List edited on 15 November 2013 as I found that I have been super slack about reviewing books read that were originally on this list… oops :p So I’ve taken off 15 books and replaced them (most with those available under the Popular Penguin collections).
The Classics Club has launched its own site the other day (1 Aug). It looks sooo tempting and I couldn’t resist so I’m jumping in!
The challenge is to read 50+ “classics” in 5 years (if you can). I checked my read list on Goodreads and I think the past 2 years, I’ve averaged about 20 classics a year so I’ve decided for a list of 100. It’s do-able, yea?
My choices are based on:
1. I grew up in a non-English speaking country, so I’m going to catch up on a few children classics and some which I would’ve read in school were I schooled in an English speaking country;
2. As I currently live in Australia, I’m also playing catch up on this country’s literary world. Approx half of the list is Aussie and mostly according to Text Classics (these covers look so gorgeous, how could you resist!). Although, that’s not to say that I’d be purchasing all the books – my piggy bank is a bit lean these days, so I’d be relying quite a bit on my libraries and Project Gutenberg Australia.
3. The rest would be whatever caught my interest at the time of compiling this list. I have included the Scarlet Pimpernel series as I loved the Scarlet Pimpernel (the catalyst of my reading habit) but I was never game enough to pick up the series and this is a very good opportunity.
GOAL Completion Date: 31 August 2017
My list is divided between Aussie & Worldwide-ish, alphabetically ordered by title, and each books are linked to either Goodreads or Text Classics pages.
AUSSIE
A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey
Café Scheherazade by Arnold Zable
Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington
Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land by Rosa Praed
Out of the Silence by Erle Cox
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park – My Blurb
Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Bolderwood
Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner – My Blurb
Such is Life by Joseph Furphy
Tangara by Nan Chauncy
The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs
The Harp in the South Trilogy by Ruth Park
The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay
The Man who Loved Children by Christina Stead
The Pea-Pickers by Eve Langley
The Shiralee by D’Arcy Niland
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson
Truth by Peter Temple – My Blurb
The Boat by Nam Le
-Text Classics style:
1788 by Watkin Tench
A Difficult Young Man by Martin Boyd
An Iron Rose by Peter Temple
Bring Larks and Heroes by Thomas Keneally
Careful, He Might Hear You by Sumner Locke Elliott – My Blurb
Cosmo Cosmolino by Helen Garner
Dark Places by Kate Grenville
Diary of a Bad Year by JM Coetzee
Homesickness by Murray Bail
Stiff by Shane Maloney
Strine by Afferbeck Lauder
Sydney Bridge Upside Down by David Ballantyne
Terra Australis by Matthew Flinders
The Commandant by Jessica Anderson
The Dig Tree by Sarah Murgatroyd
The Dying Trade by Peter Corris
The Even More Complete Book of Australian Verse by John Clarke
The Glass Canoe by David Ireland
The Jerilderie Letter by Ned Kelly
The Middle Parts of Fortune by Frederic Manning
The Plains by Gerald Murnane
The Scarecrow by Ronald Hugh Morrieson
The Watch Tower by Elizabeth Harrower
The Women in Black by Madeleine St John – My Blurb
They’re a Weird Mob by Nino Culotta – My Blurb
Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook
-Popular Penguin style:
The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson
April Fool’s Day by Bryce Courtenay
I Can Jump Puddles by Alan Marshall
In the Winter Dark by Tim Winton
It’s Raining in Mango by Thea Astley
Of A Boy by Sonya Hartnett
Our Sunshine by Robert Drewe
WORLDWIDE
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith – My Blurb
Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
Cecilia by Fanny Burney
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Clarissa, of the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Howard’s End by EM Forster – My Blurb
Joan of Arc by Mark Twain
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo – My Blurb
Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – My Blurb
The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
-Popular Penguin style:
Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The Scarlet Pimpernel series by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, in Chronological (book setting) order:
The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel
The Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel
Eldorado: Further Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel
The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel
The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel
Read & Reviewed: 10/100 As of Jan 14, 2013
Tien's Blurb 
Awesome list – love how you’re devoting so much time to our Aussie classics. Best of luck with your challenge!
Thanks, Bree! Gotta show some loving to our Aussie Lits 🙂
Wow…there are a lot of authors I have never even heard the name, maybe because they’re Australian. If you like Dumas, you should read Twenty Years After after Three Musketeers, it’s the sequel, and I like it more than Three Musketeers. Read The Man in the Iron Mask after that because it’s the last sequel.
I saw there are a few books between 20 years later & The Man in the Iron Mask… Can I just read The Man in the Iron Mask on its own?
Ooh, maybe I will ransack your Aussie list–I only have a few Australian titles. (I have read Seven Little Australians though! We named a chicken Judy after it. 🙂 )
You’re welcome to it, Jean.
Once I’ve read 7 Little Australians, I may understand the reference better 😉
Judy is one of the Little Australians, and since this chicken is an Aussie breed it seemed appropriate, that’s all. 🙂
I remember reading the seven little australians as a teen and then re-listening to it a few years later – it might have been one of the very first audiobooks I ever read…and I only remember this because I recalled what happened and kept expecting it before anything happened
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hi Tien! you have an interesting list and i look forward to your thoughts on the Aussie classics you chose. i have read The Thorn Birds and it is awesome. i saw the TV series as well and it was also very good.
a few of your books are also on my list so it would be great to read and review them along with you.
before i forget, i added Tien’s Blurb to the Literati list on my blog’s right sidebar. thanks for visiting aobiblioclassique™ earlier as well.
I’ve noticed, save for the Pimpernel series, you don’t repeat any authors on your list…that sure is a variety!! And it’s nice that you’re leading all that aussie lit. Personally, I’ve never heard of any of the aussie classics or writers (Colleen McCullough is an exception and a favourite :D).
All the best! 🙂
I do think that Aussie classics have been neglected long enough, hence my effort in reading & reviewing them 🙂
thanks for visiting, Risa
Interesting list, and those australian classics just enrich the classics club lists overall. I know very little about the australian classics, thanks for including those and providing all the links, will surely explore them. Good luck with challenge! 🙂
Thanks, mademelani. I hope you’d find some Aussie classics that appeals & come to love 🙂
have you read the Billabong books by Mary Grant Bruce – those are also a childhood classic you could consider (and they are free on Amazon)
NEVER heard of them!! Will have to check them out, thanks Dee 😉
Here’s to our neverending list of TBR ;p
the first 4 IIRC are free on kindle (at least in the US) – i’m going to use the first one for my classics project I think…going to do mine in terms of themes
oooh, themes sound good!
Did I miss your list?
i’m still trying to figure them out…
I have coming of age; female social commentary; original dystopia…other thoughts?
Gothic?
Are you including some sci-fi under dystopia?
childrens?
epistolary?
Aussie classics? This should be very interesting! I look forward to following your journey with the Classics Club.
Thank you 🙂
I love your ‘name’!!
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