Mr. Dickens ponders the possibilities of chance.
Yes! It's time for a Classics Club spin. You know the rules, but what are the books I'm ready to read based on the dictates of chance? Well, it's actually a pretty quiet time for me over the next month and a half, so I'm allowing a few of the longer choices on this list. I also prioritized ones that weren't on my last list. So here we go...
1.) Willa Cather/Lucy Gayheart
2.) Elizabeth Gaskell/Wives and Daughters
3.) Sinclair Lewis/Elmer Gantry
4.) Jack London/The Iron Heel
5.) Edgar Wallace/The Four Just Men
6.) Simone de Beauvoir/The Mandarins
7.) Joachim Machado de Assis/Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
8.) Walter Pater/Imaginary Portraits
9.) Virginia Woolf/The Years
10.) Virginia Woolf/Between the Acts
11.) Andrei Bely/Petersburg
12.) Knut Hamsun/Hunger
13.) Halldor Laxness/Salka Valka
14.) Diogenes Laertius/Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
15.) W. E. B. Du Bois/The Autobiography
16.) Apollonius Rhodius/The Argonautica
17.) Nazami Ganjavi/Layli and Majnun
18.) Lucan/The Civil War
19.) Nikos Kazantzakis/Odyssey: A Modern Sequel
20.) John Ruskin/Unto This Last
I'm guessing the Kazantzakis and the Diogenes Laertius are the difficult ones on that list, but that's OK, I should have time. Which look good to you?
Sunday, May 17th, will reveal all.
I started reading VW a few years back and I keep putting her next books on my CC Spin, but the spin gods have deserted me (or perhaps VW?) So I wish you a VW this spin and I think I will just have to read the next one off my own bat!
ReplyDeleteThe spin got one Woolf for me--maybe this time, too! But yes the spin, while helpful, isn't very reliable...
Delete'Iron Heel' is *definitely* on my 'List'. I **think** I have it scheduled for some point in the next 6-10 months... probably.... I'm also 'trying' to work my way through Woolf's output in chronological order. I haven't got very far yet!
ReplyDeleteOh, and do you D&D from that die there....?
I haven't done D&D in a while, but I've still got the dice and the books. There's probably even a box around with my characters on 4x6 cards and a dungeon notebook... ;-)
DeleteIron Heel. Scary stuff these days.
I did some tabletop wargaming back in my youth but never D&D. My D&D type stuff came later with various gaming franchises...
DeleteYup, for some bizarre inexplicable reason people seem to be producing/reading a LOT more Dystopian fiction these days. Go figure.... [lol]
There's definitely also been some Baldur's Gate & that sort of thing in my life, and more recently than actual tabletop D&D.
DeleteThat’s a very interesting list! I’ve got one of Simone de Beauvoir’s books on my list, too.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know why I came up as “anonymous.” I’m Robin, from A Fondness For Reading.
DeleteWho knows why Blogger does anything? A great mystery. ;-) The de Beauvoir would be a good spin.
DeleteDo you ever listen to the Backlisted podcast? There was a replay of an episode about one of Simone de Beauvoir's books not too long ago, and I wholly enjoyed it (finishing The Second Sex last year, I read a bit about The Mandarins afterwards, and thought it sounded very interesting indeed). The Years I read belatedly for a Club event, I think, and it was an ILL so I was nervous when I saw how long it is, but it read surprisingly easily and quickly (for Woolf).
ReplyDeleteI know of Backlisted, but I don't often listen to it. The Mandarins would be a good spin--and I might read it soonish anyway--because Nelson Algren is one of the keys in that roman à clef.
DeleteBoth the Woolfs would be good spin material.
The only one of these I've read is Wives and Daughters, which I enjoyed. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteFabulous list! I have only read 3. I actually DNFed The Iron Heel.
ReplyDeleteI recently read Dom Casmurro, by Machado de Assis, great author.
I wish you get #12, so well written
I also read something else by Machado de Assis recently--The Alienist and other stories. I thought they were pretty great. He'd be a good spin.
DeleteAs would Hamsun, whom I scarcely know, having only read one by him before.
Yes, the Kazantzakis is a monster.
ReplyDeleteMy tastes are rooting for Machado, Bely, or Hamsun.
I started once before on the Kazantzakis and fizzled out. This would be motivation?
DeleteI've read exactly zero of these. But I love Cather and London. Enjoy.
ReplyDeleteI've liked the Cather and London and those would be good spins though...see above on the London. ;-)
DeleteGreat list - I have also read 0 of these, but it will be interesting to see what gets selected and to read your review!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I feel pretty good about any of them.
Delete