Classics Challenge 2011

One more thing that gets its own post.

On a whim I joined Stiletto Storytime's 2011 Classics Challenge half way into the year because I am perpetually on South American Time (directly descended from Mediterranean Time, which is the progeny of Middle Eastern Time. I am always late and it is genetic, is what I'm saying.)

And as if that weren't challenging enough, I'm signing up under the PhD challenge, which is to read forty (40!) Classic Books this year. But don't cry for me yet, Argentina, because I've already gotten a solid showing of capital-C Classics into my head since January - mostly through the Magic of Audiobooks and also because I am now a teacher and should read books before I attempt to teach them to my students.

1. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. Night - Elie Weisel
3. The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros
4. A Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry
5. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
6. The Odyssey - Homer
7. Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell
8. Ruth - Elizabeth Gaskell
9. The Way We Live Now - Anthony Trollope
10. Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope
11. Doctor Thorne - Anthony Trollope
12. Framley Parsonage - Anthony Trollope

So I'm over 1/4 finished, and I haven't even been working that hard on it. Trollope has been amusing me for several months now, and I'm getting my annual summer hankering for Dickens and Austen as well. Since I rediscovered my local library, I've been keeping a list of all the physical books I've read for Education #7 on the 101 in 1001 challenge, which is starting to seem like a pitiful number. Fifty books indeed... PFT. The List needs revamping anyway, so perhaps I should add "read ANOTHER 50 books" in place of "try 100 MORE new recipes" (that's a total of 300 new recipes in all. I was perhaps a little overly ambitious...). 

Anyway, there's the challenge. Once I've finished my lurve affair with Trollope, I'll probably get a lot of my Classics suggestions from the SJSU Guilt List and sundry other Best Novels EVAR lists around the internet.

Please feel free to list your own suggestions in the comments!