The Classics Club: The Classics Spin #28

Posted on October 13, 2021 by WordsAndPeace

#theclassicsclub
#ccspin

The Classics Club
2020-2025

The Classics Spin #28

Time for a new spin!

At your blog, before Sunday, October 17th, create a post to list your choice of any twenty books that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list.

On Sunday October 17, we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by December 12, 2021.

Here are 20 titles I have selected from my 3rd list of 50 classics.
4 of the following titles are nonfiction.
9 are mysteries.

1	Xavier de Maistre	Voyage Autour de Ma Chambre (1794)
2	Edmond Rostand	Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) = reread
3	Robert Walser	Jakob von Gunten (1909)
4	A. A. Milne	The Red House Mystery (1922)
5	Freeman Wills Crofts	Inspector French’s Greatest Case (1924)
6	Dorothy L. Sayers*	Clouds of Witness (1926)
7	Stefan Zweig	Confusion (1927)
8	Josephine Tey*	The Man in the Queue (1929)
9	Virginia Woolf*	A Room of One’s Own (1929)
10	Edmund Wilson	Axel’s Castle: A Study of the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930 (1931)
11	George Orwell	Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
12	Ngaio Marsh*	A Man Lay Dead (1934)
13	Rex Stout	Fer-de-Lance (1934)
14	Charles Williams	Descent into Hell (1937)
15	Eric Ambler	Epitaph for a Spy (1938)
16	Raymond Chandler	The Big Sleep (1939)
17	Cornell Woolrich	The Bride Wore Black (1940)
18	Adolfo Bioy Casares	The Invention of Morel (1940)
19	Italo Calvino	The Baron in the Trees
20	Virginia Woolf	To the Lighthouse

COME BACK ON MONDAY 18
TO SEE WHICH BOOK I HAVE TO READ SOON.
HOW MANY HAVE YOU READ?
WHICH ONE IS YOUR FAVORITE?

MY FULL LIST IS HERE

61 thoughts on “The Classics Club: The Classics Spin #28”

kaggsysbookishramblings on October 13, 2021 at 5:25 am said:

That’s a very interesting list (of which I have read 13!) Charles Williams is a weird and wonderful writer, but Calvino! Orwell! Sayers! Woolf! What great choices!!

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- WordsAndPeace on October 13, 2021 at 4:02 pm said:
  
  wow, well done for 13/20!! I love Calvino a lot, but have never read this one yet!!!
  
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tracybham on October 13, 2021 at 9:57 am said:

What a selection. You have some great mysteries on this list. I look forward to seeing what number is drawn. (Haven’t done my list yet.)

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- WordsAndPeace on October 13, 2021 at 3:51 pm said:
  
  Yes, I tend to enjoy more and more good old mysteries!
  
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Reese on October 13, 2021 at 11:44 am said:

Lots of fun stuff! I almost put Axel’s Castle on my list, and Baron in the Trees is one of my all-time favorite books.

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- WordsAndPeace on October 13, 2021 at 3:48 pm said:
  
  I’m not surprised, Italo Calvino is a great author. I love all these “Oulipo” authors like him
  
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GoAnnelies - In Another Era on October 13, 2021 at 12:05 pm said:

Good luck, I haven’t read any of these but I’ll definitely want to read your reviews about them to discover new classics.

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- WordsAndPeace on October 13, 2021 at 3:47 pm said:
  
  That’s the fun part of this club, we discover so many hidden gems
  
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BookerTalk on October 13, 2021 at 3:52 pm said:

Your list is a good mix of the thought-provoking and the not so serious. I haven’t heard of the Josephine Tey, i enjoyed one by her and another that I couldn’t get into

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- WordsAndPeace on October 13, 2021 at 4:02 pm said:
  
  Hmm, I hope this one is a good one!
  
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Cleo @ Classical Carousel on October 13, 2021 at 11:01 pm said:

So many good ones here ….. Orwell, Williams, Sayers, Tey, Woolf, Marsh ….. I can’t pick one. I don’t recognize no. 18 however. I’m going to have to look it up. Best of luck with the spin!

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- WordsAndPeace on October 14, 2021 at 10:03 pm said:
  
  Glad I managed to make you discover a classic!
  
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Brona's Books on October 14, 2021 at 1:32 am said:

I did not know that A A Milne also wrote mysteries!! You learn something new every day!

Good luck 🙂

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- WordsAndPeace on October 14, 2021 at 10:00 pm said:
  
  Yes, thanks to this awesome group!
  
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Davida Chazan on October 14, 2021 at 3:16 am said:

I’m joining in on this spin as well. I also have a Chandler on my list, but not this one. I really enjoyed the Milne The Red House Mystery.

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- WordsAndPeace on October 14, 2021 at 9:57 pm said:
  
  woohoo!
  
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Helen on October 14, 2021 at 4:55 am said:

I’ve read a few of those and particularly enjoyed Cyrano de Bergerac and The Red House Mystery. Good luck!

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- WordsAndPeace on October 14, 2021 at 9:51 pm said:
  
  I definitely enjoyed Cyrano, I’m French after all, but need to revisit it
  
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Marianne Maurer on October 14, 2021 at 5:08 am said:

Thank you for visiting my post about The Classics Club Spin #28.

As I mentioned there, I have only read one book from yours, Virginia Woolf. It was a book club read and some of our members made the mistake to think, they could start two days before the meeting because the book was so short …

I have read books by A.A. Milne (of course), George Orwell (of course) and Italo Calvino. So I wish you that one. And I have just checked, I’d get Agatha Christie then. I can live with that. LOL

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- WordsAndPeace on October 14, 2021 at 9:50 pm said:
  
  Lol for Virginia Woolf!
  I think I sooooo enjoyed If by a Winter’s Night a Traveler that I have put off reading The Baron in the Trees, because I’m afraid to be disappointed. I have read Invisible Cities, good too, but nothing like If by a Winter’s Night a Traveler
  
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  - Marianne Maurer on October 15, 2021 at 2:43 am said:
    
    Yes, was a big surprise to some of them. LOL
    I totally understand that. “If on a Winter’s Night …” is one of my favourite books. I have also read “Why read the classics?” by him which isn’t comparable but also a great book about classic books and I’m sure you might love this, as well.
    
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    - WordsAndPeace on October 15, 2021 at 9:11 am said:
      
      I started reading “Why read the classics?” in Italian. Learning Italian by myself had actually one goal: read Calvino in the original!
      
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      - Marianne Maurer on October 16, 2021 at 4:18 am said:
        
        That sounds great. I’m concentrating on my Spanish for the time being since I would love to read at least one of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s books in the original.
        
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      - WordsAndPeace on October 16, 2021 at 11:38 am said:
        
        Awesome! I enjoy being able to read and understand Spanish (watching literary interviews for instance). Though I need to keep it up. Some time ago, I started reading Harry Potter in Spanish, but stopped. Maybe a project I need to restart in 2022. And maybe it would be smart to read it both in Spanish and Italian to speed up my Italian
        
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      - Marianne Maurer on October 17, 2021 at 5:05 am said:
        
        I always prefer to read originals. That’s my reason.
        
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      - WordsAndPeace on October 17, 2021 at 10:14 pm said:
        
        If we can, that’s definitely better. If I were younger, I would try to learn Japanese, for the same reason
        
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      - Marianne Maurer on October 18, 2021 at 4:14 am said:
        
        It would probably be Turkish and Arabic for me. Though I have looked into Turkish. Not easy.
        
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      - WordsAndPeace on October 18, 2021 at 6:09 pm said:
        
        wow! I can read Biblical Hebrew, but the Arabic alphabet looks so much more difficult than Hebrew!
        
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    - Marianne Maurer on October 19, 2021 at 6:30 am said:
      
      Well, it’s the same sort of system, you can compare it as latin script to cyrillic, so if you can do one, you might be able learn the other.
      
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      - WordsAndPeace on October 19, 2021 at 9:51 am said:
        
        hmm. I can read Latin and Cyrillic, though don’t see much in common. And when I look at Arabic letters, it looks like nothing compared to the Hebrew alphabet
        
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      - Marianne Maurer on October 20, 2021 at 1:17 am said:
        
        Well, you do the same sort of spelling, write from left to right and put every letter you pronounce, not just the consonants whereas Hebrew and Arabic write from right to left, have different kind of writing for the same letter depending where and how it stands, omit the vowels etc.
        
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      - WordsAndPeace on October 20, 2021 at 10:57 am said:
        
        Oh I see what you mean. Yes, I know it’s the way of most semantic languages. I thought you meant the Arabic alphabet was similar to the Hebrew one.
        My problem with the Arabic letters is that more or less all look the same to me, whereas in the Hebrew alphabet, each letter looks very different from the others. Well, maybe it’s because have learned to recognize them, lol
        
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      - Marianne Maurer on October 21, 2021 at 5:17 am said:
        
        Well, you are right there but we have to learn new letters in every alphabet, I hope that would come with time. But I doubt I will tackle Arabic.
        
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      - WordsAndPeace on October 21, 2021 at 2:56 pm said:
        
        Yes, so many new things to learn and read!
        
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Deb Nance at Readerbuzz on October 14, 2021 at 8:04 am said:

I’m especially fascinated with the A. A. Milne book, so I hope you read that one.

We have one book in common.

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- WordsAndPeace on October 14, 2021 at 9:47 pm said:
  
  Yes, that would be a great one! And I have it in audio
  
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hopewellslibraryoflife on October 14, 2021 at 9:59 am said:

Another list of great interest to me since I’ve only read/reviewed The Man in the Que. Here is my list: https://hopewellslibraryoflife.wordpress.com/2021/10/14/classics-club-spin-28-list/

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- WordsAndPeace on October 14, 2021 at 9:45 pm said:
  
  Thanks for sharing, coming to visit you now!
  
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Books and livres (@AndLivres) on October 15, 2021 at 6:42 am said:

I’d love to read Voyage autour de ma chambre, but I hope you’ll get A room of one’s own because i’m curious of your opinion on it 😉

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- WordsAndPeace on October 15, 2021 at 9:06 am said:
  
  On va voir !
  
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Lexlingua on October 15, 2021 at 10:20 am said:

That’s a great list. Honestly, The Big Sleep made me smile. I find Calvino’s Baron in the Trees (what’s he doing there, by the way?) very interesting. And Red House Mystery is something I want to read this month, so maybe we can swap notes!

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- WordsAndPeace on October 16, 2021 at 11:40 am said:
  
  lol, you meant in the trees right, not on my list? We could do a readalong on Red House Mystery
  
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  - Lexlingua on October 28, 2021 at 9:21 am said:
    
    Haha, totally about the baron, not the book on your list! And I’ve never done a readalong so no idea how that works… Do we just set a week in which we’ll read it and then exchange notes for a joint review? 👩🏻‍💻
    
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    - WordsAndPeace on October 28, 2021 at 4:35 pm said:
      
      Yes, we can do as we want. Check my posts here, so you can see what we did for some previous readalong. See the links to the different posts, as we took turn posting: https://wordsandpeace.com/2021/03/15/before-the-coffee-gets-cold-read-along-pre-read-discussion/
      
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Dedra @ A Book Wanderer on October 16, 2021 at 12:12 pm said:

Great list! I’ve only read To the Lighthouse, but I enjoyed it so much. It’s beautifully written. I look forward to seeing what everyone will be reading!

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- WordsAndPeace on October 17, 2021 at 10:19 pm said:
  
  Definitely a fun event, and am very happy with #12!
  
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J.E. Fountain on October 16, 2021 at 12:59 pm said:

I’ve only read To the Lighthouse – didn’t love it, and The Big Sleep – quite fun. Enjoy!

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- WordsAndPeace on October 17, 2021 at 10:18 pm said:
  
  Thanks. Nice result for me (12)
  
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Robin on October 16, 2021 at 3:00 pm said:

That’s a fun list! I’ve read 7 of them, and particularly liked the Josephine Tey and the Ngaio Marsh. Can’t wait to see which number is chosen!

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- WordsAndPeace on October 17, 2021 at 10:17 pm said:
  
  YES! Got Ngaio Marsh!!
  
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jessicabookworm on October 16, 2021 at 4:38 pm said:

I’m afraid I haven’t read any of these – You have a really interesting mix of lesser well known classics. Good luck and happy spinning! 🤞🙂

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- WordsAndPeace on October 17, 2021 at 10:15 pm said:
  
  Thanks, and I’m very happy with the result
  
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Amy on October 17, 2021 at 4:38 am said:

I haven’t read any of these! I do have a few on my TBR (and A Room of One’s Own is on my Classics Club list) but I have a few more titles to look into now. Good luck!

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- WordsAndPeace on October 17, 2021 at 10:14 pm said:
  
  It’s fun discovering “new classics” thanks to the club and the spins
  
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Greg on October 17, 2021 at 3:30 pm said:

I would be interested in AA Milne. and ooh The Big Sleep.

I hope whichever one you spin is a good read. .

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- WordsAndPeace on October 17, 2021 at 10:12 pm said:
  
  Thanks, I’m super happy with the spin: Ngaio Marsh’s first novel!
  
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  - Marianne Maurer on October 19, 2021 at 6:32 am said:
    
    I’ve heard a lot of good stuff about her. Enjoy! I got Patricia Highsmith.
    
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    - WordsAndPeace on October 19, 2021 at 9:50 am said:
      
      awesome
      
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