Ten classics you wish you'd read in 2021.

[Patty]

1. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood: this is a book I keep avoiding because I know I’ll get too upset and have the worse book hangover ever.
2. Beloved by Toni Morrison: now that I’ve read Kindred by Olivia Butler, I think I’m ready to tackle this.
3. Things Fall Apart by Chinau Achebe: as a bookseller, I shelved this book often and have been wanting to read it.
4. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller: is it as scandalous at all?
5. Ulysses by James Joyce: I think this book will put the literary hair-on-my-chest.
6. Dracula by Bram Stoker: I’ve read so many versions of this but have never read it.
7. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: I’ve read many American authors of the female persuasion (Willa Cather, Carson McCullers, and so on) but not many of the boys.
8. Persuasion by Jane Austen: so I can say I’ve read a Jane Austen book.
9. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. This has been on my booklist for a very long time.
10. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. See #9.

[J_BlueFlower]

I have a number of books that are long term inhabitants of the want-to-read list mostly waiting for a Danish audiobook:
Les Misérables
Don Quixote
In the First Circle

Some major classics I keep putting off:
Lykke-Per (a Major Danish classic).
Swann's Way

Other classics I just didn't read this year, but likely/maybe will 2022:
The Guns of August
A History of Western Philosophy
Moby-Dick or, the Whale
The Idiot (looks like a likely group read just around the corner)

[Sara, Old School Classics]

Jillian ❀‿❀ wrote: "Anyone care to list the top ten classics they wish they'd read in 2021, but didn't? Here are mine:

❀ Middlemarch: I've been saying I'll read it FOREVER.
❀ Leaves of Grass

Jillian, you should start off the year with South Riding and it will (a) feel like a huge accomplishment and (b) stop haunting you!

[Sara, Old School Classics]

I have a stack of physical books I have bought and not yet read. I am determined to get to those, and then I am going to start whittling down my Kindle collection. I tell myself every year that I am going to read the ones I have before I buy anything else--and this year I hope to make that promise come true.

[Greg]

Sara wrote: "I have a stack of physical books I have bought and not yet read. I am determined to get to those, and then I am going to start whittling down my Kindle collection. I tell myself every year that I a..."

Good luck on ot this year Sara!

I have a bunch of books that I never unpacked since we moved into the house. I've read most of them but there are for sure a few boxes still waiting to be read!

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Each month I make a list of my to-read books for the month. (I keep a Google Spreadsheet. It helps with challenge planning.) Those that I listed but never read in 2021 would be good candidates for this list.

I am only listing books I actually own.

Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
Daisy Miller by Henry James
The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich - I am not sure this is really a classic. We were doing a Buddy Read of the Love Medicine Saga and I had just started this book last year when I caught Covid. This is one to restart and complete.


Children's
Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery
The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder

[Luke]

I've a shelf devoted to TBR works that meet my publication year definition of classics and have hung around unread for too long, which you can see here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

I'm getting to quite a few of them in 2022, but here are ten of the more popular ones that are, once again, being left behind.

The Prince - Niccolò Machiavelli
The Exorcist - William Peter Blatty
Pygmalion - George Bernard Shaw
The Agony and the Ecstasy - Irving Stone
Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell
The Collector - John Fowles
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle
Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
The Possessed - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Painted Veil - W. Somerset Maugham

[Annette]

In response to many of your wished-you’d-read-but-you-dread books, try the Serial Reader app. It doesn’t have every book but it delivers a short chunk - about 15 minutes- per day at your specified time. I’ve gotten through a lot of books in the public domain this way. Oh, and it’s free.

[Darren]

top ten that have been hovering near the top of my TBR pile for a couple of years, and which I JUST CANNOT BELIEVE I didn't get round to in 2021:
Siege Of Krishnapur, The Farrell, J. G. 1973
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes Wilson, Angus 1956
Phantastes McDonald, George 1858
Alone In Berlin (aka Every Man Dies Alone) Fallada, Hans 1947
Day Of The Jackal, The Forsyth, Frederick 1971
Unconsoled, The Ishiguro, Kazuo 1995
Jungle Book, The Kipling, Rudyard 1894
Long Goodbye, The Chandler, Raymond 1953
Napoleon Of Notting Hill, The Chesterton, G. K. 1904
Shadow of the Wind, The Zafon, Carlos Ruiz 2001
Way Some People Die, The (Lew Archer #3) Macdonald, Ross 1951

[J_BlueFlower]

Sara wrote: "I have a stack of physical books I have bought and not yet read. ..."

Just one? I am.... slightly overpreparred for a very long lockdown.

[siriusedward]

Hard Times
The Waves
The Brothers Karamazov (30%done in 2020.. wil try again this year, loved it but was distracted byother reads)
War and Peace ( 50% done in 2020 ... will try again this year, it was really good but was distractedby other reads)
The Fall
Song of Solomon
Edith Wharton
Far From the Madding Crowd
The Vicomte de Bragelonne
ആടുജീവിതം Aadujeevitham
On Identity
Twilight in Delhi
Sunlight on a Broken Column
1984

[Natalie]

Mostly I wish I'd finished Hunger - Knut Hamsun Newly Revised Edition . It took me from October to December to make it from the 70% mark to the 80% mark. I read a couple pages and can't stand to read anymore. I'm going to finish it in January. (Maybe)

These are the Ten Classics that have been on my GR TBR List the longest:

1. The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes (Started reading in December, I will finish this soon.)

2. The Saga of the Volsungs with The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok (I bought this one to start after the Edda.)

3. The Nibelungenlied

4. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Currently listening too.)

5. Vanity Fair (Currently listening too.)

6. Silence: A Thirteenth-Century French Romance (Downloaded a couple days ago to start reading.)

7. Othello

8. Paradise Lost

9. The Trial

10. The Woman in Black

[Lucija]

These are my top 10. I hope to read some of them this year.

1. The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
2. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - this one I'm still currently reading and I will definitely finish it in a few months. I would've finished earlier as I really enjoyed it, but some circumstances stopped me in my plans, so the reading had to be postponed.
3. Walter Scott by Ivanhoe - I hope to read this one a few months after finishing War and Peace.
4. 1984 by George Orwell
5. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
6. The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić - I've already read this, it's one of my favourite books, so I was hoping to reread it in 2021, but never got around.
7. Evgheni Oneghin by Alexander Pushkin
8. Hrvatski bog Mars by Miroslav Krleža
9. The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa - also a reread, but I'd love to revisit it, as this one is also a favourite.
10. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

[Ila]

Natalie wrote: "Mostly I wish I'd finished Hunger - Knut Hamsun Newly Revised Edition . It took me from October to December to make it from the 70% mark to the 80% mark. I read a couple pages and c..."

I found Hunger deadly dull too. I gave up after a few pages in. Life's too short for books like that.

1. The Nibelungenlied (planned this year)
2. Leaves of Grass (no idea when I'll read this)
3. Swann's Way (too scared of ever beginning it)
4. Layla and Majnun (may try this year)
5. Politics and the English Language (on track for this year)
6. Fifth Business (on track for this year)
7. Basho: The Complete Haiku (no idea when I'll read this)
8. Picnic at Hanging Rock (may try this year)
9. Shakespeare's Sonnets (planned this year)
10. Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend (planned this year)

[Heather L]

Hunger was a difficult one to get through. I listened to a free audiobook on YouTube, and did not enjoy the book. I think I would have given up on it had I actually read a physical book. I also read Growth of the Soil by the same author and actually liked that one.

[Natalie]

Ila and Heather - So many people seem to love it. I can see how his writing style could be brilliant, but with that story, it's just the worst. I usually DNF books I don't like, but I feel like I'm so close to finishing this one, I should just get it over with. :p

Ila - I like that someone else wants to read The Nibelungenlied too! :D

Lucija - I finished War and Peace last year. It was my "project" for 2021. I started out with a plan to read one chapter a day, but it didn't really play out that way. I was glad to check that one off my list.

[Annette]

Jillian ❀‿❀ wrote: "@Sara, regarding this comment: Hm, that's an idea...

@Sara, regarding this comment: This is an awesome project. I own a ridiculous number of unread books, both on Kindle & my physical bookshelf. A..."

As far as many books on the Serial Reader App -- I have a Read Later list on there too!