The Classics Club--Reading 100 Classics in Five Years

The Classics Club is a club created to inspire people to read and blog about classic books. There’s no time limit to join and you’re most welcome, as long as you’re willing to sign up to read and write on your blog about 50+ classic books in at most five years. The perk is that, not only will you have read 50+ incredible (or at the very least thought-provoking) works in five years, you’ll get to do it along with all of these people.

I've wanted to join the classics club ever since I discovered it.

I love books. New books. Old books. Kids' books. Fiction. Nonfiction. You name it, I like it, but most of my favorites are classics.

Ordinarily, I think of classic books as those that have stood the test of time. Books that keep getting reprinted and recommended. And, to be honest, sometimes those books your teachers forced you to read and that you vowed to toss on the nearest bonfire once school was out.

My list includes favorite authors and new-to-me authors, books I've never read and books I've read a dozen times. Since I'm working on a couple of middle-grade books, there are children's books on my list, and I've included quite a few Newbery Award winners, since one of my reading goals is to finish every one of those.

So, without further ado, in the next five years, I hope to read and review the following books:

New-to-me books and authors

1.    A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
2.    Ben-Hur, Lew Wallace
3.    Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
4.    Fateless, Imre Kertesz
5.    Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
6.    I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
7.    North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell
8.    Tales of the Alhambra, Washington Irving
9.    The Alchemist, Paula Coelho
10.    The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
11.     The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12.    The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
13.    The Princess Bride, William Goldman
14.    The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
15.    The Waves, Virginia Woolf
16.    The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
17.    Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
18.    Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
19.    Under the Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes

Favorite authors, New-to-me books

20.    A Tramp Abroad, Mark Twain
21.     Captain Blood, Rafael Sabatini
22.    Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
23.    Mother Mason, Bess Streeter Aldrich
24.    Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens
25.    Shirley, Charlotte Bronte
26.    The Adventure of the Cardboard Box
27.    The Wrong Box, Robert Louis Stevenson
28.    Villette, Charlotte Bronte

Familiar Authors, New-to-me books

29.    1984, George Orwell
30.    East of Eden, John Steinbeck
31.     Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
32.    Roots, Alex Haley

Re-reads

33.    A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
34.    A Spinner in the Sun, Myrtle Reed
35.    A White Bird Flying, Bess Streeter Aldrich
36.    An Old Fashioned Girl, Louisa May Alcott
37.    Dracula, Bram Stoker
38.    Eight Cousins, Louisa Mae Alcott
39.    Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
40.   Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
41.    Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
42.    Miss Bishop, Bess Streeter Aldrich
43.    My Antonia, Willa Cather
44.    My Cousin Rachel, Daphne duMaurier
45.    O Pioneers!, Willa Cather
46.    Rebecca, Daphne duMaurier
47.    Rose in Bloom, Louisa Mae Alcott
48.    Song of Years, Bess Streeter Aldrich
49.    Spring Came on Forever, Bess Streeter Aldrich
50.    The Black Arrow, Robert Louis Stevenson
51.     The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
52.    The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
53.    The Rim of the Prairie, Bess Streeter Aldrich
54.    The Time Machine, H. G. Wells
55.    The White Moll, Frank Packard
56.    Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

Y A and Children's Books, New-to-me authors

57.    A Fine White Dust, Cynthia Rylant
58.    A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle
59.    Because of Winn Dixie, Kate DiCamillo
60.    Poppy, Avi
61.     The Children of the New Forest, Frederick Marryat
62.    The Giver, Lois Lowry
63.    The Good Master, Kate Seredy
64.    The Tales of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo
65.    The Trumpeter of Krakow, Eric P. Kelly
66.    The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Avi
67.    Watership Down, Richard Adams

Y A and Children's Books--Rereads and/or familiar authors

68.    A Daughter of the Nile, Elizabeth George Speare
69.    A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett
70.    Anne of Avonlea, LM Montgomery
71.     Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
72.    Anne of the Island, LM Montgomery
73.    Anne of Windy Poplars, LM Montgomery
74.    Anne’s House of Dreams, LM Montgomery
75.    Betsy, Tacy, and Tib Go over the Big Hill, Maud Hart Lovelace
76.    By The Shores of Silver Lake, Laura Ingalls Wilder
77.    Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
78.    Dear Enemy, Jean Webster
79.    Emily Climbs, LM Montgomery
80.    Emily of New Moon, LM Montgomery
81.     Emily’s Quest, LM Montgomery
82.    Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder
83.    Heidi, Johanna Spyri
84.    Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
85.    Rainbow Valley, LM Montgomery
86.    Rilla of Ingleside, LM Montgomery
87.    The Borrowers, Mary Norton
88.    The Cricket in Times Square, George Selden
89.    The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank
90.    The Incredible Journey, Sheila Burnford
91.     The Island of Blue Dolphins, Scott O’Dell
92.    The Little Town on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
93.    The Long Winter, Laura Ingalls Wilder
94.    The Moorchild, Eloise Jarvis McGraw
95.    The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
96.    The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
97.    The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare
98.    These Happy Golden Years, Laura Ingalls Wilder
99.    Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech
100.    When the Legends Die, Hal Borland