7 Classics Challenge

Are there any classics that you've meant to read for years but haven't found the time or wherewithal to do so? Now's your chance! Just pick 7 classics and read them within one year. You can even combine them with other challenges, like the title or author challenge.

It's that simple! As you progress, just edit your original list.

***Don't feel constrained by the #7. If you want to read more (or less) just state it in your post. The point is to encourage everybody to finally get into those classics that have been in their to read shelf for ever!***

Diva 7 Classics Challenge

1. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
2. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
3. The Count of Montecristo by Alexandre Dumas
4. Crime and Punishment
5. Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
6. Nana by Emile Zola
7. Macbeth by Shakespeare

I'm game...I'll list them as I read them.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Ok, I'm in! But I couldn't limit it to 7, I'm sorry. There is so many I wanted to read. Ok, here goes:

1. A Study in Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2. Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
3. Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
4. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
5. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
6. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
7. Sons - Pearl S. Buck
8. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
9. The Last Man - Mary Wollstencraft Shelley
10. Little Men - Louisa May Alcott

I know these may take a year, but I can't wait! So this starts today 5/11/08.

I know, I know, Kathy. Hahahaha! My original number was 10 but then I thought of the people that are doing other challenges (me included!)and some classics are long, long! (DQ and Montecristo are at around 1200 pages.) But you're right, some of you may want to read more than 7 or even less than that! I'll edit the original post to say participants may read as many as they like.

Of course, now I have to see if I can actually read the 10 in a year??? You are absolutely right, some are huge. I do tend to over-extend myself, though. Well, maybe with a little luck. Good luck to you too, Diva! :)

My choices come right out of the title and author lists of mine.

1. Emma
2. David Copperfield
3. Moby Dick
4. Little Women
5. Jane Eyre
6. The House of Seven Gables
7. Lady Chatterley's Lover

I'm going back to last October when I started all of my challenges.

1.Jane Eyre
2.Northanger Abbey
3.Fahrenheit 451
4.The Picture of Dorian Gray
5.A Christmas Carol
6.Pygmalion
7.The Count of Monte Cristo

Finished 7/6/08

2008 7 Classic Books Challenge - COMPLETED

I like this one! I try to read at least 4 a year, so this is a good stretch for me. Since January 2008:

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
3. Slaughter-House Five* by Kurt Vonnegut
4. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
5. Age of Innocence* by Edith Wharton
6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
7. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

*Modern Classic (defined for me as being written in the 20th century)

I dunno if this counts, but I've already read a lot of classics this year that I've wanted to read for a while:

1. Sons and Lovers, DH Lawrence
2. Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky
3. Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway
4. As I Lay Dying, Faulkner
5. The Trial, Kafka
6. Dead Souls, Gogol
7. Molloy, Beckett
8. Death in Venice, Mann
9. Duino Elegies, Rilke
10. Swann's Way, Proust (currently reading)

OK, I'm pretty sure that's cheating. Maybe I'll start now with Proust and aim for 6 more by this time next year:

1. Swann's Way, Proust (currently reading)
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
5. ?
6. ?
7. ?

Okay, I have read alot of classics, but there are plenty more to be read. I'll make my 2009 list here, and let's see if I can do it! In no particular order:
1. A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway
2. Don Quixote
3. Catch-22 by Heller
4. The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger
5. Brave New World by Huxley
6. 1984 by Orwell
7. The Prince (Machiavelli)
8. The Way of all Flesh
9. Cannery Row by Steinbeck
10. Walden by Thoreau
Oops, I listed a few too many. 10 Just seems like a nice round number!

I would love to do this. There are so many classics that I have wanted to read but just haven't gotten to them.

My list may change but this is what I'll plan for now.

1. Lord of the flies
2. 1984
3. A Christmas Carol
4. Jane Eyre
5. Wuthering Heights
6. The Time Machine
7. The Scarlett Letter

Oo this is cool. Alright here goes mine:

1. Crime and Punishment
2. David Copperfield
3. Les Miserables
4. Anna Karenina
5. Moby Dick
6. Vanity Fair
7. The Idiot

This sounds like a good one...as I read a classic, I will put it up!

1.Christmas Carol
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Sounds great, I now have my three challenges to keep me busy. Think I will pick five classics for now and will list these as I go:

1:
2:
3:
4:
5:

2008

1. *Northanger Abbey
2. *Pygmalion
3. *Mansfield Park
4. *Persuasion
5. *Sense and Sensibility
6. *The Woman in White
7. *Emma

* = done

I'm in for this!
Starting 1 December 08 ending 1 December 09 ... I'll go for 8 as my first one is very short!

1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens - READ
2. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - READING
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - CoL group
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5.
6.
7.
8.

oh! I have been picking up some classics too!

1. War and Peace
2. Catcher and the Rye
3. To Kill a Mockingbird
4. 1984
5. Crime and Punishment
6. Lord of the Flies
7. Jane Eyre

This is all I have at home so far to considered to be classics...I haven't read them yet but I plan to soon!

Fun!

I'm going to stick these in with my 100 for '09. Maybe I'll go for another 7 in 6 months.

1. Swann's Way
2. Mrs. Dalloway
3. Madame Bovary
4. Dubliners
5. The Portrait of a Lady
6. Don Quixote
7. Anna Karenina

I should be filling the list with Russian novelists, but I'm a coward.

#1 Catcher in the Rye

1 down 6 to go. I may change my list alittle though, replacing "The Prince and the Pauper" for "Wurthering Heights". Thanks to Bella and Edward for that.

I'm in for 2009. I won't pre-list them, I prefer to read whatever I'm in the mood for at the time. But I'll add them here as I finish them.

1. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - 01/07/09
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

I read a ton of classics in my twenties but have been into popular fiction recently. At present I'm reading Love in the Time of Cholera. Is that considered a classic, I'm not sure? Anyway I'll add to my list in time

1. Love in the Time of Cholera
2. Winnie the Pooh
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

#2 To Kill a Mockingbird

2 down 4 to go.

Seven classics I want to read this year:
1. Les Miserables
2. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
3. The Scarlet Letter
4. As I Lay Dying
5. Merry Wives of Windsor
6. The Paradiso
7. Twelfth Night

#4 is done.

Okay, I'll start with this year. I'd include January 1 like I did the other two challneges, which I should do so I don't get confused...Okay, I'll do that. Even though I haven't read any yet!

1. Dubliners
2. The Picture of Dorian Gray
3. Mrs. Dalloway
4. Brave New World
5. Watt
6. Notes from the Underground
7. Don Quixote (which I'll read throughout the year between other things so I don't stall)
8. ... in case I fail with Don Quixote! The Great Gatsby

Here are the first three that I have been working on. I am not sure which ones I will tackle next.

1. Jane Eyre by CHarlotte Brone
2. Brave New World (about 1/2 way through) by Aldous Huxley
3. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
4.
5.
6.
7.

Completed thus far



1. Daisy Miller by Henry James
2. Show Boat by Edna Ferber
3. Agnes Gray by Anne Bronte
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5. Summer by Edith Wharton
6. Silas Marner by George Eliot
7. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
8. The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton
9. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
10. The Little Lame Prince by Dinah Mulock Craik
11. Old New York by Edith Wharton
12. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Originally, I was going to choose ten but I think I'll stick with seven and just go from there.


1. Lady Windermere's Fan: A Play About A Good Woman by Oscar Wilde
2. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
3. The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
4. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
5. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
6. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
7. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen

#1 is completed.

Cheri wrote: "Originally, I was going to choose ten but I think I'll stick with seven and just go from there.


1. Lady Windermere's Fan: A Play About A Good Woman by Oscar Wilde
2. An American Tragedy by Theodo..."

Cheri, I totally recommend sticking to the 7. When I started mine, I couldn't narrow my list down, so I kept it at 10. I have 3 more months left and I'm not sure I will finsh. It's hard to combine the classics with the modern ones that I want to read also. Good luck! :)

I'm in! I haven't chosen all the books yet, but here's the ones I'll start with.

1. The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
2. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury - 2009/03/13
3. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley - 2009/07/10
4.
5.
6.
7.

Fahrenheit 451 is a great book! One of my all-time faves!!

Finished my first book a couple of weeks ago. I can't believe how many classics there are out there that I haven't read.

1. Wuthering Heights

I'm in for this challenge. (Maybe it will keep me honest with my English lit. major roots...)

1. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne (in progress, thanks DailyLit!)
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Going to list the classics I read this year - I am ashamed to admit that I have always avoided them but after reading Huck Finn I have started on Little Women

1. The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn READ
2 Little Women (reading)

7 Classics Challenge 2009

1. Evelina by Frances Burney - read
2. The Complete Sherlock Holmes All 4 Novels and 56 Short Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle - read
3. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - read
4. The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
5. 1984 by George Orwell
6. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens - read
7. Love and Mr. Lewisham by H.G. Wells

Okay, I'm in....this book challenge stuff is soooo addicting!

1. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
2. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
4. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
5. Dracula by Bram Stoker
6. Animal Farm by George Orwell
7. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

I'm in too - my first batch of 7:
Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Emma - Jane Austen

1. Pride and Predjudice
2. Gone With the Wind
3. Hamlet
4. A Midsummers Night Dream
5. Romeo and Juliet
6. King Authur and the Quest for Camalot
7. Alice in Wonderland

Here I go, Wow Rachel we're similar
1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Gone with the Wind
3. Emma
4. Sense and Sensibility
5. The Iliad
6. The Prince and the Pauper
7. Les Miserables or The Hunchback of Notre Dame

My Progress so far on this challenge:
1. A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway
2. The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger
3. Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck (changed out Cannery Row, since I actually read Cannery Row in 2008)
4. The Bluest Eye - a change from my original list

Jennifer wrote: "oh! I have been picking up some classics too!

1. War and Peace
2. Catcher and the Rye
3. To Kill a Mockingbird
4. 1984
5. Crime and Punishment
6. Lord of the Flies
7. Jane Eyre

..."


Lord of the Flies, Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye. 3 down, 4 to go. :).

Have just read Wuthering heights and loved it, so I guess its time to read or reread the classics. I will add as I go!
1. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
2. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Here's my list for 2009.

1. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
2. Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
4. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
5. Persuasion by Jane Austen
6. Dune by Frank Herbert
7. The Sound and the Fury by William Falkner

I'm definitely up for this. I have my own personal "30 Books in 2009" challenge with some classics on it, so here are my 7:

1. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
2. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
4. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
5. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
6. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
7. Dracula by Bram Stoker


2 are already down because they were at the top of my book list for this year. Nine months and 5 books to go!


* By the way, I find it interesting that so many people included Jane Eyre in their list. One of my FAVORITE books of all time. I hope you love it!

UPDATED 6/23/09

1.Alice in Wonderland
2.Jane Eyre
3. The Time Machine
4.Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
5. Picture of Dorian Gray
6.
7.

My 7 in 2008:
1. Catcher in the Rye
2. Wuthering Heights
3. Lord of the Flies
4. The Great Gatsby
5. Of Mice and Men
6. Great Expectations
7. The Old Man and the Sea
8. Animal Farm

I'm in!

Here are the books that I want to read this year:

1. Anonymous - Sweeney Todd or the String of Pearls
2. Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist
3. Charles Dickens - Nicholas Nickleby
4. Charles Dickens - Bleak House
5. Charles Dickens - David Copperfield
6. Charles Dickens - Little Dorrit
7. Fjodor Dostojevskij - Crime and Punishment
8. Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina
9. Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary
10. Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlett Letter
11. Gaston Leroux - The Phantom of the Opera
12. Ken Kesey - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
13. Jane Austen - Emma
14. Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility
15. Charlotte Brontë - Jane Eyre

Oh... It became more than seven :) The ones that I have read are striked.

OK, so here are mine, not in reading order:

1. Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe 14 May 09
2. Tom Jones - Henry Fielding 17 July 09
3. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African 20 August 09
4. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs 09 September 09
5. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave - Frederick Douglass 14 September 09
6. Paradise Lost - John Milton
7. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
8. Middlemarch - George Eliot
9. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
10. Waiting for Godot - Samuel Becket

If anyone is interested in starting a separate group to discuss any of these, feel free to contact me.

I keep adding new ones.

I got a little caught up in Proust, so my list has changed a bit.

1. Swann's Way: In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1
2. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower: In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 2
3. Mrs. Dalloway
4. Don Quixote
5. Benito Cereno
6. The Guermantes Way: In Search of Lost Time, Volume 3 (in progress)
7. Sodom and Gomorrah: In Search of Lost Time, Volume 4 (next on the list)