Reading plans for 2009

[mousme]

I'm trying to find a list of classic novels to give me a bit of inspiration about what to read next year on top of my list of usual suspects. I have no trouble finding s.f. and mysteries and such to read, but I have the keen suspicion that I haven't read as many classics as I think I have. Allow me to add that I know that many s.f. books and mysteries are considered classics, but I'm talking non-genre fiction, specifically.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not doing this out of some weird masochistic sense of elitist obligation. I usually enjoy classics when I read them, but these days they're not really on my radar, as it were. I've read very little by way of the "big" classics (Tolstoy, Hardy, Balzac, what have you), and as such I miss a lot of cultural references along the way. I'd like to correct this, and perhaps discover some treasures along the way.

The plan is to participate in 50bookchallenge again, starting January 1st. I am going to challenge myself to read 50 books of my own choosing (minimum) and 50 "classics" as well. Two books per week is eminently doable for me. :)

So, dear flist, help out a girl with weak Google Fu. Are there any really long lists out there with the Big Classics One Can't Avoid And Is Usually Made To Read In School?

I'm open to non-fiction, and I would LOVE suggestions in French, too. I haven't done nearly enough reading in my mother tongue lately.

Also: new icon love! I am slowly filling my shiny new icon slots, mostly with icons I snagged from iconsbycurtana. :)

Comments

[jteethy.livejournal.com]

Well, there's Mortimer Adler's Great Books list which purports to be the essential Western canon.

I used to have a friend who was absolutely obsessed with this list. He bought and cataloged every book on it with the stated intention of reading every one of them straight through in chronological order, supposedly to better absorb the development of Western thought. He wouldn't start reading them until he had acquired them all. Not only that, with the exception of course books, he mostly refused to read anything modern for fear of tainting the experience.

Why yes, he was a pretentious fuckwad. Why ever do you ask?

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Wow. Okay, I'm not that hardcore (nor that pretentious, I hope!), but it seems like a good place to start.

"Taint" the experience... *snerk*

[jteethy.livejournal.com]

More Adler lists here.

[miseri.livejournal.com]

I believe that every literate human being should read Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" at least once in their life. And if you intend to read in French, I would suggest Henri Murger's "Scenes de la Vie Boheme" (which I've only read in English, but still....)

I don't know about books the "made to read in school" list. I remember "Cry, The Beloved Country" by Alan Paton, but that's about it. There was also the year where we had a list of optional readings that included "Exodus" (Leon Uris), "Great Expectations" and "The Lord of the Rings". Oh, and C S Lewis's "The Screwtape Letters".

Otherwise, some favourites of mine (assuming that "everything written before WW1 and still in publication now" can be considered a "classic":
"The Warden" - Anthony Trollope
"Barchester Towers" - Anthony Trollope
"Three Men in a Boat" - Jerome K Jerome
"Silas Marner" - George Eliot

Probably doesn't count as a "classic", but David Lodge's "The British Museum Is Falling Down" might make a good appetiser for your 50-classics feast. Supposedly it parodies or references 10 different Great Writers Of The English Language, but I'm not well-read enough to detect any of them other than Kafka. And probably Virginia Woolf. I've never actually read either of them.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

I've read "To Kill A Mockingbird" several times, never fear. :)

[miseri.livejournal.com]

...actually, come to think of it (and before people start pointing at me and laughing) Kafka didn't write in English, did he?

[dizietsma.livejournal.com]

Well, there's always that list of top 100 books which goes around as a meme from time to time, you're supposed to bold the ones you've read.

[dizietsma.livejournal.com]

Ah, there we go: http://www.unbsj.ca/arts/english/jones/mt/archives/000779.html

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

Adler's lists are pretty dated, I find. I second the David Lodge recommendation! I'd also be sure I added at least one Mark Twain, some Vonnegut, Catch-22...well, we immediately see the problem, as I'm more 20th century oriented than classical.

As far as classics? I loved the Count of Monte Cristo. I hate all of Dickens. I love Blake, and his Songs of Innocence and Experience is a must. Madame Bovary is worth a read, as is Don Quijote (the latter was the first novel, and is too wonderful to describe in the parameters of this message). Shakespeare, natch. I'm not too fond of 19th century American lit, but Moby Dick comes to mind.

I'm just nattering on now, aren't I?

Read this

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtbloom.html

Re: Read this

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's a heck of a long list.

*copies it into Word*

[luvenditti.livejournal.com]

reply to this so I'll remember to make a list tomorrow when I'm at school.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

This is me replying! And using one of my new Slings & Arrows icons, just because I can!

[rowen26.livejournal.com]

I have a bunch of novels from my French literature classes.
I can make out a list and you're welcome to the ones you'd like.

They're just gathering dust here.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that would be awesome!

[rowen26.livejournal.com]

- "Le Misanthrope", Molière
- "L'interrogatoire", Vladimir Volkoff
- "Mont-Oriol", Guy de Maupassant
- "Boule de Suif","Mademoiselle Fifi", Guy de Maupassant
- "L'étranger", Albert Camus
- "Jacques le Fataliste", Diderot.

I may have others, but I can't seem to find them at the moment.

[diggerlicious.livejournal.com]

How about reading banned books, such as:
Howl, Allen Ginsberg
Alice in Wonderland
Huckleberry Finn
The Colour Purple
Go Ask Alice
To Kill a Mockingbird

[prolixfootle.livejournal.com]

Is that an Australian Cattle Dog?

[mousme.livejournal.com]

It is! That would be Digger, who has featured a few times in fearsclave's LJ.

A Bluey?

[diggerlicious.livejournal.com]

Too right mate, indeed it is!

[prolixfootle.livejournal.com]

Well, being periodically subject to advertisements for Things That Might Interest Me, I've always kept this list in the back of my mind... Eaton Press' 100 Greatest Books Ever Written.

[diggerlicious.livejournal.com]

I just finished the most riveting novel I've read since "Shadows of the Wind", which was "The Gargoyle". Starts off grisly but aie aie aie!
http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307356772