2025 What classics are you reading?

Thought I would get the ball rolling for 2025.

I read the following classics in January:

Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens (1838), a re-read on audiobook
Persuasion, Jane Austen (1817), a re-read on audiobook, to kick off the 250th anniversary year of Austen's birth
Lady Susan, Jane Austen (1871, publ post), a re-read on audiobook
A Shropshire Lad, A. E. Housman (1896)
A Happy Prince and Other Stories, Oscar Wilde (1892), stories

Modern classics
Rhododendron Pie, Margery Sharp (1930)
Green For Danger, Christianna Brand (1944)
O, the Brave Music, Dorothy Evelyn Smith (1943)

>1 kac522: Well done you! I’m reading Hard Times and Lark Rise to Candleford. And have started a project to make my way through The Canterbury Tales.

>2 PawsforThought: I love Lark Rise to Candleford--due for a re-read one of these days. Will be interested to hear your thoughts on Hard Times. I've never tackled Chaucer--good luck to you!

I'm currently reading the Italian classic The Betrothed and am absolutely loving it.

>4 lilisin: I especially enjoyed the historical events in The Betrothed, particularly the plague descriptions. Which translation are you reading?

Side note: when my American son got married in Milan to his Italian wife, the magistrate gave him a copy of The Betrothed. My daughter-in-law said it was a standard classic that it was required reading in secondary school.

>5 kac522:
I'm reading the Bruce Penman translation via Penguin Classics.

>6 lilisin: That's the one I primarily read, too. There's a newer translation (2022) by Michael F. Moore. This recent edition has an introduction by Jhumpa Lahiri, a detailed map of the area, a description of the real historical characters and a short description of the historical events referred to in the book. Personally I preferred the older Penman translation, but the additional materials in the new Moore translation were invaluable. Here's a link to that newer edition:

https://www.librarything.com/work/83327/book/280492382

I had access to a library copy and I found it very helpful.

I’m working on Little Dorrit, The Best of Ambrose Bierce, and The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway.

>8 varielle: Little Dorrit is one of my all-time favorites.

Classics read in February:
Northanger Abbey: Norton Critical Edition, Jane Austen (1817); a re-read
Phineas Redux, Anthony Trollope (1873); a re-read on audiobook

Modern classics (1900 -1950)
The Glimpses of the Moon, Edith Wharton (1922)
The Dreaming Child and Other Stories, Isak Dinesen (orig publ 1942)
Chatterton Square, E. H. Young (1947)

Earlier this year, I read through "The Fall of the Roman Republic" by Plutarch.
I'm currently reading through "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair.

Classics read in March:
Is He Popenjoy?, Anthony Trollope (1878)
The Curate in Charge, Margaret Oliphant (1875)
Selected Stories (Signet Classical Books), Anton Chekhov (stories originally published in the 1880s)

Modern classics (1900 -1950)
Remembered Death, Agatha Christie (1943)
Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary, Ruby Ferguson (1937)
Never No More, Maura Laverty (1942)
Peony, Pearl S. Buck (1948)

Finally starting on a longread of Confessions of an Italian by Ippolito Nievo, (translated by Frederika Randall). Uff. 800+ pages.

I've been reading some (short) Russian classics in March, for The Grand European Tour:
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denosovich
Eugene Onegin
White Nights
Notes from Underground
The Overcoat

Also some Nordic classics for February:
Peer Gynt
Jeppe på berget
Hemsöborna

April will be focused on the Ancient Greeks so I have Euripides, Aischylos and Sophocles lined up.

I just finished rereading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in preparation for reading James. My comments on Mark Twain's classic are on my Club Read thread.

Here are the classics I read in April and May:

The Europeans, Henry James (1878)
The Prime Minister, Anthony Trollope (1876)
The Spoils of Poynton, Henry James (1896)
Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling (1897)
Mansfield Park, Jane Austen (1814)

Some modern classics (1900-1950):

The Hollow, Agatha Christie (1946)
Cluny Brown, Margery Sharp (1944)
William - An Englishman, Cecily Hamilton (1919)
They Knew Mr Knight, Dorothy Whipple (1934)
The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, Edith Holden (1906)
Arrest the Bishop?, Winifred Peck (1949)
The Old Country: Collected Stories of Sholom Aleichem, collected and translated in 1946 by Frances & Julius Butwin

I'm currently reading through A Collection of Essays by George Orwell.

I just finished Die Reliquie by Eça de Queiroz, and found this unexpectedly entertaining.

I read a boatload of Greek dramas in April, which then spilled over into May. June is Tudor & Jacobean month in the BAC so right now I'm trying to make my way (very slowly) through The Faerie Queene and hopefully I'll have time for some more after that.
It's also Italian and Latin month in the Grand European Tour so I'm reading Umberto Eco and will continue with The Leopard and The Prince (need some short reads!) and hopefully also The Aeneid and/or Metamorphoses.

The Greek dramas I read were:
The Persians - Aischylos
Seven Against Thebes - Aischylos
The Suppliants - Aischylos
Agamemnon - Aischylos
The Libation Bearers - Aischylos
The Eumenides - Aischylos
Prometheus Bound - Aischylos
Antigone - Sophocles
Oedipus Rex - Sophocles
Electra - Sophocles
Philoctetes - Sophocles
Oedipus at Colonus - Sophocles
Ajax - Sophocles
The Women of Trachis - Sophocles
Alcestis - Euripides
Hippolytus - Euripides
The Phoenician Women - Euripides
The Suppliant Women - Euripides
Herakles - Euripides
Ion - Euripides
Iphigenia in Aulis - Euripides
Iphigenia in Tauris - Euripides
Orestes - Euripides
Bacchae - Euripides
Medea - Euripides
Helen - Euripides
The Trojan Women - Euripides

I also finished Dickens' Hard Times.

If that was my reading list, all I'd have time to do in one month is read the titles.

>20 Cecrow: The Greek dramas are pretty short and quick to read. I think only one of them was over 100 pages.

The reading I have planned for June is a bit more challenging. Multiple 500+ page books is frankly poor planning of me, but in my defence I didn’t realise they were that long until I checked them out from the library, and I do go on vacation fairly soon so will have oodles more time to read then I do now, with work and commuting.

and further it goes, slowly, slowly, in Homer's Odyssey, Book 9, translating bit for bit. Odysseus just told Alcinous and his entourage how he and his friends, locked in in the Cyclops' cave, cut and sharpened a pole, hardened it in the fire and hid it away under the dung on the flour, ready to be used by those chosen by lot once the sweet sleep has come to Cyclops ...

The Count of Montecristo
Now reading The Once and Future King

Most of the way through Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone. Interesting bridge between gothic and mystery fiction, I'd never associated the two in my mind before.

I finished reading A Collection of Essays a few weeks ago. I thought it was very interesting and thought provoking.
I started reading through Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville.

Reading Lord Jim by Conrad. It vould be an interesting exercise to compare and contrast with Crime and Punishment.

Only a few finished this month:

Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell (1866)
Howards End, E. M. Forster (1910), a re-read
God and My Father and Life with Father, Clarence Day (1935)

Still plugging along in:

The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox (1752)
The Duke's Children, Anthony Trollope (1880) a re-read on audio
Life with Mother and This Simian World, Clarence Day

I'm currently reading John Dryden: The Major Works for no particular reason. I recall enjoying Dryden in undergraduate school, despite not being wild about mounds of heroic couplets.

This particular volume is problematic because (IMHO) it doesn't include enough of Dryden's excellent prose, and has NONE of his plays (!). It should at least have his Antony and Cleopatra play All for Love.

As an intro I read Mark Van Doren's Dryden: A Study of His Poetry and can recommend it.

Finally translated the end of book nine of the Odyssey, with the enraged Cyclops hurling curses and rocks (described in each aspect, kind of of in slow motion) as Odysseus and his remaining comrades in their swift ship make a lucky escape. Great read.

Reading Cranford, which at first felt disappointing next to Gaskell's North and South but it's getting better.

I've just finished Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourncenar and enjoyed it, though it is a bit slow in parts. It's included in the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list, so I guess would be considered a modern classic. My review is on my Club Read thread.

I spent most of June with The Name of the Rose and The Faerie Queene, and didn’t really have time for much else.

I’ve also read Machiavelli’s The Prince, Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus and di Lampedusa’s The Leopard lately.

Currently making my way through Virgil’s The Aeneid and The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (the complete version).

Just worked through the seventh Homeric Hymn, which tells about Dionysus' wondrous encounter with the pirates.

Classics I read in July:

The Sorrows of Young Werther, J. W. von Goethe (1774)
Evelina, Fanny Burney (1778)
The history of England by a partial, prejudiced & ignorant historian, Jane Austen (1791)
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (1813); re-read on audiobook
Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy (1872); re-read on audiobook
The Duke's Children, Anthony Trollope (1880); a re-read on audiobook
The Christmas Hirelings, Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1895)

Modern classics (before 1950):
The Best of Clarence Day, Clarence Day (1948)
Anne of Windy Poplars, L. M. Montgomery (1936)

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Lord Byron

I've started reading Herodotus' Histories and plan to take a reading course this winter that covers books 1 and 2. It's refreshing to follow his clear train of thought, even if his sentences are more complex than Homer's.

>36 Buchmerkur:, loved his description of a hippopotamus.

Only 1 true classic read in August:

A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy (1873)

...and a few modern classic (pre-1950) titles:

Cards on the Table, Agatha Christie (1936)
Nothing Venture, Patricia Wentworth (1932)
The Priory, Dorothy Whipple (1939)

Classics I read in September:

Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome (1889), re-read
New York Revisited, Henry James (1906)
The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox (1752)
Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy (1874), re-read

Modern Classics (before 1950)

Business as Usual, Jane Oliver & Anne Stafford (1933
Heaven's My Destination, Thornton Wilder (1934)
The Fortnight in September, R. C. Sherriff (1931), re-read

I am very close to finishing Zola's Au Bonheur des Dames (Ladies' Paradise) and my next big read will be Alexandre Dumas' La Reine Margot. For my short read to read during my work lunch I will be starting Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in a Castle today in time for October vibes.

I'm reading Silas Marner for my book club. I'm about a third of the way through and not really loving it that much, but I'm assuming I'm going to get with the program sometime soon.

I am working through Part 3 of Montaigne's Essays with a group on Zoom.

I have just finished Nightmare Abbey by T L Peacock and found this highly entertaining.

Have started Mansfield Park, after reading Penguin's long and lengthy introduction which I believe has spoiled pretty much everything about it. Always unsure if I should do that, but it does make thing jump out at me along the way that I'm sure I would have overlooked.

I focused on Victorian works in October, so a good list this month:

The Children of the New Forest, Frederick Marryat (1847), a classic children's historical fiction adventure story set during the English Civil War
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (1847), a many times re-read on audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson
Memoir of Jane Austen, James Austen-Leigh (1870), a biography of Austen by her nephew
The Hand of Ethelberta, Thomas Hardy (1876), part of my Hardy novel reading in chronological order
Dr Wortle's School, Anthony Trollope (1881), a short Trollope, toward my goal of reading all 47 of his novels
Red Pottage, Mary Cholmondeley (1899), a "New Woman" novel

Two "ghostly" Victorian short stories:
"The Canterville Ghost", Oscar Wilde (1891) and "The Library Window", Margaret Oliphant (1896)

And one non-Victorian from the 19th century:
The Black Tulip, Alexandre Dumas (1850), historical fiction set during "tulipomania"--an enjoyable short Dumas (288 pages)

Modern classic:
And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie (1939), my favorite Christie, a re-read on audiobook, expertly read by Dan Stevens

If time permits today, I may sneak in the play A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde (1893).

I've recently reread Jane Austen's Emma. Sadly, I didn't enjoy it this time anywhere nearly as much as I enjoyed my first reading, somewhere around 40 years ago. C'est la vie!

Cold Comfort Farm isn't the hilarious ride its cover promises, but it does hint enough about the nature of its target that the satire still works. Having fun with it.

I finished off my 3-year project of gradually reading through the 100 stories of The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. Some were more amusing than others, but all in all I'm glad I read the work.

>48 rocketjk:, I thought there were only maybe half a dozen in the 100 that deserved to actually stand the test of time, although some others were ... memorable.

>49 Cecrow: I know what you mean. But on the other hand, there's something about the depth and breadth of the full 100-story volume that is valuable as a whole for the satirical look it gives into the world Boccaccio was describing. But, yes, I can see why you'd say that only a relative few hold up as stories worth reading in their own right, though I think maybe I'd put the number somewhat higher than six.

>48 rocketjk: Congrats on finishing your project--well done!

Classics read in November:

The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy (1878)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, William Shakespeare (first published 1623)
Nazarin, Benito Perez Galdos (1895); translated from the Spanish by Jo Labanyi

Modern classics (pre-1950)

Greengates, R. C. Sherriff (1936)
The Labors of Hercules, Agatha Christie (1947)
Crooked House, Agatha Christie (1949)

>48 rocketjk: Wow, that’s a real feat! That one is still on my TBR, but I hope to get to it within the next few years. I’ll probably do it similarly to you and let it take time.

>52 kac522: Nice! That’s a Shakespeare I’m wholly unfamiliar with and I’ve not yet dared to read any Hardy.
Both of the Christies are ones I’ve read and enjoyed.

>53 PawsforThought: I only had heard of the title of that play, but nothing else. I read it for my RL book club--we traditionally do a Shakespeare in November. Apparently it's thought to be one of his earliest plays, but not published until 1623. I had a hard time finding a production of it to view, but finally found a 1980s BBC TV production on DVD at my library. It has some issues, especially at the end, but there are some very funny bits.

I'm participating in an online reading of all of Hardy's 14 novels in publication order. I'd read about half of his novels back in the 1980s, but have forgotten a lot, so it's good to refresh old ones and read the lesser known ones. Reading them in order also helps one go from the least miserable to work yourself up to the most miserable (Jude the Obscure). December's book is The Trumpet-Major, which is new to me. It is Hardy's only historical fiction, set during the Napoleonic wars and per our online host, very low on the misery scale.

>51 kac522: and >53 PawsforThought: Thanks! I can't say I consider it a great feat, though it did take some stick-to-itiveness. Anyway, whatever words you want to use for it, I appreciate the back slaps!

I guess Sir Walter Scott's "Waverly Novels" are considered classics, in the sense, anyway, that they are still being read 200 years after their publication dates. They are entertaining enough, though far from "classic literature" in terms of their content matter or thematic concerns. Be that as it may, I've read and enjoyed Scott's The Betrothed.

I finished my umpteenth reread of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which I still very much admire. My thoughts on this reading are up on my Club Read thread.

Classics read in December, with several re-reads:

The Annotated Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen (1811); annotated by David M. Shapard, with a full page of annotations for every page of text. I listened to the novel (a re-read) on audio and read the annotations (new to me) after each day's listening session.
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (1843); an annual re-read
A Merry Christmas and Other Christmas Stories, L. M. Alcott (1875); short stories
The Trumpet-Major, Thomas Hardy (1880)
Christmas at Thompson Hall and Other Stories, Anthony Trollope (short stories: earliest 1866, latest 1882); an annual re-read

Modern Classic:
Anne's House of Dreams, L. M. Montgomery (1917)

I've started a 2026 thread here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/377256#n9058519

Let us know what you're reading in 2026.