Previous Spins:
Time for another Classics Spin. All the rules and information available at Classics Club site.
About previous spins I've taken part of:
Spin #1 - my book was Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
Spin #2 - my book was Villette by Charlotte Bronte (I don't think I finished it on time because of death in the family, but I finished it eventually)
This time, once again, I used the help of random.org to pick out, well, random unread books from my Classics Club book list. Random.org was in a bit of a funny mood, and picked several books I'm dreading to begin, I've marked those ones in maroon-ish colour:
1. William Faulkner "As I Lay Dying"
2. Vladimir Nabokov "Invitation to a Beheading"
3. A.C. Doyle "The Sign of Four"
4. Marcel Proust "The Swann's Way"
5. H.G. Wells "The War of the Worlds"
6. Daniel Defoe "Moll Flanders"
7. Ian McEwan "Atonement"
8. George Eliot "Middlemarch"
9. William Shakespeare "Hamlet"
10. Charles Dickens "A Tale of Two Cities"
11. Victor Hugo "Les Miserables"
12. Herman Melville "Moby Dick"
13. Edith Wharton "The Age of Innocence"
14. Daphne duMaurier "Rebecca"
15. Michael Cunningham "The Hours"
16. Yevgeni Zamyatin "We"
17. Thomas Hardy "Jude the Obscure"
18. Fyodor Dostoyevski "Idiot"
19. William Shakespeare "Macbeth"
20. Louisa May Alcott "Little Women"
It's been a while since I read Moll Flanders, but I liked it. But I would dread Moby Dick as well! Good luck with the spin.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I've heard people love Moll Flanders, but it's the style of prose that feels a bit intimidating :)
DeleteI don't think I could bring myself to add any books to my list (main or spin) that I am dreading -- too many good ones I'm excited about! I think I'm bowing out of the Spin again this time, but one of these times I'm going to do it :)
ReplyDeleteI should probably clarify that "dreading" is not the dread that I won't like the book - it's mostly the length of the book that can be a bit intimidating, or when many other readers have seemingly agreed that it's something really difficult (Proust, Faulkner). No reason for my experience to be completely different, though! I could name several books dreaded by many, probably, that are my favourites - Idiot, Anna Karenina for example :) I do want to read them (which is obviously why I added them to my list) and if anything, I'm happy to get a little "push" to actually start some of these :)
DeleteYou should definitely try the Spin at some point - it's quite addictive ;)
That is a lot of dreaded books! Moby Dick is on my list too, and I'm also dreading it. And I was unlucky enough to spin Les Miserables last time, if you get it, you can definitely make it through if I can!
ReplyDeleteHowever I love both Hamlet & Macbeth, although that may be because I studied them at school.
Ah yes, I remember you got and finished Les Miserables last spin, which was majorly well done. We read Hamlet at school and I haven't read other Shakespeare (and not in original language either), and I really wish to overcome this dread of verse and old poetry, and start loving Shakespeare like a proper bookworm should!
DeleteYou've got a great list there. Les Mis is one of my favourite novels. And Swann's Way ain't so bad. I'm finding after Swann's Way it gets A LOT harder! :)
ReplyDeleteThat's encouraging to know about Swann's Way - I actually have it in Estonian and it might be easier to read for me than it would be in English.
DeleteIf it's no. 6 then we will share Moll Flanders this spin....which is one of the books I've been really looking forward to - I will hopefully post my list in the next couple of days.
ReplyDeleteAnd good luck :-)
I was wondering if you will be doing your "regular" kinda spin list ;) Looking forward to your own list :)
DeleteI hope you get Rebecca! I love that book.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping to get Rebecca too, actually :)
DeleteI really liked Atonement. Middlemarch's size is certainly daunting, but I enjoyed it all the way through. Good luck with your spin!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I am very excited to read Atonement, and aside from the size, Middlemarch as well - I read George Eliot at school, but I remember absolutely nothing.
DeleteHeavens, that's quite a list! It'll be fun to see what gets chosen. In any case, I absolutely promise you don't need to dread Macbeth. Macbeth is amazing. It's the first Shakespeare play I ever read in school, and I promise that if fourteen-year-old me could understand and love it, you also will. Oh it's so good. Oh I hope that's the one that gets chosen because it's so good.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'm getting a bit excited about Shakespeare now. :) It's really time to get over the fear to read him. And yes this time the list is pretty........ . interesting. I'm very excited about Monday! :)
DeleteWow, I have both We and Swann's Way on my list too! I'm dreading the latter so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't get it. I just finished The Idiot and it was great! Les Miserables is probably in my top ten favourites and I liked Middlemarch but both are very long.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a great spin, Riv!
I'm a bit more scared of Les Miserables than Middlemarch, probably because of rumours there are of Hugo going on and on about the sewage system in Paris... :) But I'm excited to read any of these, because length doesn't really matter if a book is good. In that sense I'm dreading Swann's Way the most!
DeleteHugo does have moments of digression but I found them all interesting. I know some volumes actually put some of them at the back of the novel. Alexandre Dumas does the same thing but I find his digressions more annoying because they don't really give you any information; with Hugo, whether they're about sewer systems or religious orders, at least you learn something.
DeleteOh, I agree, the so called "info dumps" can be very interesting. I personally don't have that much problem with them anyway but I've seen people complain that they tend to break the flow of the story quite a bit.
DeleteAh, Dumas - I haven't read him in years!
Quite the selection! A couple of Russians and a Shakespeare or two - you could be in for a treat :) Good luck, I hope the spin is good to you. I need to crack on and do my list.
ReplyDeleteI'm excited and scared at the same time! *bites nails*
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