The Classics Club has come up with some random fun - The Classics Spin. We have to list 20 titles from our still unread list of the classics (which is super easy for me since I only started this month and have read one book out of a hundred); come next Monday, a mystery person is going to pull a random number from 1 to 20 out of the top hat and people will have to finish their book under that number by the Fool's Day, 1st of April.
I've just created four sub-categories for this event and each of them consists of five books. I (think) I only added one mega-chunkster - "War and Peace", but otherwise trying to be realistic regarding the given time frame. Also, March is the month for the reading of Modernists, so that could possibly create some conflict of interest, depending on what number will be pulled...
But, without further ado, behold my list of random books:
Category 1: "Gimme Gimme Gimme!"
1. Ray Bradbury ”Something Wicked This Way Comes”
2. Umberto Eco “The Name of the Rose”
3. F. Scott Fitzgerald “Tender Is the Night”
4. Bram Stoker “Dracula”
5. Jane Austen “Mansfield Park”
Category 2: "Noooo! Have mercy!"
6. Charles Dickens “Bleak House”
7. Frank Herbert “Dune”
8. Jules Verne “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”
9. Joseph Conrad “Heart of Darkness”
10. Leo Tolstoy “War and Peace
Category 3: "Mh?"
11. Willa Cather “My Antonia”
12. Kate Chopin “The Awakening”
13. Ralph Ellison “Invisible Man”
14. Sinclair Lewis “Arrowsmith”
15. Yevgeny Zamyatin “We”
Category 4: "Oops... Did it again... Yadda yadda."
16. Gabriel Garcia Marquez “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
17. Milan Kundera “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”
18. William Shakespeare “Hamlet”
19. Patrick Süskind “The Perfume”
20. Fyodor Dostoyevski “Idiot”
Great picks! Some of them do look scary. Good luck with #10. :P
ReplyDeleteThanks, I like them too... mostly :p We'll see about that #10 soon enough. :)
DeleteGood luck !
ReplyDeleteThank you! Secretly hoping a number from 1 to 5 :)
DeleteDracula was much better than I expected, and I loved My Antonia, The Awakening, and Bleak House.
ReplyDeleteAnd good luck if you get War & Peace!!
Ah, I can't wait to read Dracula! I've been drooling for Dickens for some time now so would absolutely not mind Bleak House, only the size is a tiny bid intimidating...
DeleteThanks for stopping by :)
You are right by putting Heart of Darkness in your second category, it's short (being a novella) but need a lot of thinking! I plan to read War & Peace this year, I think I must spare one whole month to finish it.
ReplyDeleteGood luck by the way, and start praying they won't pick no. 10! :))
Thanks for the warning on "Heart of Darkness", I shall approach it very carefully, that's for sure. And yes, I have been pondering how long "War and Peace" might take, no idea :) Probably not less than a month so yes, I'll be praying for no 10 :)
DeleteI read The Heart of Darkness in high school. It was intense from what I remember and I didn't much like it. I may add it to my CC list and give it another go! Did you like Dostoyevsky's Idiot? I was thinking of adding that to my list too but I've already got The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment and that's already making me nervous since I've never read any of his work.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!!!
Ugh, I'm becoming really scared of "Heart of Darkness" after all these comments :D
Delete"Idiot" is the only Dostoyevski that I've read and it was absolutely marvellous! I have also "Crime and Punishment" in my list, and I also want to read "The Brothers Karamazov" so ... same old... too many books, too little time :) I suspect "C&P" is probably darker and heavier than "Idiot", but it's such an important book that I definitely want to read it.
Very brave to add War and Peace to your list. :-) I read Dracula last year and it was nothing like I expected - loved it. I'm reading Bleak House now - slow progress but very good.
ReplyDeleteHehe well yes, I mainly did it to add some book that would be a huge obstacle IN case it was drawn. And in the quite unlikely event that it is drawn, I do intend to go through with it (maybe this is not the place to mention that I don't even have a copy of it yet...)
DeleteCan't wait for Dracula and Bleak House!
Your list quite shocking :D mostly not a light readings ...
ReplyDeleteI'm just finished Mansfield Park, hate all the characters :( my experient was a lot better with Pride & Prejudice. The Name of The Rose reading while back, I think need re-read to understand the meaning. Perfume is really good (although the stories also brutal). One Hundred Years of Solitude, goosh I almost forgot that book, is been on my pile too.
Looking forward to Mansfield Park and hating all the characters :D I have zero experience with Austen and only other book I intend to read is Persuasion so it will be interesting to see what my emotions will be. I agree on Perfume, it's also a re-read for me, all those books I've read some time while in university and I feel that I really need to re-read again (without the educational pressure) to get them better. Thank you for the comment :)
ReplyDelete