My To-Read List

This is going to be a different kind of post. I’m going to show you my to-read list. So, if you’re ever wondering about what to read next you can take a look on my list and have some ideas.

Mostly, I have the classics: I love the classic books and I want to take some time this summer to read the classics that I still haven’t read.

Here are ten classic books that are still on my to-read list.

1 - Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

“A lawyer’s advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee’s classic novel – a black man charged with the rape of a white girl.

Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man’s struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.”

2 - Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women

“Christmas won’t be the same this year for Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, as their father is away fighting un the Civil War, and the family has fallen on hard times.

But though they may be poor, life for the four March sisters is rich with colour, as they play games, put on wild theatricals, make new friends, argue, grapple with their vices, learn from their mistakes, nurse each other through sickness and disappointments, and get into all sorts of trouble.”

3 - Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita

“Humbert Humbert – scholar, aesthete and romantic – has fallen completely and utterly in love with Lolita Haze, his landlady’s gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts to look for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.”

4 - Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

“Ambitious, knowledge-hungry student Victor Frankenstein lights upon the secret of breathing life into inanimate objects. After gathering a collection of body parts, he embarks on a macabre construction exercise, endowing the fruits of his labours with the life force. Having succeeded in his aim, Frankenstein recoils in horror at the “demoniacal corpse” he had created.

He abandons the monster, who inspires fear in those he meets. Craving acceptance and affection but facing unrelenting rejection, the monster wreaks his revenge on his creator, who finds that playing God is a dangerous game; that with power comes responsibility.”

5 - Virginia Wolf’s To The Lighthouse

"When Mrs Ramsay tells her guests at her summer house on the Isle of Skye that they will be able to visit the nearby lighthouse the following day, little does she know that this trip will only be completed ten years later by her husband and that the gulf of war, grief and loss will have opened in the meantime. As each character tries to readjust their memories and emotions with the shifts of time and reality, this long-delayed excursion will also prove to be a journey of a self-discovery and fulfilment for them.”

6 - Ernest Hemingway’s True at First Light

“Written when Hemingway returned from his 1953 safari in Africa, and edited by his son Patrick, True at First Light is a rich blend of autobiography and fiction, a breath-taking final work from one of the twentieth century’s most beloved and important writers.

The book opens on the day Hemingway’s close friend Pop, a legendary hunter, leaves him in charge of the camp. Tensions have heightened among the various tribes and news arrives of a potential attack on the hunters, forcing Hemingway not only to take on his new role as leader, but, equally important, to assist his wife Mary in pursuing the great lion she is determined to kill before Christmas. Passionately detailing the African landscape, the excitement of the chase, and the heartfelt relationships with his African neighbours, Hemingway weaves a tale that is rich in laughter, beauty and insight.”

7 - Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

“Set in 1482, Victor Hugo’s powerful novel of ‘imagination, caprice and fantasy’ is a meditation on love, fate, architecture and politics, as well as a compelling recreation of the medieval world at the dawn of the modern age.

In a brilliant reworking of the tale of Beauty and the Beast, Hugo creates a host of unforgettable characters – amongst them, Quasimodo, the hunchback of the title, hopelessly in love with the gypsy girl Esmeralda, the satanic priest Claude Frollo, Clopin Trouillefou, king of the beggars, and Louis XI, King of France. Over the entire novel, both literally and symbolically, broods the Cathedral of Notre-Dame.

Vivid characters and memorable set-piece action scenes combine to bring the past to life in this story of love, lust betrayal, doom and redemption.”

8 - Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights

“Set on the bleak moors of Yorkshire, Lockwood is forced to seek shelter at Wuthering Heights, the home of his new landlord, Heathcliff. The intense and wildly passionate Heathcliff tells the story of his life, his all-consuming love for Catherine Earnshaw and the doomed outcome of that relationship, leading to his revenge. Poetic, complex and grand in its scope, Emily Bronte's masterpiece is considered one of the most unique gothic novels of its time.”

9 – Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina

“Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina has moved and enthralled millions since it first appeared a century ago.

The story of Anna, her loveless marriage, her adulterous passion and her final downfall – set against a vivid canvas of Russian life – has a timeless appeal and an enduring popularity second only to Tolstoy’s mighty War and Peace.

10 - Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

"When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows the folly of judging by first impressions and superbly evokes the friendships, gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life."