It’s been a long time coming, but at the ripe old age of 53 (actually I started when I was still 52 but it took a while to get really motivated) I decided that my life would be better if I read more classic literature.
I have long had a love of reading but like many of us I suspect, I didn’t really make the time in between less developmental activities such as watching TV. However as the shows on offer became less and less interesting, as the news became more partisan, as politics became more “nervous breakdown” inducing, I decided that I should dedicate more time to reading, and specifically, break from my habit of consuming non-fiction and try some of the classics of human achievement that is, classical literature.
So where to begin?
Classics are in the eye of the beholder to a large extent and I spent some time perusing lists online and of course, there is no definitive answer to what makes a classic, and even less consensus as to what the “100 greatest works” list would comprise.
So I started with books I had always meant to get to and had been put off since my school days. The first was Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens. I was immediately hooked by the prose, the humor, the social satire and I knew this was a path I wanted to follow before I became too much older!
However I wanted to plot a path through the great works and I came across the following website which is the source of the books that I have set myself to read: The Greatest Books.org
This list actually changes as it is compiled from 116 other lists of the great and the good so there is always some movement especially within the top 100 but as a snapshot in time, this will suffice for my purposes.
So the plan is to work through the top 100. No time scale, no particular order but the list will provide a framework for the next few years most likely. The plan is to share the journey, and some insights that hopefully come up along the way. Many people don’t read anymore and I think that’s a shame, hopefully some will be inspired to get back between the pages of a great book.
Here we go…..