Classic’s Spin 2
Time for Classic’s Spin 2! Last March when The Classic’s Club held their first Classic’s Spin I tried to make it more social and interactive by populating most of my list with books that other bloggers had placed on their list. Number 14 was chosen which was Proust’s Contre Sainte-Beuve. That was not a book on anyone else’s list but in retrospect was very glad it was chosen. It was not a book I was particularly motivated to read but found it provided great insight into what Proust was up to. It clarified many things for me that were lost in the sheer volume of Recherché and led me to want to reread the larger work again.
However good that experience was I want to make sure I get the more social and interactive version this time around by selecting ONLY books chosen by other bloggers. And since six weeks is a long time, I’ll try to get through an additional book for each number. Although I must admit the combinations for #6 Middlemarch & Tess of the d’Urbervilles and #16 Buddenbrooks & Master and Margarita may be a bit much.
This time around Brona at Brona’s Books is doing the same thing so some of the selections (e.g., #4, #18) could have up to four of us reading the same book. Happy Reading!
1. Pushkin-Eugene Onegin (Half-filled Attic)/Aristophanes-Lysistrata (Sarah Read Too Much)
2. Confucius-Analects (A Horse and Carrot)/Buck-The Good Earth (Brona’s Books, Tiny Library)
3. Zola-Germinal (Bronas Books, Book Rhapsody, Cat)/Zola-The Ladies Paradise (Books and Chocolate)
4. Austen-Sense & Sensibility (Surgabukuku)/Mafouz-Palace of Desire (Wandering in the Stacks)
5. Woolf-To the Lighthouse (Cat)/Conrad-The Secret Agent (Half-filled Attic)/Fitzgerald-The Beautiful and the Damned (Tiny Library)
6. Eliot-Middlemarch (A Horse and a Carrot)/Hardy-Tess of the d’Urbervilles (Brona’s Books, Lakeside Musing)
7. Orwell-Burmese Days (From Isi)/Wilde-The Canterville Ghost (Surgabukuku)
8. Emerson-Essays (Classics Club)/Shakespeare-Richard III (Fanda)
9. Zola-Nana (Books and Chocolate)/Shakespeare-Richard III (Classics Club)
10. Dafoe-Moll Flanders (Brona’s Books, Under a Gray Sky)/Nabokov-Lolita (Literary Nerds Unite)
11. Machado de Assis–Dom Casmurro (Book Rhapsody)/Flaubert-Sentimental Education (Books and Chocolate)
12. Zola-L’Assommoir (All Things Booker)/Wilde-The Canterville Ghost (Fanda)
13. Nabakov-Lolita (Under a Gray Sky, The Book Wheel)/Fitzgerald-The Beautiful and the Damned (Unscripted35)
14. Gissing-New Grub Street (Books and Chocolate)/Woolf-To the Lighthouse (Brona’s Books, From Isi)
15. Fitzgerald-Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Fanda)/Eliot-Middlemarch (Under a Gray Sky)
16. Mann-Buddenbrooks (Book Rhapsody)/Bulgakov-Master and Margarita (Brona’s Books, Wandering in the Stacks)
17. Nabokov-Pale Fire (Lost Generation Reader)/Frank-Diary of Anne Frank (A Horse and a Carrot)
18. Swift-Gulliver’s Travels (Fanda)/Frank-Diary of Anne Frank (Brona’s Books, Classics Club, Surgabukuku)/Gissing-The Odd Woman (Cat)
19. Schreiner-The Story of an African Farm (Literary Nerds Unite)/DuBois-The Souls of Black Folk (Classic Vasilly)
20. Naipaul-A House for Mr. Biswas (Cat)/DuBois-The Souls of Black Folk (Wandering in the Stacks)
Related articles
- The Second Classics Spin (bookrhapsody.wordpress.com)
- The Classics Spin #2! (ahorseandacarrot.wordpress.com)
- My List for The Classics Spin #2 (surgabukuku.wordpress.com)
- The Classics Spin #2 (readinpleasure.wordpress.com)
Several, Four, Many 
What an awesome idea! I love it! And Tess is a great book 😉
Thanks for including a number of my books into your list. I did enjoy reading with Cat last time. I also want to be more social with this spin, although it does take time to work my around all the sites. Luckily we’re moving into winter in Australia and I love nothing better than sitting in front of the heater with my slippers, cup of green tea and my epad.
Good luck
People pick a lot of the same books, but have them listed at different numbers. I was excited to see that you coordinated your list with others. Perhaps we can build a movement.
Hopefully we’ll read something together! You have some great selections.
I can’t claim any originality on my list. I stole them all from others! I’ll keep my fingers crossed they pick one of ours.
I love your idea for making the spin process more connected! Of the potential reads you’ve listed, I especially enjoyed The Master and Margarita, Sense and Sensibility, and Lysistrata (I love most everything by Aristophanes.)
If you like Aristophanes you might want to join us (once things get settled for me and we start the project rolling) for Reading Athens where we will be reading all his plays in the context of other works written in or about the same year. https://severalfourmany.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/reading-athens/
That’s a great idea to make sure you have some interaction with another classics lover. Hope we get a good # and can’t wait to see what it is! Good luck, hope you get a # you are looking forward to. Here’s my Classics Club Spin list if you’d like to stop by.
Looks like a great list. I recently read Robinson Crusoe, so I’ll be curious to find out what you think of it.
Lucky you for landing up with Middlemarch, one of my all time favourites. It’s a slow start but stick with it.
karen@bookertalk
Ahhh now I see why #6 spun around – it’s to keep you on your toes!
Good luck with Middlemarch AND Tess. I’ve read both books before and loved them both.
I read Tess in my mid 20’s when I connected to all that angst and longing. I’ll be curious to see if twenty years later I still respond so strongly to it.
Good luck
Yes, I’ve also read them both before. I was lukewarm with Middlemarch and expect to get much more out of it this time. I loved Tess and wonder if it will look different this time. However, June is looking to be a very busy month, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to get through Tess (or Middlemarch for that mater).
Middlemarch is certainly not going to happen THIS month! Looking forward to reading it though, hopefully before the summer is out.