It has come round again! What is it, you may ask?
The Classics Club is a voluntary commitment to read fifty classics of your choice in five years from the time you join. The Classics Club site hosts a periodic “spin” to motivate participants to keep at their list, and maybe relieve some of the choice paralysis that can slow you down, by choosing a random book for you to read within a certain time period. Every spin you compile a list of twenty of the books you still haven’t read from your list, post it, and then the Classics Club will post a random number from 1-20. The book corresponding to the number is the one you read next, before a certain date.
Method to my madness:
I hit the halfway mark with my Classics Club list, having read 25 out of 50 books. This means my spins are going to include a lot more repeats. However, I have edited my book list slightly once again, so there will be a few new titles popping in as well. This time, I just took my twenty-five remaining titles, omitted the five I least wanted to read next, and randomized the twenty I was left with. Behold!
- Leviathan (1651) by Thomas Hobbes
- The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) by Agatha Christie
- The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Friederich Engels & Karl Marx
- Ethan Frome (1911) by Edith Wharton
- The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J.D. Salinger
- The Dubliners (1914) by James Joyce
- The Metamorphosis (1915) by Franz Kafka
- Steppenwolf (1929) by Herman Hesse
- On the Road (1957) by Jack Kerouac
- The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) by Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Art of War by Sun Tzu
- Leaves of Grass (1855) by Walt Whitman
- Aeropagitica & Of Education (1644) by John Milton
- Fear and Trembling (1843) by Søren Kierkegaard
- Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) by Jules Verne
- Pygmalion (1913) by George Bernard Shaw
- Kilmeny of the Orchard (1910) by Lucy Maud Montgomery
- Till We Have Faces (1956) by C.S. Lewis
- The Waste Land (1922) by T.S. Eliot
- The Double (1846) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The spin number for this round will be posted this upcoming Sunday, May 17, and afterward everyone has until July 5 to read their selected title.
I also realise that having hit the halfway mark just now is not quite as great an accomplishment as I thought; I’m already over three years into my five-year stretch. I have until September 2027 to read the remaining 50% of my list! I should really keep up with the spins.
This has been my eighth Classics Club Spin! Check out my whole book list here.
Fictitiously Yours 
You have some on your CC list I’ve never seen on anyone else’s! A lot of variety, too. Your summer may look very different depending on whether you get the Dubliners or Marx. XD
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Haha! Yeah, I’ve really gotten into the heavier non-fiction recently. We’ll see how I make out!
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Well, Communist Manifesto is NOT very long, which is one of its few virtues. I read it three times in college — once because it was historically significant and twice for different classes. (German History since 1815 and Sociological Theory.)
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Wait! You haven’t read *Aeropagitica *yet? It’s a favourite of mine, but I thought it was on the list in first-year English?
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It was excerpted, I believe. I want to read the whole thing!
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Glad to see you’re joining in this time! I hope you get Journey to the Center of the Earth. I really enjoyed it!
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Thanks! I have had varying experiences with Jules Verne, so I am optimistic for this one.
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You’ve got some great choices here! Kilmeny of the Orchard was a wonderful surprise when I read it a year or so agao. Journey to the Center of the Earth–my kids and I read it aloud years ago, very good. Enjoy whatever the spin gives you!
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Thanks! I don’t really know anything about Kilmeny of the Orchard, I just picked iup a cute vintage copy at a book sale and thought I should try it, so it will be a surprise to me too if I get it next!
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Kilmeny was really good. I’m on phone or I’d give you my review link. The search doesn’t work on phone sadly
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I’ll try and find it! Thanks!
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I read The Waste Land last year for an adult ed class, and loved it. I loathed On the Road, but that’s probably just me. I’m fascinated with Pygmalion.
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Of course I would get On the Road. XD Oh well, time to see what the hype is all about, love it or hate it.
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The spin number is 9, so On the Road by Jack Kerouac is up next for me!
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