Jillian of A Room of One’s Own has come up with the fantastic idea of starting a long-term classics reading project called “The Classics Club”. Since I’m trying to become more literate in those books that are somehow considered “important”, I’ve decided to join. I’m going to do it in a relaxed fashion – 50 books spread over 5 years, and my list can change as I please (changes will be indicated). Who knows whether I’ll still be book blogging by March 2017 or whether I’ll ever finish – if I even complete a fraction of the list, I’ll come away a better-read individual.
If you also want to join, you can sign up here.
My list is below. I plan to read the original versions of those books in the languages I’m comfortable reading in, so I’ve sorted them by language and century published. In the “other” category you can find those books originally published in other languages.
English:
pre-1700s:
- William Shakespeare: Hamlet (1603), P
1700s:
- Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), NF
- Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre (1847)
- Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness (1899)
- Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol (1843)
1900s:
- James Joyce: Ulysses (1922)
- Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987)
- Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar (1963)
- Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged (1957)
- Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses (1988)
- Dodie Smith: I Capture the Castle (1948)
- John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
- Alice Walker: The Color Purple (1982), R
- Evelyn Waugh: Scoop (1938)
- Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway (1925)
German
1700s:
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Nathan der Weise (1779), P
- Friedrich von Schiller: Die Räuber (1781), P
1800s:
- Bettina von Arnim: Die Günderode (1840)
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Die Wahlverwandtschaften (1809), R
- Heinrich Heine: Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen (1844)
1900s:
- Heinrich Böll: Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum (1974), R
- Alfred Döblin: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929)
- Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Der Verdacht (1952)
- Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Justiz (1985)
- Max Frisch: Stiller (1954)
- Günter Grass: Die Blechtrommel (1959)
- Wolfgang Koeppen: Das Treibhaus (1953)
- Thomas Mann: Der Zauberberg (1924)
- Christa Wolf: Was bleibt (1990)
2000s:
- Herta Müller: Atemschaukel (2009)
Spanish
pre-1700s:
- Bartolomé de las Casas: Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (1552), NF
- Lope de Vega: Fuente Ovejuna (1619), P, R
1800s:
- Benito Pérez Galdós: Doña Perfecta (1876)
- Domingo Faustino Sarmiento: Don Facundo (1845)
1900s:
- Adolfo Bioy Casares: La invención de Morel (1940)
- Jorge Luis Borges: El Aleph (1949, revised 1974)
- Alberto Fuguet & Sergio Gómez (eds.): McOndo (1996)
- Federico García Lorca: El público (1930), P
- José Eustasio Rivera: La vorágine (1924), R
- José Ortega y Gasset: La rebelión de las masas (1930), NF
- Octavio Paz: El laberinto de la soledad (1930), NF
Other
pre-1700s:
- Thomas More: Utopia (~1516), original: Latin
- Christine de Pizan: The book of the city of Ladies (1405), original: French
1800s:
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Notes from Underground (1864), original: Russian
- Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary (1857), original: French
- Victor Hugo: Les Miserables (1862), original: French
- Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina (1878), original: Russian
- Émile Zola: J’accuse (1898), original: French, NF
1900s:
- Italo Calvino: If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller (1979), original: Italian
- Albert Camus: The Stranger (1942), original: French
Legend:
R = Re-read
P = Play
NF = Non-fiction
March 10, 2012 at 9:26 pm
Wow! Such a great list, Bettina! I love that you’re reading in different languages.
And I agree with you: who knows if I’ll still be blogging by 2017, but I’ll finish this thing a better individual. That’s the point exactly.
Cheers to you! (I’m also afraid of Ulysses — ha!)
March 10, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Thank you Jillian! United in our fear of Ulysses, I’m sure we’ll get through it
. Again, thank you so much for coming up with this great idea. It’s finally made me get off my bottom and tackle those classics more systematically.
March 13, 2012 at 1:32 am
Great list, Bettina! I think it’s one of the more interesting I’ve seen. I look forward to following along. I’m especially interested in the Spanish titles, especially the ones I’m not familiar with.
March 18, 2012 at 11:40 am
Thanks Amanda! I look forward to following yours too, and seeing how you get on with your Spanish titles!
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March 16, 2012 at 10:41 pm
I also read in German, but very poorly! I hope to improve myself to the point where I can read so many. Interesting list.
March 18, 2012 at 11:39 am
Hi Amy, in my case it helps that German is actually my native language. If it wasn’t, I’m not sure I’d want to learn it as a foreign language, it just seems absurdly difficult
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March 31, 2012 at 1:15 pm
“Die Räuber”: Respekt! Ich musste so viel Schiller am Gymnasium und in Duino in German A Higher lesen, dass es gefühlt bis ans Lebensende reicht. Über “Stiller” habe ich mein Extended Essay geschrieben, aber “Der Zauberberg” steht auch auf meiner Klassikerliste.
April 1, 2012 at 1:21 pm
Obwohl ich aus Schillers “Heimatländle” komme, musste ich in der Schule irgendwie nie viel Schiller lesen, und in AC dann auch nicht, trotz German A1 Higher. Ich habe irgendwie das Gefühl, dass mir hier noch etwas fehlt. Mal sehen, wie es mit mir und den Räubern läuft.
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