Birthday Through Birthday Challenge

I know this is a lot to read but bear with me. You'll get your fun in the end!

Last summer I got a whole lot of free classics from Amazon thinking I'd read them over the summer, I even created a blog - "My Summer Classics". Since I tend to never stick to my reading lists you can guess how that worked out? Yeah, not no good. Not at all in fact. I read whopping one and a half classics. The one i finished being Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, which was actually really good. I think it was a fitting level for a classics virgin, since it's aimed for small children.

Then there was the two classics my Swedish/English teacher forced on me during my junior year in High School - Doktor Glas (Doctor Glass) by Hjalmar Söderberg and Therésè Raquin by Émile Zola. Not so great experiences. That's three in total. I've read all of three classics in my life. Not really something to brag about.

I want to be able to say I have read Huckleberry Finn, Pride and Prejudice, Don Quixote, How to Kill a Mockingbird and a lot of other big titles. I really do want that, but classics scare me to death. I mean, they're classics for a reason and have this huge literary value and it's like you're supposed to love them. Not to mention most of them were written ages ago in an English I can barely read.

I just don't know if I'm capable of understanding what they're trying to say and grasp their ginormousness. And what if I don't like them? Either there's something seriously wrong with me or maybe I'm just stupid. None of which sounds very appealing. But I'm taking the leap!

Since My Summer Classics didn't work out I'm doing another try by adding The Birthday Through Birthday Challenge. For those of you who don't know I'm turning 22 on December 1st (Yay!) and that'll be the starting point for this challenge. I'm giving myself a year to finish 20 classics that you'll help me choose! (More on that further down)

Not all the classics I read will be reviewed, some because they're crazy far outside of my comfort zone and I simply don't know how to review them and some because I just won't be able to wrap my head around them. I'll always let you know when I've made progress in the challenge but it might be more of a "this is what I've read since last time"-kind of style than an actual review. Hope you don't mind.

Now, to the fun stuff!

I have a very limited knowledge of classics. I recognize a few titles and authors but I have no idea whether they're any good or even something I could possibly handle without an English lit degree. That's why I thought I'd use YOU, my trusted readers, to figure this out. I made a poll where you can vote either for books you've read and liked, one you've heard good things about or simply one you want me to try out so you know if you should try it yourself. If you for any reason want me to read one of these books, vote for it!

Below you'll find a list of 40 classics that I could imagine myself reading. They're sorted by the authors' last names and you can vote for as many as you like or add your own suggestion if what you're looking for isn't on the list. Out of these 40 and any interesting sounding suggestions I'll choose the 20 that I'm going read during the year. Help me out, because I'm as lost as a rabbit in the jungle.



[polldaddy poll="7425324"]



The poll will close November 24th, 23:59/11:59PM, GMT +1.

The poll above, to the right and on Facebook will show two different results, above and Facebook will be the same. It was necessary if I wanted to have two different widths on them, which I needed, but of course I'll count the total number on votes on both polls before I choose my 20 classics.