Classics Club List

I have decided to participate in The Classics Club challenge so as to read more classics. The challenge consists in listing 50 or more classic books on one’s blog and trying to read them in the course of some years (maximum 5). Below, I have listed 50 classic book that I want to read in the course of the next three years (2026- 2029). That’s a long time so, hopefully, this challenge will not prove difficult and would prompt me to read more classics, especially translated classics. Many of the so-called “standard” classics I have already read (see my page Favourite Books), so I specifically listed many classics from world literature to diversify my reading and to push myself to discovering hidden treasures and overlooked gems.

  1. The Masterpiece by Émile Zola
  2. The Wild Ass’s Skin by Honoré de Balzac
  3. The Unknown Masterpiece by Honoré de Balzac (READ: 13/05/2026)
  4. The Village of Stepanchikovo by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  5. The Issa Valley by Czesław Miłosz
  6. Redburn by Herman Melville
  7. The Tragedy of the Street of Flowers by Eça de Queirós
  8. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
  9. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
  10. Bomarzo by Manuel Mujica Lainez
  11. Roderick Hudson by Henry James
  12. The Wayfarer by Natsume Sōseki
  13. And Then by Natsume Sōseki
  14. Home of the Gentry by Ivan Turgenev
  15. Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp by Hermann Hesse
  16. The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
  17. Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham
  18. Shosha by Isaac Singer
  19. Jezebel’s Daughter by Wilkie Collins
  20. The Earth by Émile Zola
  21. A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
  22. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
  23. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  24. Embers by Sándor Márai
  25. The Illustrious House of Ramires by Eça de Queirós
  26. As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams by Lady Sarashina
  27. Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  28. New Grub Street by George Gissing
  29. A Time to Love and a Time to Die by Erich Maria Remarque
  30. Petersburg by Andrei Bely
  31. The Lost Estate by Henri Alain-Fournier
  32. To the Spring Equinox and Beyond by Natsume Sōseki
  33. The Village by Ivan Bunin
  34. The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal
  35. The Song of the World by Jean Giono
  36. The Golden Bowl by Henry James
  37. Virgin Soil by Ivan Turgenev
  38. The Lily of the Valley by Honoré de Balzac
  39. The Comedians by Graham Greene
  40. The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić
  41. In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck
  42. Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant
  43. Salka Valka by Halldór Laxness
  44. Heaven Has No Favorites by Erich Maria Remarque
  45. Peter Camenzind by Hermann Hesse
  46. The Violent Land by Jorge Amado
  47. The Awkward Age by Henry James
  48. Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton
  49. Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
  50. The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather