I am starting my blogging journey by committing to this
challenge, which I am hoping would expand my reading horizons and help me find
my footing in the community of literature lovers. The challenge in question, hosted
by The Classics Club, asks bloggers to commit to reading at least 50 classic
books in 5 years and blog about them. Their FAQ page has more information
about the challenge.
I scoured through the list of books I have been meaning
to read for a long time and compiled this list of 75 titles. This is a diverse collection
representing different eras, regions, authors, and genres. It consists of
fiction, non-fiction, novels, novellas, poetry, short-story collections, plays
and essays.
The definition of a classic is left to the interpretation
of the participants and for my first attempt at the challenge, I am defining a
text as a classic if it was first published at least 25 years ago, i.e., no
later than 1998. There are a few exceptions to this rule. I have included a few
books published after 2000, listed under the category of Modern Classics, that
I believe are well-loved and impactful enough to deserve a place here. There
are also some books on the list that were written well before 1998 but
published posthumously.
My goal for this challenge is to read at
least 50 classic books in the next 5 years.
I will use the following
list as a guide, but would not consider this a fixed basket, as I am sure my
taste will evolve with time and new discoveries.
I have some other reading goals that I am hoping will
overlap with this challenge. Some of them are simple fun like reading all Jane
Austen novels or getting through all Sherlock Holmes adventures. Others are an
attempt to address the blind spots in my reading ambitions, like reading more
non-fiction books and adding literature from my own country to my previous TBR,
which was made-up entirely of foreign authors. One that is particularly important
to me is to read books in my native languages. I have been sleeping on the
treasure mine of regional literature and missing out on the beauty of my first
and second languages. It is high time to rectify that.
Start date: 10th March 2023
End date: 10th March 2028
Progress: 0/50
JANE
AUSTEN
1)
Pride and Prejudice (1813)
2)
Sense and Sensibility (1811)
3)
Emma (1815)
4)
Persuasion (1817)
5)
Mansfield Park (1814)
6)
Northanger Abbey (1817)
7)
Sanditon (1817
and posthumous completion in 1975)
8)
Lady Susan (1871
posthumously)
SHERLOCK
HOLMES
9)
The Sign of Four (1890)
10) The
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
11) The
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893)
12) The
Hounds of the Baskervilles (1902)
13) The
Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905)
14) The
Valley of Fear (1915)
15) His
Last Bow (1917)
16) The
Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927)
NON-FICTION
17) A
Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (1988)
18) Space,
Time and Gravitation by Arthur Eddington (1920)
19) Six
Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman (1994)
20) Diary
of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (1947)
21) Maus
I and II by Art Spiegelman (1980)
22) Yuganta:
The end of an Epoch by Irawati Karve (1967)
23) Constellation
Myths: With Aratus’s Phenomena by Aratus and
Eratosthenes (195)
24) Rutuchakra by
Durga Bhagwat (1956)
FANTASY/SCIENCE
FICTION
25) Lord
of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954-1955)
26) Silmarillion by
J.R.R. Tolkien (1977 posthumously)
27) Children
of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien (2007 posthumously)
28) Fall
of Gondolin by J.R.R. Tolkien (2018
posthumously)
29) Beren
and Luthien by J.R.R. Tolkien (2017
posthumously)
30) Chronicles
of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (1950-1956)
31) The
Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979-1996)
32) The Odyssey by
Homer (7th century B.C.)
33) The
Illiad by Homer (8th century B.C.)
34) Beowulf by
Unknown (700-1000 disputed)
35) Earthsea
Saga by Ursula K. Le Guin (1968-2001)
36) Frankenstein by
Mary Shelley (1818)
37) Fahrenheit
451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
38) The Handmaids
Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)
39) The Phantom
Tollbooth by Norton Juster (1961)
40) Once
and Future King by T.H. White (1938-1940)
41) Watership
Down by Richard Adams (1972)
42) Tales
from Watership Down by Richard Adams (1996)
43) I,
Robot by Isaac Asimov (1950)
44) Time
Quintet by Madeleine L’Engle (1962-1989)
MISCELLANEOUS
45) Anne
of the Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (1908)
46) To
Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)
47) Catcher
in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (1951)
48) Jane
Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847)
49) Oliver
Twist by Charles Dickens (1838)
50) Rebecca by
Daphne du Maurier (1938)
51) Treasure
Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (1882)
52) Eugene
Onegin by Alexander Pushkin (1833)
53) The
Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope (1894)
54) The
Chronicle of Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1981)
55) Anna
and the King of Siam by Margaret London (1944)
56) Macbeth by
William Shakespeare (1623)
57) The Children
of the New Forest by Frederick Marrayat (1847)
MODERN
CLASSICS
58) The
Book Thief by Markus Zusak (2005)
59) A
Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (2007)
60) Jonathan
Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (2004)
61) His
Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
INDIAN
LITERATURE
62) Train
to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh (1956)
63) Virdhaval by
Nath Madhav (1912)
64) Chandrakanta by
Devaki Nandan Khatri (1888)
65) Sharatchandra
Chattopadhyay
66) Batan
ri Phulwari by Vijaydan Detha (1960-1975)
67) Works
of Kalidasa (4th or 5th century)
68) Kamayani by
Jaishankar Prasad (1936)
69) The
legend of Khasak by O. V. Vijayan (1969)
70) The
Tale of an Anklet by Ilango Adigal (1892)
71) The
Little Clay Cart by Shudraka (401)
72) Kadambari by
Banbhatta (650)
73) Rajatarangini by
Kalhana (1148-1149)
74) Malgudi
Days by R. K. Narayan (1943)
75) The Man-eater
of Malgudi by R. K. Narayan (1961)
