May Classics

OK, new project!

Last night, it occurred to me: some month, I should only read classic works of literature. (I feel like I have a lot of those to catch up on; due to my lackluster high school English classes [I'm sorry, Mrs. Seuser, it was the textbooks, not you] I've missed out on reading many of the books "everybody" "should" read. I mean, I usually know enough about them to answer a related Trivial Pursuit question, but that's not the same.) And I realized, hey! Tomorrow is the start of a new month! Let's do this thing.

This decision has required commitment on my part, I just want you to know. I'm taking back to the library not one, not two, but three fairly awesome-sounding YA lit books, unread. (I've got to write a post about my newfound fascination with YA lit sometime. There's some good stuff for teens out there!) I'm also returning a couple edifying nonfiction works which, um, I'm sure would have been just as good. But now I've got those back on hold (but suspended, so they won't come back to me until June) so I can clear out my book space and head space for Classics of Literature.

The first (and, give that it is only one month and all, perhaps only) order of business is to read classics Neal and I have on our own shelves, but that I have never read. I'm most determined to read Great Expectations. I bought myself a copy of Great Expectations in maybe middle school, intending to Dickens it up, but I was never able to get through it, no matter how many times I tried. Here's the kicker: I found out, as I was writing this post right here, that I own an abridged version of Great Expectations. I didn't even make it through something two steps up from a Cliff's Notes! So in this case, I won't be reading what we have on our shelf, but rather a different copy of something we have on our shelf.

I think I'll start with Ivanhoe, another book I've tried and failed at in the past. At least my copy of that is unabridged. Other project books include:

Machiavelli's The Prince (which I should have read before I wrote my masters thesis, since it came up)

Gulliver's Travels

The Catcher in the Rye (although I'm not expecting it to be good, considering all the parodies of Salinger's writing style I've seen)

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Fahrenheit 451

The Inferno

Heart of Darkness

Slaughterhouse-Five

If I get through those, is there anything else I should target? Any "classics" that I really do need to read? (I also already had Dracula and The Jungle on my Goodreads to-read shelf, so I threw them on my classics-project shelf as well.) I want to do this thing up right!