Classics Club Reboot

A couple of years ago I joined the Classics Club and created my list of fifty classics to read before 2017. The list was later extended to fit in some new purchases and ended up totaling sixty-six books to read before 2017. To date I've read a grand total of twenty-eight - just under half. Having read those in the first couple of years I then hit a bit of a wall and haven't ticked a single book off this year. Shocking, I know.

I think part of my reticence to tackle the remaining books on the list is caused by a general feeling of disinterest. I no longer find that the list inspires me to read more, rather it feels like a bit of a chore. I'm well aware that this is down to my choices of what to include on it, by which I mean all the books I feel I ought to read. 

I've become a lot more floaty (yes, that's a technical term) with my reading and no longer feel tied to 'hype' books or the one's everyone 'should' read; nor, for that matter, do I take much stock in 'best ever' lists (though I do love to read them). For that reason the decision to re-create my Classics Club list was not a hard one, even if it has taken me three paragraphs to explain it. 

To avoid boring you all with my loquacious ways any longer, I'd like to introduce you to my new Classics Club list of fifty novels to read before 2020. Drumroll please... 

1. Nightwood by Djuana Barnes
2. The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
3. The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
4. Testament of Friendship by Vera Brittain
5. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
6. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
7. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
8. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
9. Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins
10. Consequences by E. M. Delafield
11. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
12. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevesky
13. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevesky
14. Some Do Not (Parades End 1) by Ford Madox Ford
15. No More Parades (Parades End 2) by Ford Madox Ford
16. A Man Could Stand Up (Parades End 3) by Ford Madox Ford
17. Last Post (Parades End 4) by Ford Madox Ford
18. Still Missing Beth Gutcheon
19. The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby
20. The Land of Green Ginger by Winifred Holtby
21. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
22. Joanna Godden by Sheila Kaye-Smith
23. The World My Wilderness by Rose Macaulay
24. The Playroom by Olivia Manning
25. Razor's Edge by W Somerset Maugham
26. Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
27. The Happy Tree by Rosalind Murray
28. The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow by Margaret Oliphant
29. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
30. Good Evening, Mrs Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes
31. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
32. Daughters of the House by Michele Roberts
33. All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville West
34. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
35. The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
36. Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner
37. The Last Man by Mary Shelley
38. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
39. The Sleeping Beauty by Elizabeth Taylor
40. The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
41. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
42. Down Among the Women by Fay Weldon
43. The Time Machine by HG Wells
44. The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
45. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
46. Three Guineas by Virginia Woolf
47. The Common Reader by Virginia Woolf
48. The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
49. The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
50. Letter from an Unknown Woman and Other Stories by Stefan Zweig

Suffice it to say, I'm VERY excited to read through this list.

Have you updated your Classics Club list recently?