The Classics Club Blog is celebrating its tenth anniversary, and it brings back lots of fond blogging memories. From 2014 to 2019 I participated in this challenge to read and post about 50 books from a self-determined list of classics in five years, and I had lots of interesting experiences along the way. You can see the results of that project on my former blog, The Emerald City Book Review, here. And you can read the Classics Club celebration post and questionnaire here (including my answers in the comments).
After finishing this project, I decided not to be so formal about my reading goals. I actually completely lost track of my classics reading, but the anniversary post inspired me to make a new “classics club” page that I will fill in as I go along instead of making goals ahead of time. I was surprised to see how many classics I have read in the last three years, without even trying!
In honor of the anniversary, here are my top ten classics that I read after finishing my original list.
- The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
- The World I Live In by Helen Keller
- Act One by Moss Hart
- Lilith by George MacDonald
- Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
- L’étranger by Albert Camus
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Are you a participant in the Classics Club, past or present? What are the best or most memorable classics that you’ve read lately?
I have not read many of the classics since I left college but I do like watching the movies. 😉
Congrats on the anniversary.
Fortunately there are a lot of good movie adaptations of classic books. We’ll just try to forget about the bad ones.
I like the idea of listing your classics as you go along rather than setting goals in advance. It’s a good way to keep track of your reading without putting yourself under any pressure. I haven’t read any of your top ten yet, but there are a few there that I’m interested in reading.
All good in their own way, I hope you’ll get to them before too long.
Great idea. I’ve read six of your books but haven’t finished my list, yet. Four more to go.
Interesting that our reading overlapped to that extent … I hope you found these as worthwhile as I did.
I finally finished the questionnaire and here are my answers..
I used to try to read a couple of classics a year, but I haven’t done that in the past maybe 5 (?) years? Maybe next year I should dive back in. Of your list, I’ve only read 2. Yikes.
So many classics, so little time; we just have to chip away at the pile as best we can.
Nice list! I was very impressed by Lilith
Yes, amazing book! I so much wish for a beautiful illustrated edition.