24 Comments

I love the idea and may join you in it ... I'll think more on it. Some of the classics are very long and my reading is very slow... and many of the classics are written in a manner that is not second nature to us. Anyhow, my only criticism of your list (and those suggested) is the absence of Dickens. Though familiar, his stories truly touch the heart. And as a mystery lover, I wonder if Agatha Christie can be considered 'classic', if not in time, in her unique style. By the month you will get to October and Poe might be reserved for then. I look forward to your reviews!

Expand full comment
Nov 21, 2022Liked by Joel J Miller

It’s great to be retired and lead a book club!

Some of these are for Book Club. Some are re-reads. The rest are books I should have read long ago. Not in any certain order:

1. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

2. To Kill a Mockingbird

3. Fellowship of the Rings

4. Beloved (it will be a classic)

5. Out of Africa

6. As I Lay Dying

7. East of Eden

8. Jayber Crow (another future classic)

9. Anna Karenina

10. The Gospel According to Tolstoy

11. Heart of Darkness (the Karen Swallow Prior edition)

12. Bleakhouse

Expand full comment

I loved Zora Neal Thurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. My other two picks would be Beloved by Toni Morrison and Middlemarch by George Eliot.

Expand full comment

Both Zora Neal Thurston and Toni Morrison are on my short list. Why George Eliot?

Expand full comment
Nov 21, 2022Liked by Joel J Miller

Puddin Head Wilson by Mark Twain

Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Get an accountability partner. That helps me with my reading goals! I love the SMARTER acronym.

Kristen McGinnis

Noahscaping.com

Expand full comment
Dec 7, 2022Liked by Joel J Miller

Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Okay, technically it was published in 1980, but it was written in the 60s. Such a hidden, fantastic and irritatingly great story.

Expand full comment

I read The Master and Margarita in college and it blew my mind. Good choice!

Expand full comment
Nov 21, 2022Liked by Joel J Miller

After reading your article this morning, I saw this in the afternoon and thought you might find some good titles/inspiration https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/18/dirda-old-books/

Expand full comment
Nov 21, 2022Liked by Joel J Miller

Jayber Crow.

As for Shusaku Endo's Silence and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ... *slow clap*

Expand full comment
Dec 8, 2022Liked by Joel J Miller

Get yourself a nice volume of Chekhov. Read one story a week. Don’t worry about the usual lit crit stuff. Just marinate your brain in the stories. Take them as a “slice of life,” much as you would look at a painting. (Do not read his early stories - say, anything before 1886. The good stuff comes after, and there’s a lot to read.)

Expand full comment
Dec 6, 2022Liked by Joel J Miller

The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi —you may have read the original novel, but I find there’s always something of all human life to meditate on by reading about this little wooden boy. Also recommend GK Chesterton The Man Who Was Thursday; All Hallows Eve by Charles Williams and The Great Divorce by CS Lewis. Laurie or The Aviator, both by Eugene Vodolazkin.

Expand full comment
Dec 1, 2022Liked by Joel J Miller

I would just suggest swapping out one of the list with something from Jane Austen, the first and stylistically greatest writer of the English "social" novel. Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Eliot - all owed an enormous debt to Austen, who turned courtship into epic psychological combat.

Expand full comment

I've been re-reading books by Dornford Yates, such as Berry and Co. Published in the 1920s if I remember rightly, so it's very interesting to infer the mores of that era, such as when the protagonist feels naked because his hat flew off. Very humorous, especially the letters.

Expand full comment
Nov 24, 2022Liked by Joel J Miller

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

the hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo

Annals of a quiet neighborhood - George McDonald

Moby Dick - Herman Melville

The death of Ivan Ilyich and other short stories - Tolstoy

The forged coupon - Tolstoy

Tolle Lege - Jason parolini

Expand full comment

Since you’ve mentioned that you’ve tried to read Dostoevsky so many times, I think this should be the year you finish Brothers Karamazov. I started it once myself, but then finally finished it a couple years later. Totally worth it.

Expand full comment

The key to reading Russian literature is to find a translator you like. Constance Garnett is ubiquitous but may not be your samovar.

Expand full comment
Nov 23, 2022Liked by Joel J Miller

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Expand full comment
Nov 22, 2022Liked by Joel J Miller

I recommend The Brothers Karamozov (spelling?) by Dostoyevsky and Till We Have Faces by CS Lewis

Expand full comment