alone.

    ReplyDelete
  4. MabelNovember 13, 2013 at 6:19 AM

    Just had to share my chuckle when I read "you will be assimilated." ;-) :P

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousNovember 13, 2013 at 8:31 AM

    A very interesting list of books! I hope you enjoy the results of the Spin and "chocolating time". :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. CleoNovember 15, 2013 at 10:31 AM

    Hi Jean! I've been following your blog for awhile and your posts inspired me so much, I decided to set up a blog as well. I can always count on you to introduce me to works that I've never even heard of and there are a couple on your Spin list that I will certainly have to look into.

    I read Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain this year. It is very loooong and gets quite philosophical. I'm still not sure whether I liked it or not, but I am glad I read it. (I've heard that one needs to read it 3 times to begin to understand it. Yikes!)

    ReplyDelete
  7. JeanNovember 15, 2013 at 2:24 PM

    3 times? Oh dear. Well, thanks for the warning, and the news about your new blog!

    ReplyDelete
  8. AmyNovember 17, 2013 at 7:34 PM

    I hope you get Winter Tales; it's one of my favorites. And I am also very, very intimidated by Gunther Grass and Thomas Mann. :)

    ReplyDelete

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