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.