Thanks to Karen for hosting the Back to Classics Challenge 2017! This is my wrap-up post, listing the books I read for each category (I ended up reading way more than 12 classics this year, so I actually found a couple that fit each category):
19th Century Classics
- Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens – A stereotypical Dickens very much in the style of Oliver Twist or David Copperfield
- The Turn of the Screw by Henry James – A ghost story made excellent by a potentially unreliable narrator
20th Century Classics
- The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad – A depressing spy story similar to something written by LeCarré
- The Pearl by John Steinbeck – A tragic tale of greed and colonialism
Classics by a Woman Author
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – Gothic romance at its finest
- Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys – An angry, post-colonial prequel to Jane Eyre
Classics in Translation
- Histories by Herodotus – Greece vs. “the barbarians” (plus plenty of other factoids) from the father of history
- The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides – Athens vs. Sparta showing how history tends to repeat itself
Pre-1800’s Classics
- The Gilgamesh Epic (Anonymous) – The granddaddy of all epic poetry (read in a disappointing translation)
- Othello by William Shakespeare – Tragic bitterness and racism boil over into multiple deaths (as you would expect from the Bard)
Romance Classics
- The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare – Not sure if this is actually romance or Stockholm Syndrome
- Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze – A fairly typical crime-noir novel that centers around romance (or lust, at least)
Gothic or Horror Classics
- The Monk by Matthew C. Lewis – Quite possibly the most Gothic book to ever Gothic
- Dracula by Bram Stoker – The original sexy vampire
Classics with a Number in the Title
- The 39 Steps – Largely responsible for the “innocent man on the run with dash of political intrigue” trope
- Ten Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly – A chilling exposé from the late 19th century
Classics About an Animal (or with an animal on the cover)
- Animal Farm by George Orwell – What if Stalin and Trotsky were pigs and Russia was a farm?
- The Master and Margarita – The devil and his posse (including a talking cat) visit Soviet Russia (and Jesus and Pontius Pilate are involved somehow too)
Classics Set in a Place You’d Like to Visit
- Perelandra by C. S. Lewis – What if Eve hadn’t immediately fallen for the serpent’s lie? (as played out in Venus’s version of Paradise)
- The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse – Bighearted but a bit dim Bertie Wooster survives the perils of English high society with the help of his genius butler
Award-Winning Classics
- The Chosen by Chaim Potok – The life and friendship of two Jewish boys in New York who come from very different backgrounds
- Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein – A love letter to fascism disguised as military sci-fi
Russian Classics
- Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol – A literary version of many of the themes found in the Conan the Barbarian stories
- The Captain’s Daughter and Other Stories by Alexander Pushkin – a little bit of everything: romance, bandits, a twist ending, tragedy, and a hint of the supernatural
So there you have it! If I happen to win, you can contact me here.
What a fantastic initiative!! Always great to get people reading more classics 🙂 I’ve still not read a few of these (and need to) but loads of these are amazing- hehe love your description of Animal Farm 🙂 And now I *have to* check out your thoughts on the Chosen, because I loved that book.
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My number of classics read last year had gone down and when I found this challenge it was the perfect excuse to read more
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Ah fair enough- I think I’m going to have to try it in the future
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I just added my wrap-up link for the Back to the Classics challenge. It’s a link to my GoodReads shelf for the challenge, with 11 books, but maybe I will have 12 by the end of the year.
I also read Herodotus & Thucydides – I decided to stick with the translations available from my library, so I went with Rawlinson for Herodotus. (Once I found out about The Landmark Herodotus – someone else in my group read was reading it – I decided to buy it and use it as a reference, but I was too far along by then to start over with that translation.) My library had The Landmark Thucydides so I read all of that one. I read your post and I can see what you mean about the translation. I think I would like to read a more recent translation someday.
I really loved both by the time I was done with them, even though Thucydides is initially harder to get into – he more than makes up for it, IMO.
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Wow, two books for each category – amazing! And I love the idea of visiting Perelandra …
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