Time to SPIN! #ccspin

Posted on July 25, 2018 by

27 Comments

Recently, the original moderators for The Classics Club (including yours truly) stepped down after six years and handed things over to four new individuals. They’re starting their tenure off with a bang, by diving into Classics Spin #18! 

What is the Classics Spin? Essentially, clubbers choose twenty books from their classics club reading list and post them by the due date.Then, on “spin day,” a number between 1-20 is revealed, and that is the book you have to read before the deadline (usually the end of the following month). You can choose your books randomly, divide them by categories, or whatever. Part of the challenge, though, is to choose at least a few that you know you’re dreading, just in case this is the opportunity to nudge you toward it. 

So, I went mostly with a “random” sort this time, but I did choose at least one book from each of the “centuries” represented on my main club list. Here are the twenty I’ve pulled to play with:

  1. The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish
  2. At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O’Neill
  3. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
  4. The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade
  5. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
  6. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft (re-read)
  7. Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
  8. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  9. So Big by Edna Ferber 
  10. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
  11. Paradise Lost by John Milton
  12. Dead Souls by Nikolay Gogol
  13. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
  14. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
  15. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
  16. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
  17. Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
  18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  19. Metamorphoses by Ovid
  20. The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

I guess I’m hoping for Number 3, Number 5, or Number 8 and probably most worried about Number 20, Number 19, and Number 13 – mostly because of how long they all are; but whatever happens, I’m ready to read! Let’s spin! 

Category: CC-Spin, Classics Club

27 Comments on “Time to SPIN! #ccspin”

  4. Great list! I loved The Good Earth, Little House, and also North and South. The Blind Assassin is also wonderful. Monte Cristo is good and not difficult, just long. I look forward to your spin post! And thanks again for moderating the Classics Club for so many years.

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  5. Oooh, there’s some good stuff on that list! Udolpho and Monte Cristo aren’t hard to read, they’re just really long, but also plenty exciting. I liked Metamorphoses too. I kind of hope you get North and South.

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    • Metamorphoses would be a re-read but it has been almost 20 years – overdue! I have DNF’d Udolpho twice. 🙄 And I’ve never read ANY Dumas, which is embarrassing and a permanent thorn in my side.

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      • Well, I think Monte Cristo is a good place to start. I haven’t read a lot of Dumas, but I didn’t love Iron Mask and when I read the Three Musketeers years ago, I had the impression that I was reading about a bunch of tetchy, impulsive children. I should probably re-read that since that probably wasn’t the message….

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    • I will not be hosting Austen in August – it had a great run and I’m proud of it, but it’s time for me to do other things. I believe there are other events… one used to be “Jane in June” but the host changed it a few years ago so it should also come up in a search for “Austen in August.”

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  7. I found Kim very enjoyable. Good luck with Mysteries of Udolpho. I had to bail on that one! You’ve got some interesting books on your list! I think I’ve read about half of them.

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  8. You don’t have to worry no. 13, it’s long but very fast-paced with intricately-woven plot. I didn’t realise that no. 20 is long too!
    Anyway, Have fun with the spin!

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  10. I’m always happy to see a children’s classic or two on a list. My personal favorite is Good Earth; O-lan’s life is a reminder to me of the lives of women in the past.

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  12. I loved The Good Earth. Read it in 8th grade and again about six years ago and some of the scenes that were burned into my mind were just as good. There was much I didn’t remember or that just wasn’t as important to my younger mind, I suppose. Hope the spin lands on one of the shorter books. The Count of Monte Christo is excellent, but I know one needs to be in the mood to tackle such a biggy. 🤞 Off to select my 20….

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  14. Such an interesting and varied list. Love some of the juxtapositions…Marquis de Sade next to Rudyard Kipling! I really enjoyed The Good Earth and read Kim for my Open University course and found it much more interesting than I was expecting. I had to study Paradise Lost for the same course and that was a marathon. I got through it by listening to an audiobook version read by the wonderful Anton Lesser.

    Here’s my spin list: https://whatcathyreadnext.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/the-classics-club-spin-18/

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  15. Great spin list! I love North and South and The Bluest Eye, and can’t wait to read The Blind Assassin. Here’s hoping you don’t end up with one of the longer tomes you’re dreading!

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  16. Sorry to hijack and divert this thread, but I’m trying to find out if you are hosting AusteninAugust this year and if not, do you know who might be? Thanks and sorry for the rude interruption!

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  17. Nice Choices. The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my all time favorites, but I have to give a big rec to 100 Years…most unusual, and one of the best opening lines ever written.

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