The Classics Club (2022-2027)

There was a time when I used to read a variety of books but for long now my reading has generally been of mysteries. To bring back a little more diversity in my reading, I have long mulled over joining The Classics Club and finally here I am.

Since the hosts are kind enough to grant us five years to complete the challenge and which means I have time till 2027, I have selected books published till 1977. The books are those from my shelves (some of them lying there for more than three decades), downloaded on my kindle, or on my wish-list. Some are those that I had read an abridged version in my school days while a couple or so are re-reads. The list is a mixed bag comprising of novels, plays, shorter fiction, non-fiction, collection/ anthologies of short stories, essays etc.

I have prepared an extensive list because it has come to a point when I feel that if I do not read these books now, I’ll never be able to read them.

Here is the list:

Anonymous

Letters of an Indian Judge to an English Gentlewoman (1934)

Auchincloss, Louis

Portrait in Brownstone (17/10/23)

Baldry, H.C.

Greek Literature for the Modern Reader (1951)

Baum, Vicki

Berlin Hotel

Menschen im Hotel (Grand Hotel) (1930)

Stud. Chem. Helene Wilfuer (Helene) (24/11/23)

Bhattacharya, Bhabani

So Many Hungers (1978)

Bose, Buddhadeva

The Love Letter and Other Stories

It Rained All Night

My Kind of Girl

Bradbury, Ray

Fahrenheit 451 (1951)

‘Chanchal’, Mansaram Sharma

Punjab: Jeevan aur Sahitya (Punjab: Life and Literature) (1961)

Cheney, Peter

He Walked in Her Sleep (22/11/23)

Collins, Wilkie

The Moonstone (1868)

The Woman in White

Dandin

Dasa Kumar Charitam (Tales of the Ten Princes)

Das, Durga

India from Curzon to Nehru and After

Das, Lala Shrinivas

Pariksha Guru

de Montherlant, Henry

Le Chaos et la nuit (Chaos and Night) (1963)

de la Mare, Walter

Out of the Deep and other Supernatural Tales

Defoe, Daniel

Robinson Crusoe

Deighton, Len

Spy Story (1974)

Dickens, Charles

Our Mutual Friend

A Tale of Two Cities

Dinesen, Isak

Seven Gothic Tales

Dostoevsky, Fydor

Brat’ya Karamazovy (The Brothers Karamazov)

Dreiser, Theodore

Sister Carrie

Dumas, Alexandre

Les Trois Mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers)

Vingt ans après (Twenty Years After)

Eliot, George

The Lifted Veil

Enright, D. J.

Academic Year

Farrell, J.G.

The Singapore Grip

Troubles (1973)

Faulkner, William

Soldier’s Pay

Ford, Madox Ford

Portraits from Life

Forster, E.M.

Selections from E.M. Forster

Forsyth, Frederick

The Day of the Jackal (1971)

Gandhi, M.K.

My Experiments with Truth

Gaskell, Elizabeth

Gothic Tales

Greene, Graham

A Sort of Life

Golding, William

Lord of the Flies

Gupt, Manmathnath

Pratikriya (Reaction) (1961)

Gupt, Vinod

Jai Bangladesh (Hail Bangladesh)

Haggard, H. Rider

King Solomon’s Mines

Hall, Radclyffe

The Well of Loneliness

Harrison, Charles Yale

Generals Die in Bed

Heinlein, Robert A.

The Puppet Masters

Hemingway, Ernest

The Sun Also Rises

Henn, T.R.

The Harvest of Tragedy

Hersey, John

Hiroshima

Hilton, James

Contango

Random Harvest

Hosain, Attia

Sunlight on a Broken Coloumn

Howatch, Susan

The Waiting Sands (1966)

Hussein, Abdullah

Udhas Naslein (The Weary Generations)

Isherwood, Christopher

A Single Man (1964)

Izumi, Kyoka

Japanese Gothic Tales

In light of Shadows: More Gothic Tales

Johar, Surinder Singh

Lala Lajpat Rai Jeevni (Biography of Lala Lajpat Rai)

Johnson, Samuel

Life of Milton

Jonson, Ben

Every Man in His Humour

Joshi, Arun

The Strange Case of Billy Biswas

Joshi, Ilachandra

Sanyasi

Jussawalla, Adil (ed.)

New Writing in India

Khan, Khan Abdul Ghaffar

Atmakatha (Autobiography)

Knight, Eric

This Above All

Koeppen, Wolfgang

Das Treibhaus (The Hothouse)

Der Tod in Rom (Death in Rome)

Lawrence, Major H.M.L

Adventures of an Officer in The Panjaub (in two volumes) (1883)

Le Fanu, Sheridan

The Rose and the Key

Uncle Silas

The Wyvern Mystery

Lohia, Ram Manohar

Guilty men of India’s Partition

London, Jack

The Sea Wolf

Lucas, F.L.

Tragedy

Malgonkar, Manohar

Combat of Shadows (19 Oct. 2023)

Macdonell, A.G.

How Like an Angel

Machwe, Prabhakar (Translator)

Saat Yugoslav Kahaniyan (Seven Yugoslav Stories)

Mason, Richard

The Wind Cannot Read

Maugham, W. Somerset

Cakes and Ale (1930)

The Narrow Corner

Maurois, Andre

Byron

Mitra, Bimal

Shaheb, Bibi, Golam (Master, Mistress, and Slave)

Modiano, Patrick

La Place de L’Etiole +La Ronde de Nuit + Les boulevards de ceinture (The Occupation Trilogy) (31/7/23)

Nagarjun

Baba Batesarnath (1961)

Nayar, Kuldip

Between the Lines

Nemirovsky, Irene

Suite Francaise (1941)

Nichols, Beverley

The Star-Spangled Manner

Nizami, Khwaja Hasan

1857 ki Kahaniyan (Tales of 1857)

O’ Donnell

Modesty Blaise: Sabre-Tooth (1966)

O’ Donnell, James P. & Uwe Bahnsen

Die Katakombe (The Bunker)

Orwell, George

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

Inside the Whale and Other Essays

Paton, Alan

Debbie Go Home (1961)

Priestley, J.B.

Time and the Conways and Other Plays (1937-47)

Pushkin, Alexander

Povesti pokoynogo Ivana Petrovicha Belkina (Stories of Ivan Belkin)

Raghava, Rangeya

Murdo(n) ka Tila (The Plateau of Corpses)

Ranna

Gadayuddham (The Duel of the Maces)

Rattigan, Terence

The Winslow Boy

Remarque, Erich Maria

Arc de Triomphe (Arch of Triumph)

Der Weg zurück (The Road Back)

Liebe deinen Nächsten (Flotsam)

Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben (A Time to Love and a Time to Die)

Roche, Henri-Pierre

Jules and Jim

Rudel, Hans-Ulrich

Stuka Pilot

Russell, Ray

Sardonicus and Other Stories

Sadleir, Michael

These Foolish Things (1937)

Sahni, J.N.

Truth about the Indian Press

Sankrtiyayan, Rahul

Shaitan ki Aankh (Eye of Satan)

Shastri, Pandit Gangaram

Rai Kedarnath

Scott, Paul

The Corrida at San Feliu

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

The School for Scandal

Shute, Nevil

The Chequer Board (13/3/2024)

Slaughter, Frank G.

Epidemic

Stevenson, R.L.

The Wrecker

Sultanpuri, Shankar

Krantikari Subhas (Revolutionary Subhas)

Tagore, Rabindranath

Gora

Nauka Dubi (The Wreck)

Neerja

Taunsvi, Fikr

Chhata Darya (The Sixth River)

Thackary, William

Vanity Fair.

‘Tohna’, Sardar Yashwant Singh Verma

Arya Sangeet Ramayan

Trivedi, Ram Dulare

Kakori ke Diljale (The Sufferers of Kakori)

Trevelyan, Sir Otto

The Competition Wallah

Verma, Bhagwati Charan

Tedhe Medhe Raste (The Meandering Ways)

Verma, Nirmal

Lal Tin ki Chhat (Red Tin Roof) (1974)

Verne, Jules

Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea)

Voyage au centre de la Terre (A Journey to the Centre of the Earth)

Vishakdatt

Mudrarakshas

von Arnim, Elizabeth

Mr. Skeffington (1940)

Warner, Rex

Men and Gods

Wells, H.G.

The Island of Dr. Moreau

West, Rebecca

A Train of Powder (1955)

Westmacott, Mary

The Burden (1956)

Williams, Eric

The Tunnel

Williams, W.E. (Ed.)

A Book of English Essays

Zaheer, Sajjad

London ki ek Raat (A Night in London)

Zweig, Stefan

Vierundzwanzig Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau (Twenty-Four hours in the Life of a Woman)

*

Since this is a huge-huge project, I am starting it on the auspicious day of Maghi when Surya dev enters the Zodiac of Capricorn and begins his northward journey. May the Sun God continue to shine brightly on all of us.