50 Classic Books in 5 Years for My 50th Birthday

Since today is my 50th birthday, I thought I would start my next 50 years off right by joining the Classics Club and committing to read 50 classic novels by October 25, 2021. The idea behind the club is to read at least 50 classic books within five years, and to blog about each one.

My main purpose in this project is to read more books from my Summary of Great Books Lists and my Catholic Classics List. I’ve selected books from those two lists along with a few extras. You can see the full list below. As I finish each book I’ll write a blog post about it and link to it from this page.

As I mentioned last week, I am currently reading The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni, so I’ll make that my first book for this challenge. Here’s the rest of my list:

1. Louisa May Alcott – Little Women – Finished July 17, 2018 Review
2. Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy – Finished April 10, 2021
3. Eric Ambler – A Coffin for Dimitrios – Finished March 22, 2020
4. Jane Austen – Emma – Finished September 27, 2017 Review
5. Robert Hugh Benson – Lord of the World – Finished November 12, 2016 Review
6. George Bernanos – Diary of a Country Priest – Finished April 11, 2020
7. Will C. Brown – The Nameless Breed – Finished February 1, 2021
8. Frances Hodgson Burnett – The Secret Garden – Finished January 31, 2018 Review
9. Willa Cather – O Pioneers! – Finished July 16, 2017 Review
10. Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote – Finished May 8, 2019
11. Louis de Wohl – The Living Wood: A Novel of St. Helena – Finished July 3, 2021
12. Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol – Finished December 18, 2020
13. Charles Dickens – David Copperfield – Finished October 24, 2021
14. Charles Dickens – The Old Curiosity Shop – Finished December 31, 2019
15. Fyodor Dostoyevski – Crime and Punishment – Finished January 20, 2020 Review
16. Frederick Douglass – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass – Finished March 22, 2021
17. Alexandre Dumas – Twenty Years After  – Finished January 13, 2018 Review
18. Alexandre Dumas – The Vicomte de Bragelonne – Finished March 17, 2019
19. Alexandre Dumas – Louise de la Vallière – Finished March 31, 2019
20. Alexandre Dumas – The Man in the Iron Mask – Finished April 3, 2019
21. Alexandre Dumas – The Count of Monte Cristo – Finished September 2, 2019
22. Daphne du Maurier – Rebecca – Finished December 6, 2017 Review
23. Lord Dunsany – The King of Elfland’s Daughter – Finished February 2, 2020
24. E.R. Eddison – The Worm Ouroboros – Finished November 15, 2017 Review
25. George Eliot – Romola – Finished October 22, 2017 Review
26. E.M. Forster – A Room with a View – Finished January 7, 2019
27. Nikolai Gogol – Dead Souls – Finished November 25, 2017 Review
28. H. Rider Haggard – She – Finished May 16, 2018 Review
29. Thomas Hardy – Far From the Madding Crowd – Finished April 8, 2017 Review
30. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter – Finished October 28, 2019
31. James Hilton – Goodbye Mr. Chips – Finished March 22, 2021
32. William Hope Hodgson – The House on the Borderland – Finished November 3, 2016 Review
33. Robert E. Howard – Conan: The Definitive Collection – Finished December 4, 2016 Review
34. Victor Hugo – The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Finished August 21, 2021
35. Franz Kafka – The Trial – Finished May 19, 2017 Review
36. Gaston Leroux – The Phantom of the Opera – Finished August 15, 2020
37. Richard Llewellyn – How Green Was My Valley – Finished February 11, 2017 Review
38. George MacDonald – The Light Princess – Finished December 22, 2020
39. George MacDonald – Lilith – Finished October 19, 2019
40. Alessandro Manzoni – The Betrothed – Finished October 31, 2016 Review
41. Larry McMurtry – Lonesome Dove – Finished July 11, 2017 Review
42. Baroness Orczy – The Scarlet Pimpernel – Finished April 15, 2021
43. George Orwell – Nineteen Eighty-four – Finished January 5, 2017 Review
44. Henryk Sienkiewicz – Quo Vadis – Finished June 23, 2021
45. Clifford Simak – City – Finished August 2, 2020
46. Leo Tolstoy – How Much Land Does a Man Need? and Other Stories – Finished December 21, 2020
47. Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace – Finished December 30, 2020
48. Sigrid Undset – Kristin Lavransdatter – Finished December 18, 2017 Review
49. Horace Walpole – The Castle of Otranto – Finished December 30, 2017
50. Thornton Wilder – The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Finished November 21, 2016 Review