The Classics

#11

Anyone who knows me knows I read a lot. If you recommend a book to me, I’ll pretty much read it (or at least add it to my growing list). I belong to 2 book clubs, yup 2. Luckily I have a daily, hour plus, round trip commute to work. And I read fast. I’ve read 8 out of 20 of today’s NY Times Best Seller List. Plus 4 more that are beyond the top 20. The books I haven’t read yet are on the list.

I realized I haven’t read a lot of the top classics in literature. Really only the ones that I’ve read was in high school English class. There were some good ones that I would like to re-read someday. But there are a LOT that I haven’t read, so I added them to my 30 list.

I googled the top classics and found a number of lists and used one as a guide. I decided to pick 10 novels that I would read over the course of the year. The list I narrowed it down to, in no particular order, is the following:

1. 984 by George Orwell
2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
3. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
4. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
5. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
6. Animal Farm by George Orwell
7. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
8. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
9. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
10. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

After I picked the top 10 (with some help from friends), I noticed that first of all there are no women on this list and second of all George Orwell is on here twice. This will change. I figure this list will evolve as the year goes on, but will provide a good starting point.

Fortunately, one of my book clubs fully supports my 30 Before 30 list, and since none of us have read the book, we chose Catch-22. I’m more than halfway through the 463-page, very dense book. Luckily it was suggested that we take an extra week to read it. And I’m taking it!  I may need to read the cliff notes or watch the movie before we meet in 2 weeks….

I am not a book critic and will not bore you by providing commentary on the books I read. But I will say whether I like the book and recommend it once I’ve read them.