Classics Spin #7!

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 It's time for another Classics Club Spin!  I love these.  Haven't missed one yet.  Here are the rules:
  • Go to your blog.
  • Pick twenty books that you’ve got left to read from your Classics Club List.
  • Try to challenge yourself: list five you are dreading/hesitant to read, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favorite author, rereads, ancients — whatever you choose.)
  • Post that list, numbered 1-20, on your blog by next Monday.
  • Monday morning, we’ll announce a number from 1-20. Go to the list of twenty books you posted, and select the book that corresponds to the number we announce.
  • The challenge is to read that book by October 6, even if it’s an icky one you dread reading! (No fair not listing any scary ones!)
Ha ha! :D All for fun, and of course, the “rules” are, as always, very relaxed. Really, you can make up your own rules. We don’t actually care. :P

 
So, here's my list.  As usual, I have not put them in any particular order; I like to mix them up.  Given that it will be October by the time we're done, I'm putting in any titles I can plausibly stretch to be Halloweeny....and it just wouldn't be a Spin list without The Makioka Sisters, right?  I put them on every time, but they never get picked.  If you have a title that really scares you, I advise you to put t in the #16 spot.
  1. Edgar Allen Poe, US, 1839. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.
  2. Shakespeare: Henry IV
  3. Lawrence Sterne, Tristram Shandy. 
  4. Confucius, China, 551-479 BCE. The Analects.
  5. Leo Tolstoy, Russia, War and Peace. 
  6. Omar Khayyam, Persia, ca 1100. The Rubaiyat. 
  7. Willa Cather, My Antonia
  8. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, England, 1818. Frankenstein.
  9. Franz Kafka, Czechoslovakia, The Castle.
  10.  Naguib Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy 
  11. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, 1808. Faust. 
  12.  Nathaniel Hawthorne: a novel.  (My list says I have to read two Hawthornes of choice.)
  13. Murasaki Shikubu, Japan, ca. 990.The Tale of Genji.  (abridged, sorry, but that's the one I have)
  14. Mario Vargas Llosa, The Time of the Hero or another work.
  15.  Moa Martinson, Women and Appletrees.
  16.  Junichio Tanizaki, Japan, 1943. The Makioka Sisters
  17.  Anthony Trollope, 1864, The Small House at Allington.
  18.  “The Crucible,” Miller (1953)
  19.  Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks
  20.  Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum (or other selection)
 Of these, I'm really looking forward to War and Peace, Frankenstein, and The Small House at Allington--it's too long since I read a Trollope novel.  War and Peace and The Cairo Trilogy are both scary because they are very long indeed, and I've never read this Llosa dude so he makes me nervous.

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 5, 2014 at 5:38 AM

    I think there's a Cather book on every list I looked at so far. That's always a good choice. War and Peace is good too. I'd be interested to hear what you think of Llosa; I like him, but some people think he's too weird.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sam (Tiny Library)August 5, 2014 at 6:06 AM

    War and Peace! I really want to read it after loving Anna Karenina, but it would be tough to get such a long book on the spin. I got Les Miserables at the end of last year and had a hard time reading it by the deadline.

    ReplyDelete
  3. CleoAugust 5, 2014 at 8:49 AM

    I just finished War and Peace and would highly recommend it, but a deadline certainly wouldn't be helpful with such a long book.

    As for your list there is only one book on it that I don't recognize, so I think that's a record! ;-)

    I'd have to agree about your "looking forward to" choices. Trollope is always a relaxing and interesting read.

    Good luck with your spin, Jean!

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownAugust 5, 2014 at 9:30 AM

    I hope you get Frankenstein; I love that one!

    ReplyDelete
  5. JeanAugust 5, 2014 at 10:23 AM

    Yeah, it's pretty scary to contemplate reading War and Peace on a deadline, but I AM planning on reading it soon so...why not live dangerously?

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownAugust 5, 2014 at 10:44 AM

    I have a Cather on my list as well - O Pioneers. My Antonia is a fantastic book!

    My spin list is here: http://thedwsblog.com/2014/08/04/classics-spin-7/

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousAugust 6, 2014 at 9:09 AM

    I really enjoyed The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel Hawthorne is definitely one of my favorite American classic authors.

    ReplyDelete
  8. BronaAugust 8, 2014 at 2:12 AM

    We will be sharing Cather in #7 spins up. It will be my first time with her, but I've heard such wonderful things, I think we should be fine :-)

    Good luck on Monday

    ReplyDelete
  9. JoAnnAugust 9, 2014 at 5:14 AM

    The Cairo Trilogy is long, but it's wonderful. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete

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