May is spin month again at the Classics Club so it's time to put together a list of twenty books from your Classics Club list and see this Sunday which of them the random number generator suggests I read.
"Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin."
-John von Neumann.
Somebody is doing just that!
I'm currently two thirds through The Forsyte Saga, so I feel like it would be cheating to put that on the list. I have ruled out a few of the very long ones, but then correspondingly I left off a couple of the very short ones. Here's my list:
1.) Edmund Spenser/The Faerie Queene
2.) George Bernard Shaw/Major Barbara
3.) Mary Wollstonecraft/Vindication of the Rights of Women
4.) Edmund Wilson/Axel's Castle
5.) Edmund Wilson/Patriotic Gore
6.) Plutarch/Lives
7.) Jules Verne/20000 Leagues Under The Sea
8.) Willa Cather/One of Ours
9.) Henryk Sienkowicz/Quo Vadis
10.) Goethe/Wilhelm Meister's Apprentice
11.) Boccaccio/Decameron
12.) Balzac/Cousin Bette
13.) Virginia Woolf/The Waves
14.) Sylvia Plath/Bell Jar
15.) Sir Walter Scott/Count Robert of Paris
16.) Robert Louis Stevenson/Black Arrow
17.) W. Somerset Maugham/The Razor's Edge
18.) Thomas Hardy/Wessex Tales
19.) Oliver Goldsmith/The Vicar of Wakefield
20.) Willa Cather/The Lost Lady
With social distancing measures extended here for at least another four weeks, I could read one of the long ones. Which look good to you?
And the winner is...#6. Plutarch's Lives! The longest one on that list...
There's lots of good titles in there. If I could influence the spinning wheel, I would make it land on #14. I loved The Bell Jar...it is one of the few books I have read twice. I've never read her poetry and perhaps I read the novel at just the right time as a young woman, but I think it is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand I've read a bunch of her poetry but not her novel. I definitely like her poetry, but it is fairly dark.
DeleteWell, you have some doozies that I have on my master list or on my radar .... The Faerie Queene, Lives and I was just thinking of The Decameron again. All those I want to do individual posts for so just the thought overwhelms me. Ai-yai-yai!
ReplyDeleteI would choose The Vicar of Wakefield. High drama but Goldsmith does it so well!
Best of luck with your spin!
I've heard very good things about the Vicar of Wakefield. That would be a fun one.
Delete#1 for sure... it changed my life in several significant ways...
ReplyDeleteFaerie Queene would be a very good spin. & I've been meaning to read it since I reread Orlando Furioso last year. Soon in any case.
DeleteNice list Reese...I haven't read a single one of these, though I have enjoyed several of these authors. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm pretty optimistic for several.
DeleteIf "The Faery Queen", "Patriotic Gore" and "The Decameron" don't count as "very long", what does?
ReplyDeleteI put the complete Decline & Fall on my list...one of these days...
Deletestick to Evelyn Waugh's - much shorter -version.
DeleteMind you, we've got time for really big books now. No excuses.
Waugh's is **much** shorter! Ha! That's an answer.
Delete20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is one I still need to read. As is Cather's One of Ours. So I'd be rooting for one of those. :)
ReplyDeleteI keep thinking I'm going to read the Verne, and something else keeps getting in the way. I'm pretty sure I'm really going to like it, too.
DeleteI've loved all the other Willa Cathers I've read, so what am I waiting for there, too?
"The Black Arrow" has been on my TBR since I tried reading it as a child. I have been wanting to get to this book ever since. The language is challenging but it promises to be a great read. Good luck on your challenge!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'd be very happy with The Black Arrow--I've generally liked Stevenson.
Delete