Spin No. 42 -- CLASSICS CLUB

 

CLASSICS CLUB SPIN

Spin Number 42

I'm working on my second Classics Club list, with 28 of my 50 picks still to read by the end of 2028. Although I love the Classics Club, I usually miss the CC Spins they host every so often! I'm glad I caught this one in time to participate because it always inpires me to work on my CC list.

The Classics Club is an online "Community of Classics Lovers" started in 2012 to “unite those of us who like to blog about classic literature, as well as to inspire people to make the classics an integral part of life.” To join, you create your own list of 50 "classics" (loosely defined) and read them in five years. Details are on the Classics Club website.

Every now and again, the Classics Club organizes a CC Spin. The idea is to pick books from your CC list, on a certain date the organizers pick a random number (October 19 for this one), and you read that books by a specific date (in this case, December 21).

You can find more details here, but these are the basics:

• Pick twenty books from your Classics Club list that you still want to read.
• Post that list, numbered 1-20, on your blog before Sunday, 20th October.
• Classics Club will randomly pick a number and announce it on their website on October 20.
• Read that book by the 18th of December and share your review (if you write one) on the Classics Club website. 

My CC Spin #42 list:

1. The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens, Booker Prize
   
2. The Secret City by Hugh Walpole, James Tait Black
   
3. Without My Cloak by Kate O'Brien, James Tait Black
4. England, Their England by A. G. Macdonell, James Tait Black
5. Eustace and Hilda by L. P. Hartley, James Tait Black
6. The Devil's Advocate by Morris West, James Tait Black
7. Langrishe, Go Down by Aidan Higgins, James Tait Black
8. Jerusalem the Golden by Margaret Drabble, James Tait Black
9. Eva Trout by Elizabeth Bowen, James Tait Black
10. The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch, James Tait Black
11. The Field of Vision by Wright Morris, National Book Award
    
12. Them by Joyce Carol Oates, National Book Award
13. Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge, Pulitzer Prize
    
14. The Store by T. S. Stribling, Pulitzer Prize
15. The Aerodrome by Rex Warner, Burgess Top 99
16. The Fox in the Attic by Richard Hughes, Burgess Top 99
17. The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, The College Board
    
18. The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling, Easton Press Greatest
    
19. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, Easton Press Greatest
20. The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, Easton Press Greatest 

You can tell from this list -- and my Classic Club II list in general -- that I picked my CC books because they are on the prize winners and must read lists I'm working on. The Classics Club helps me buckle down on the lists I'd like to finish.