The Classics Spin
17 February 2013
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Challenges for 2013, Classics Club, Classics Spin
I’ve just signed up to take part in an event called the Classics Spin, details here and being hosted by the Classics Club. Fortunately this isn’t really reading intensive but I think it’s a really great idea (picked up courtesy of a lovely blogger who you can find here should you wish to take a look).
Obviously it involves reading (dur) but it’s hopefully not too intensive (although I suppose that depends on which book is randomly selected! How many pages in Les Miserables?) By Monday 18th you need to list a choice of twenty books – if you check out the blog it does say from your Classics Club list – which I don’t have!! Hopefully nobody will mind if I take part. I’ll just tiptoe in and post my list and wait to see what number pops up. Then the challenge is to read whatever book is listed against this number in February and March. Now, the idea is not to just pick 20 books that you would love – have a look at the books you’ve had sat waiting on your shelves, the ones you’ve been putting off reading – and put some of these on the list (and don’t be pretending you don’t have any because you know you do! Those books have shown enough patience already and it’s there time to have a chance). This could give you the impetus to pick them up and might also help you to stay on track with a New Year’s resolution? So, without further ado my list is as follows: (and believe me, I’ve chosen books that I’ve had on my shelves for a long time and I would sooner read some of these than others – but I’m not giving any clues aways about which ones I’m dreading!) (apart from the last four I own all these books):
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
- The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch
- Three Men in a Boat
- The Birds by Daphne du Maurier
- A Passage to India by E M Forster
- Legend by David Gemmell
- Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy
- The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry
- The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Ghost of Sleath by James Herbert
- Twelfth Night by Shakespeare
- Wicked by Gregory Maguire
- The Once and Future King by T H White
- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
- The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde
- Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Books and travelling with Lynn 
This sounds fun! I hope you get one you really want to read. How long is Les Mis?
Les Mis is about 1,000 pages apparently – my version is on kindle so difficult to tell! Anyway, I got The Ghost of Sleath – hope it’s good!
Lynn 😀
I am taking part in The Classics Club but decided not take part in the Classics Spin this time around. Looking forward to seeing what everyone reads though. Good luck 🙂
I’m a bit naughty because I’m not actually taking part in The Classics Club but I wanted to join in just for the sake of having one of my books off the shelf chosen for me! I hope they don’t mind.
Lynn 😀
This sounds like a great idea. I look forward to reading your posts.
The edition I own of Les Miserables, which is the complete and unabridged version of the book, has 1,222 pages. I wish you good luck and enjoyment along the way!
Ah! I can’t tell you how relieved I am – Les Mis didn’t get picked – I mean I do want to read it but maybe on a long journey. It’s a monster.
Lynn 😀
These long ones I do in set-aside chunks of time, like studying algebra. I’m working through Don Quixote, and have been going at it for more than a year. I think we let ourselves get intimidated by the idea that we have to finish a book unde a deadline.
Courage!
🙂
“Auntie”
Ha, ha, I think I’ll need courage – my book is a ghost story. The ghosts of Sleath by James Herbert.
Lynn 😀
Ooh, James Herbert! Better not read it at night 😉 We could swap? Just kidding, I’m looking forward to North and South and the miniseries!
I must admit I put North and South on the list but to be honest I wasn’t really looking forward to it coming up! I don’t know why – I bought the book after all! Not to mention I think Elizabeth Gaskell is from around these parts in fact her home has been made into a sort of museum. I hope you really enjoy it and prove both of our misgivings to be wrong.
Lynn 😀
Cloud Atlas is brilliant. I really loved it and gave it to my mother to read. The Birds I can just about remember reading in a short-story collection by du Maurier and it has a pretty bleak ending.
North and South I was supposed to read in university but never got around to to 😉
I haven’t touched the rest.
I must admit I don’t really fancy North and South but I put it on the list just for the sake of fairness. I really want to read Cloud Atlas and was sort of wishing that number had been picked (then I realised I don’t really need to wait for the number to come up – doh). My version of The Birds is also in a short story collection – perhaps it’s the same as yours.
Anyway – James Herbert it is – The Ghosts of Sleath.
Lynn 😀
My mother enjoyed that book. I would start reading his stuff again (I read Rats years ago) but I have a back-log of books!
Yep, the dreaded mount tbr!
Lynn:D
[…] so yesterday I posted about a challenge being hosted by the Classics Club which I thought was a good idea to get me to read at least one of my long neglected books. […]
Well, another 30 books and you’ll have your Classics Club list for the next five years. Are you SURE you don’t want to join in? 🙂 Welcome to the Spin!
I’m actually thinking of joining up – I took a look at the details but I haven’t got my list together yet so wanted to get organised first. Ah, now, does that mean I will have to use the 20 books I’ve just listed – only wondering because there’s a few classics I would really like to get to but I don’t currently own (which is why they’re not listed). Not a problem though – I really should read the books I already own!
Lynn 😀
About The Once And Future King, have you read The Sword in the Stone?
Nope – is that the same story? I actually will admit that I got The Once and Future King out of the Library and The Never Ending Story (basically I have a massive inner child!). Anyway, I basically had eyes that were too big for my belly (aka too many books to read in the same month) and so I had to return these two before I could read them. I did start The Once and Future King – it reads very much like the start of the Disney Film. So, The Sword in the Stone – is that by the same author?
Lynn
Yeah, the Sword in the Stone is the “prequel”, if you will, King Arthur is a kid. It is very Disney-like, you’re right. They did make the cartoon, and it was funny how much they *didn’t* have to change, it’s like it was written for a Disney of that era.
It’s goofy and anachronistic and–I think– just plain flat out silly, but that White intended it to be so.
Remember the scene from the cartoon where the wizards have a wiz-war and turn into animals? Yeah, that’s straight from the book, no embellishment.
Don’t let the size of the book intimidate you, it’s a fooler: it’s three (?) or five books, and they’re usually bound together as an omnibus.
I actually really wanted to read it – but it was a library book and I had to take it back. I’ll just reorder it again but plan it better! I reserve books but think they’ll take a few weeks to be ready and then I get a call about 3 days later – need some forward thinking. I’m looking forward to reading this one though – I saw it recommended by an author and liked the sound of it. The Never Ending Story was just a bit of a whim – and, again, I had to take that one back because I didn’t have enough time! The other book that I fancied was one by J M Barrie – The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up or Peter Pan – I understand the original work was really good and that Tinkerbell was something of a little so and so – unlike the sugar sweet Disney version. I quite fancied reading that.
Lynn 😀
[…] part of my Classics Club challenge I recently undertook to join the Classic Spin (see here). For this a book was picked from random from a list of your own chosen classics book list. The […]