Back To The Classics Challenge 2012
Sarah Reads Too Much is hosting a reading challenge next year, and I thought I’d join in and get some of those classics off my to-read pile. The challenge is to read one book that covers each of the nine categories she’s specified.
Here are my tentative choices, suggestions always welcome:
- Any 19th Century Classic – The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
- Any 20th Century Classic – Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. I read half of this in high school and didn’t finish. While I was never a model student, I did at least enjoy the readings. This is the one book I didn’t finish, and it’s haunted me ever since.
- Reread a classic of your choice – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This was also assigned reading in high school, but I think I might have burned through it a little too quickly. I didn’t find it that memorable, but this seems to be listed as a favourite of many well-read people, so it’s probably worth a revisit.
- A Classic Play – The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare.
- Classic Mystery/Horror/Crime Fiction – The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
- Classic Romance – Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
- Read a Classic that has been translated from its original language to your language – Solaris by Stanisław Lem (translated from Polish).
- Classic Award Winner – As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (Nobel Prize in Literature). I tried this once years ago and didn’t get far. I shall try it again.
- Read a Classic set in a Country that you (realistically speaking) will not visit during your lifetime – Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (Congo Free State).
12 Comments
Sarah Reads Too Much
Thanks for joining in! I am also considering re-reading Gatsby… I still have my copy from high school, and let my brother in law borrow it recently. He gave it back, told me how he had remembered it differently and he was thankful to re-read it, and then told me that my “notes in the margins were very helpful”! I had/have no idea! So, yes, that should probably be my re-read this year!
Rob
You’ll get to Revisit Gatsby and your old high school scribblings, double win!
MJ
Good luck with As I Lay Dying. I really struggled with probably the first third of that one, until something clicked, and I devoured the rest of it.
Rob
Thanks MJ, I’ll keep that in mind when I start it!
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Patty
Very interesting choices for the challenge! Good luck and patience for Master and Margarita – I still have doubts what it was about. One of the most difficult books I’ve ever read!
Rob
Haha, oh good Patty! 🙂 While these are tentative choice, and may possibly change, I would like to read Master and Margarita at some point. Most people seem to think it’s worth the effort, at least.
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