As part of joining the online Classics Reading Club, I'm publishing a list of 50 classic books that I plan to (hope to?, really want to?, think I'd be a better person if I did?) read an review over the next three years. According to the Club, a classic is what I think one is, although you'll see that my list contains works that are widely recognized as being among the great books in their different genres. The list is in no particular order, and I'll be reading them in no strictly defined order.
Wish me luck!
The Bible in the Original King James Version of 1611
Includes the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books no longer published as part of the King James version, all the interesting spelling, and the s's that look like f's to our eyes. "A word-for-word facsimile of the original 1611 Authorized Version", claims the publisher.
The Ingenious Don Quixote de La Mancha, by by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
"Generally recognized as the first modern novel" (publisher's blurb). Cervantes has been lauded by literary critic and Yale professor Harold Bloom as "the best of all novelists, just as Shakespeare remains the best of all dramatists." He believed that "there are parts of yourself that you will never know fully until you know Don Quixote and Sancho Panza [the hero and his sidekick]."
Some not-fully-known part of myself doesn't want to finish this novel. I've made the attempt three times over a period of 30 years, and just haven't been able to get past the first 150 to 200 pages (of almost 1,000). With your help, perhaps I can get to know the Don and Sancho, and with their help convince that stubborn part of myself to finish the book!
