Today marks the end of my second year in the Classics club, and although I occasionally regret my decision to sign-up (mostly when I have to write a review and don’t know what to say), overall I must say that I am very happy that I joined! I really appreciate the community around this reading challenge, and the way that it pushes me to finally read those books that I have always thought that I should read…
Highlights so far
- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- Moominvalley in November and Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson
- The Brothers Lionheart (reread) by Astrid Lindgren
- Wind, sand and stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- The Poetic Edda
So far I have read 21 out of the 50 books on my list, so finishing in three years time should be realistic.
Complete reading list (hyperlinks marks the ones I have read and reviewed)
1 de Beauvoir, Simone: The Second Sex
2 Bellman, Carl Michael: Fredmans epistlar (Fredman’s epistles)
3 Boye, Karin: Kallocain
4 Bulgakov, Mikhail: The Master and Margarita
5 Carter, Angela: Night at the Circus
6 Cather, Willa: My Antonia
7 Alighieri, Dante: Vita nuova
8 Eliot, George: Silas Marner
9 Eliot, George: Middlemarch
10 Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Great Gatsby
11 Fogelström, Per Anders: Mina drömmars stad (City of My Dreams)
12 von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang: Faust
13 Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The House of the Seven Gables
14 Ibsen, Henrik: Peer Gynt
15 Jansson, Tove: Sent i november (Moominvalley in November)
16 Jansson, Tove: Pappan och Havet (Moominpappa at Sea)
17 Kushner, Tony: Angels in America
18 Lagerlöf, Selma: Gösta Berlings saga (Gösta Berling’s Saga)
19 Lagerlöf, Selma: Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige (The Wonderful Adventures of Nils)
20 Lindgren, Astrid: Bröderna Lejonhjärta (The Brothers Lionheart)
21 Linna, Väinö: Okänd soldat (The Unknown Soldier)
22 Lönnrot, Elias: Kalevala
23 Moberg, Vilhelm: Utvandrarna (The Emigrants)
24 Moberg, Vilhelm: Din stund på jorden (A Time on Earth)
25 Morrison, Toni: Beloved
26 Plath, Sylvia: Ariel
27 Plath, Sylvia: The Bell Jar
28 Rhys, Jean: Wide Sargasso Sea
29 Rushdie, Salman: Midnight’s Children
30 de Saint-Exupéry, Antoine: The Little Prince
31 de Saint-Exupéry, Antoine: Wind, Sand and Stars
32 Sayers, Dorothy: Gaudy Night
33 Scott, Robert Falcon: Scott’s last expedition
34 Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book
35 Shakespeare, William: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
36 Sturlasson, Snorre: Heimskringla
37 Thoreau, Henry David: Walden
38 Thorvall, Kerstin: Det mest förbjudna
39 Tikkanen, Märta: Arnaía kastad i havet
40 Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Karenina
41 Tunström, Göran: Juloratoriet (The Christmas Oratorio )
42 Undset, Sigrid: Kransen (The Wreath, Kristin Lavransdatter triology, part one)
43 Walker, Alice: The Color Purple
44 Den poetiska Eddan (Poetic Edda)
Anthologies etc.
45 Kafka, Franz: Metamorphosis and other stories
46 Lie, Jonas: Fortellinger i utvalg (Selected stories)
47 Mansfield, Katherine: Short story collection
48 Pushkin, Alexander: The Queen of spades and other stories
49 Rumi: Selected poems
50 Selected Bible books: Psalms, Revelation
I read that in a book 
Congratulations, Johanna, you’re doing well. We only share two titles — Wide Sargasso Sea, which I’ve read, and Middlemarch, which I haven’t — but with the end of 2020 approaching I’ve only completed 22 books, darn it!
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Thank you! I’m slightly worried about my deadline too, in principle I’m keeping a good pace, but now I’ve finished several of the shorter and more tempting works, leaving the scarier ones for later… However, I definitely plan to cheat and extend the deadline if necessary, surely any multiple of five years should do?
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I might cheat too, I certainly don’t feel as strict with myself as I did at the beginning of the challenge! I have Katherine Mansfield’s short stories on my list and am not quite sure how to tackle them – all in one go or a story here and there, what do you think? Reviewing is definitely the down side for me, I still don’t find it easy. Congratulations on sticking with it, I love following you!
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Thank you! I’m not sure what the best way to read Katherine Mansfield is but i have accidentally read about half of the short story collection before i became distracted by other books so I will have to use the second approach. I guess that will be a real problem when it comes to reviewing it, so I suspect it will have to be another micro review…
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Nothing wrong with a micro review. . . sometimes, there’s just nothing to say for all sorts of reasons and we have to be brave enough to just leave it at that.
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I agree, and all this reading and blogging thing is supposed to be fun after all 🙂
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Congratulations, Johanna! I keep eyeing the Classics challenge but haven’t decided yet to take part in it. I still admire you guys 😉
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That *is* a great list, and well done on what you’ve read so far! 😀
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Thank you!
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So glad to see one of your highlights is my absolute favourite classic – Middlemarch. You’ve done well to get this far so quickly. I’ve been doing my list now for well over 5 years – only 4 books to go though
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Thank you!
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There’s definitely a “Nordic authors” flavor to your list! Bulgakov is on my unofficial classics list, as is Lagerlöf’s Gösta Berling. I’m off now to read your review of Middlemarch.
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Yeah, the Nordics are definitely my priority, those are the ones I feel bad about not having read.
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Don’t feel bad if they’re on your list — that brings them within reach!
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