Monday, March 27, 2017

Back to the Classics Challenge 2017

Karen at Books and Chocolate is hosting a Back to the Classics Challenge for 2017 (I was so late finding out about it that sign-ups are now closed, but I still plan to do it.) Because of the original challenge (50 Classics in 5 years ), I read 48 books on my list! I loved having the gentle pressure to keep chipping away at my goals. As I neared the end of the challenge, I looked around for a new one and found Karen's today. I have many classics I still want to read so I'm adapting some of them to her requirements.


1.  A 19th century classic - The Scarlet Letter (1850). 4/25/17
2.  A 20th century classic - My Antonia (1918) 
3.  A classic by a woman author. - Rainbow Valley by L.M. Montgomery 6/20/17
4.  A classic originally published in another language.  - The Iliad
5.  A classic originally published before 1800. - Shakespeare play/Merchant of Venice 11/12
6.  A romance classic. by Trollope or Gaskell (Mary Barton?)

7.  A Gothic or horror classic. Picture of Dorian Gray 5/21/17
8.  Classic with a Number in the TitleAround the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne 3/16/17
9.  A classic about an animal  - Old Yeller 10/15/17
10. A classic set in a place you'd like to visit. (real or imaginary) - Secret Garden (re-read)  4/18
11. An award-winning classic - John Adams by David McCullough (Pulitzer)

12. A Russian classic. – Anna Karenina by Tolstoy

Other classics I hope to read in the next ten years:
13. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
14. Augustine's Confessions 12/18
15. Ben Hur by Lew Wallace
16. The Betrothed by Manzoni
17. Bleak House by Dickens
18, 19. Two Brazilian Classics (O Alienista 2/18Iraçema by Alencar 11/17)
20. Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky
21. Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
22. Chronicles of Wasted Time by Muggeridge
23. The Daughter of Time by Tey
24. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon
25. The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper
26. Divine Comedy by Dante (Ciardi's version)
27. Dombey and Son by Dickens 12/15/17
28. Everlasting Man by Chesterton 12/18
29. Far from the Madding Crowd by Hardy
30. Freckles by Gene Stratton Porter
31. Holy Living and Holy Dying by Jeremy Taylor
32. The Inferno by Dante
33. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
34. Journal of a Plague Year by Defoe
35. Journals of James Cook
36. Journals of Lewis and Clark
37. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
38. Kon-Tiki by Heyerdahl
39. Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
40. Lilith by George MacDonald 3/18
41. Jungle Book by Kipling 10/17
42. Lark Rise to Candleford 6/18
43. Madame Bovary by Flaubert
44. Man in the Iron Mask by Dumas (or Black Tulip)
45. Martian Chronicles by Bradbury
46. Morte d'Arthur by Malory
47. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
48. Phantastes by George MacDonald
49. Princess and Curdie (re-read)
50. Red Badge of Courage by Crane
51. Rise of Silas Lapham by Howells
52. Swallows and Amazons by Ransome
53. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn 10/18
54. Things Fall Apart by Achebe
55. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
56. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
57. Walden by Thoreau
58. War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
59. The Way We Live Now by Trollope 
60. Water Babies by Kingsley (re-read)

Blessings,

1 comment:

Barbara H. said...

Somehow I didn't read many classics growing up, so I have tried to rectify that as an adult. I love the Back to the Classics challenge for helping me plan for that. I just read The Yearling a year or two ago and loved it. I have Watership Down on my list for this year. I have never read and just want to see what it is all about.