Classics Club Spin #36

Posted on by Gail

In my absence from the blog for the better part of three months, I missed the last Classics Club Spin (#35) and don’t want to let another one go by without participating. I have worked through a few titles on my list in the meantime and their reviews are on the docket… if I can ever get my non-Classics Club review for The Secret History posted. Stay tuned for that in the next, oh, give or take five years. Probably before my Classics Club list is completely finished. Not guaranteed, but definitely maybe.

But of making many books there is no end, and reviews requiring writing seem similarly interminable, so I still want to keep reading momentum going by doing this spin.

Looking back at my Classics Club list, I haven’t read even one selection from my “Poetry, Verse, and Plays” section, so all eight of those titles went into the mix to boost their chances. I have read one title from each of the sections “Novellas and Short Story Collections” and “Essays and Treatises” but I figured we should keep them in the game so I threw in 50% of the remaining titles from each (two titles from “Novellas,” one title from “Essays”). The nine remaining entries are randomly pulled from the novels I haven’t started yet.

Put it all together (again, randomly), and here’s what we got:

  1. Leaves of Grass (1855) by Walt Whitman
  2. The Idiot (1869) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  3. The Aeneid by Virgil
  4. Pygmalion (1913) by George Bernard Shaw
  5. The Stone Angel (1964) by Margaret Lawrence
  6. Love in a Time of Cholera (1985) by Gabriel García Márquez
  7. The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) by Ursula K. Le Guin
  8. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe (re-read)
  9. Indiana (1832) by George Sand
  10. The Dubliners (1914) by James Joyce
  11. Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton
  12. Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert
  13. The Gambler (1887) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  14. Barnaby Rudge (1841) by Charles Dickens
  15. The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx
  16. Beowulf, Unknown
  17. The Waste Land (1922) by T.S. Eliot
  18. The Iliad by Homer
  19. The Canterbury Tales (c. 1400) by Geoffrey Chaucer
  20. To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee (re-read)

I honestly don’t know how I’m feeling about this list as a whole… the novels ended up being not that varied: both remaining re-reads appear as do most of the later 20th century entries that I had on my list. Currently hoping for a pick from one of the other categories to spice things up. Though I have been reading more of the 19th century ones recently so maybe these novel selections will be a change?

This has been my fourth Classics Club Spin! Check out my whole list here.

10 thoughts on “Classics Club Spin #36”

    1. I read part of Paradise Lost for an English class, but have always wanted to read the whole thing. I would be happy to have it come up this spin! Thanks for stopping by! I will have to check out your list, too

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  2. I’ve only read a couple of these. The T.S. Eliot is on my TBR (but not my CC list), so I’d be interested to know what you think of it should it come up in the spin.

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    1. I’ve heard it is modernist in that it alludes to all sorts of classical literature so it can be pretentious and hard to understand–definitely will be interesting to read if I get it!

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      1. That sounds a little intimidating, but I still want to read it eventually. I’m thinking there are some religious themes in it, as well. Perhaps I’ll save it for my second CC list!

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      2. Yes, definitely religious themes too! Eliot has an interesting career/bibliography development, though I confess to knowing little about it firsthand. Perhaps reading The Wasteland will lead to me exploring more!

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    1. Great to hear it’s loved! Fun fact: Margaret Laurence’s hometown is about an hour away from where I grew up–I’ve been to see her house there and the graveyard where the statue is that supposedly inspired The Stone Angel. Definitely have wanted to read it ever since!

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