The Classics Club: Two Years In

I can't believe that it's already been two years since I joined the Classics Club and compiled my list of 72 classics I wanted to read in five years.  Last August, I posted my first annual review, in which I was pleased to have finished 13 titles and knocked two Dickens books off my list.  This year, I'm pleased that I've stuck with it and continued to read classics at a steady pace of at least one a month.  This is a big deal for me, as I'm terrible at sticking to goals in general and reading lists in particular.  This is the only time I have ever stuck to a TBR list, so hopefully I'll continue and manage to read all 72 books by the time the five years are up.

Books read this year: 16

Running total: 29/72

Books I read this year (links to my reviews):

Emma by Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Beautiful and the Damned by F.Scott Fitzgerald

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Turn of the Screw by Henry James

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkein

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

   

Favourite Reread: This second year was a year of new reads, with only Emma and Return of the King being rereads.  Of these, Emma is definitely my favourite.

Unexpected Delight: Northanger Abbey.  Having already read Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Sense and Sensibility, I had assumed that the best of Austen was already behind me.  But I was utterly enchanted by Catherine, and Northanger Abbey is now my favourite Austen.

Book I Am Glad to Have Finished: Definitely Les Miserables.  I try to read one 'big'/scary book each year, and spinning Les Mis meant that this was the year that Victor Hugo and I became acquainted.  I had high hopes, but was ultimately let down by the meandering story-telling and unnecessary diversions. I'm glad I read it, but it wasn't really for me.

Best Modern Classic: The Painted Veil by W.Somerset Maugham.  I loved this story of a woman forced to accompany her husband into a cholera epidemic because of her infidelity.  It's full of thoroughly unlikable characters but still somehow manages to be beautiful.

Book I Finally Got Around To: East of Eden.  My husband has been nagging me for years to read some more Steinbeck, so I'm relieved that I loved this one.  I'm looking forward to The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row, both of which are on my list.

Authors I Am Finished With On My List: Louisa May Alcott, Anne Bronte, Emily Bronte, Isak Dinesen, Daphne Du Maurier, Elizabeth Gaskell, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Golding, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Victor Hugo, Zora Neale Hurston, Aldous Huxley, Henry James, W. Somerset Maugham, Mark Twain and Jules Verne.  Of all of these, I'm really looking forward to reading more James and Maugham.

I'm still enjoying reading classics, although I'm finding that my tastes are changing.  If I modified my list now, it would be very different from the one I compiled two years ago.  But I've decided to stick to my original goals, and save my new ideas for the classics club list, version two, that I'm sure I'll be compiling in three years time.

If you're in the classics club, how are you getting on with your list?

Classics Club: Yearly Check-In 1/5

On August 1st, 2012, I signed up for the Classics Club, in which you challenge yourself to read at least fifty classic titles in the next five years.  I decided to go for a bit more than fifty books, and my final list was seventy-two books long.  As a year has passed since I started, I thought it might be a good time to write an update post and see how much progress I have made.

In the first year, I have read 13 out of 72 books, and reviewed them all.  The books I have read are the following (links go to my reviews):

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Tender is the Night by F.Scott Fitzgerald

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Daisy Miller by Henry James

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein

The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkein

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

I'm happy with my progress so far.  If I read one book a month for five years, that would be sixty books read so I'm aiming to read just over twelve books a year.  Thirteen isn't bad for year one.  Year two should be getting off to a good start as I'm already half-way through Emma, for the Austen in August event and plan to read Northanger Abbey too this month.  Slow and steady wins the race!

  

What I'm most pleased to report is that I've enjoyed each of the books I have read, although some more than others.  None of them have felt like an absolute slog to get through.  I'm glad I made such a good start on the Dickens titles this year, as I have now completed two out of the five I selected.  Dickens was one of those authors I really wasn't looking forward to reading, so I was pleasantly surprised by A Tale of Two Cities in particular, which has become a favourite.  Great Expectations I didn't love as much, but I liked it enough to be almost looking forward to reading the other three.  Of course I haven't started the one title I'm scared of on my list (Moby Dick) or the mammoth one (Les Miserables), but learning to like Dickens was enough of an achievement for the first year.

My favourite read so far has to be Tender is the Night, by F.Scott Fitzgerald.  I read it in just over a day for the Classics Club readathon and it completely ripped my heart out, it was so beautiful and devastating at the same time.  I'm saving Beautiful and the Damned, as I know I'm going to love it.  Similarly, I'm saving The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the Anne Bronte I have yet to read.

Out of the thirteen books I read this year, six were rereads.  It sounds like a lot, but then a lot of my classics club list is made up of rereads.  Classics tend to be the only type of book that I want to pick up again and again and they usually improve each time.  I deliberately added some books that I didn't love first time round and typically on the second, they were much improved.  The award for the most surprising reread would definitely go to Around the World in Eighty Days, which I hated in secondary school.  Turns out I was missing out on all of the humour. 

I'm glad that I joined the Classics Club.  I had some reservations as I don't participate in reading challenges as a rule.  I'm a fickle reader and I don't make lists of books to read, but I think taking part has given me the push I needed to read more classics, more regularly.  Hopefully I'll enjoy the next four years just as much!