I’m probably crazy for participating this time around with all of the other books I’ve got on deck, but I just can’t resist a Classics Spin.
My Spin List, gleaned from my Cavalcade of Classics:
1. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
2. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
3. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
4. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
5. Villette by Charlotte Brontë
6. The Quiet American by Graham Green
7. The Confessions by Augustine of Hippo
8. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
9. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
10. Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup
11. The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
12. The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
13. The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
14. Lives by Plutarch
15. Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
16. The New England Mind by Perry Miller
17. The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
18. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
19. The Great Crash by John Kenneth Galbraith
20. The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan
I’m pretty much excited to read all of these, although Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s book gives me pause because of the title (I’m afraid it will turn out to be one of those books I ought to read but that doesn’t really speak to me) and I’m a little nervous about the Solzhenitsyn now that I’ve read some comments from others about how challenging it is. Well, and the Thoreau, whose Walden has alternately irritated me and put me to sleep both of the other times I’ve tried to read it. (I’ve got a companion book to read with it, though, so perhaps this time I can get through it.) Maybe I should be worried about Moby-Dick, but I’m not. Yet.
Hopefully I’m up to the challenge if the Spin number is 9, 12, or 15.
The Lucky Spin Number will be revealed on Monday, April 6. Drop by then to see what (else) I’ll be reading before May 15!
The Rules (from The Classics Club, The Classics Spin #9):
- Go to your blog.
- Pick twenty books that you’ve got left to read from your Classics Club List.
- Try to challenge yourself: list five you are dreading/hesitant to read, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favorite author, rereads, ancients — whatever you choose.)
- Post that list, numbered 1-20, on your blog by next Monday.
- Monday morning, we’ll announce a number from 1-20. Go to the list of twenty books you posted, and select the book that corresponds to the number we announce.
- The challenge is to read that book by May 15, even if it’s an icky one you dread reading! (No fair not listing any scary ones!)
Imperfect Happiness 
Good luck with the spin on Monday- I hope it’s kind to you.
If you get the Wharton you might like to consider joining in my Wharton Review in May 🙂
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Thanks for the invite, Brona! I’m trying to get better about linking up with others blogging about books, and this would be a great chance to do just that.
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Oooo, I think yours is my favourite list so far. Confessions, Thucydides, Rousseau, Plutarch, Merton …… Woo hoo! I’m impressed! I just finished Rousseau’s Confessions and loved it but it’s a different type of read than The Social Contract. I loved, loved, loved The House of Mirth so that would be a good one too. I can’t wait to see what you get! Happy spin!!
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I love your enthusiasm for my list! The House of Mirth is the book I faked my way through in college, so actually reading it would restore balance to the universe. I had Rousseau’s Confessions on the list the last couple of times. I’m not sure how it got bumped. Maybe I thought I had enough confessions on there already. Happy spin to you, too!
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