Classics Challenge

Trish from Trish's Reading Nook is organising and hosting a fabulous-sounding challenge - the Classics Challenge. There are several options to choose from - I chose to read 5 classics from at least 3 different countries, from jUly to December 2008. Whereas my choices are already on other lists meant for this year, this is actually quite a hard challenge for me. Aside from one, my choices are ones that I myself consider heavy and am a bit scared to start. Not to mention that two of them are whoppers and only the Gods can know how long it'll take me to get through them! But hey, that's why we call them challenges, eh?

Completed: ALL as of 20 November 2008

My five are:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Russia)
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (England)
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (Ireland)
Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (Poland)
Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne (England)
edited to add other books to this list...
The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery (Canada)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (United States)
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (Canada)

Trish has added something really cool for a sixth book to be read as part of the challenge - participants offer suggestions of books that they think should become classics in the future and we're expected to read one of those too!

I think that David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas should and will become a classic. It's structure is (almost) unique, the six stories the book consists of are written in completely different styles, and the storylines are engaging. Plus it shows a lot about how our world is progressing, what's important to the present generation and we think will be important in the future. I am convinced that it will stand the test of time.

There are already many recommendations for the sixth book on the challenge blog. I don't think I'll have a problem adding one, I think I'll have a problem choosing as I can already see several that I've been wanting to read for ages! It'll be one of the following:
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson
Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Giver by Lois Lowry

Or maybe I'll manage to read all of these! ;-)