Coming Soon to My Door--Classics Club

After years of reading about other bloggers' adventures with Classics Club, I find that I am now summoning a list of 50 titles, which I am fairly certain I won't be able to finish reading within five years. But who knows? Onward!

I'm making the list not only from my memory of classics unread, but also with the help of Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia. My older brother gave me the first edition of this encyclopedia for my college graduation back in 1975, I believe. What a great gift for a reader!

Then I picked up a paperback Third Edition at a book sale about seven years ago. And finally, I bought the Fifth Edition with my birthday money at Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont, about four years ago. I love the Fifth Edition, because of its expansive inclusion of World Lit titles.

I am also consulting the Oxford Companion to English Literature and the Reader's Companion to American Literature. The Benet's covers World Literature, but I will also consider other reference lists for World Lit titles. It will be very much a Classics List from my point of view, as I know it is for most people who participate.

At the moment, I'm in the midst of my first Classics Club title. I'm reading the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls. I'm almost halfway through, but I don't feel I can say a word about it yet. Just where is Gogol going? That is the question. And most important of all, I am reading the book with Katrina of Pining for the West, who has the book on her Classics Club List.

I will post my first 25 titles in the next few weeks. Although it's fun, it takes time and effort to pull together a list of 50 that I'm eager to read.