Classics Club Spin #8

Oh, no.  When I saw it was spin time at the Classics Club, I stopped breathing. I'm swamped beneath a pile of books for online book groups AND courses. For one course, I'm actually required to read Dante's Inferno and Vita Nuova three times in six weeks!  Help!  So the sane thing to do would be to let this spin pass, right?  ........ Are you kidding?  I wouldn't miss it!

For my last spin I finished The Importance of Being Earnest (review still in progress) and Moonlight Readers spin book, Summer by Edith Wharton.  This time I'm not going to be attempting double spins, I promise!

As per usual, the rules for the spin are:

1. Go to your blog.
2. Pick twenty books that you've got left to read from your Classics Club list.
3. Post that list, numbered 1 - 20, on your blog by next Monday.
4. Monday morning, we'll announce a number from 1 - 20.  Go to the list of twenty books you posted and select the book that corresponds to the number we announce.
5. The challenge is to read that book by October 6th.

I used the random list organizer here to choose the 20 books from my master list.  So my list ended up looking like this:

1. Ivanhoe (1820) - Sir Walter Scott
2. Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son (1894) - Sholem Aleichem
3. Twenty Years After (1845) - Alexandre Dumas
4. Tom Sawyer (1876) - Mark Twain
5. King Lear (1603 - 1606) - William Shakespeare
6. 1984 (1949) - George Orwell
7. Bondage of the Will (1525) - Martin Luther
8. Henry V (1599) - William Shakespeare
9. The Cherry Orchard (1904) - Anton Chekhov
10. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) - Victor Hugo
11. Hamlet (1603 - 1604) - William Shakespeare
12. Pensées (1669) - Blaise Pascal
13. Gulliver's Travels (1726) - Jonathan Swift
14. The Time Machine (1895) - H.G. Wells
15. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860) - Jacob Burckhardt
16. Dead Souls (1842) - Nikolai Gogol
17. Animal Farm (1945) - George Orwell
18. L'Argent (1891) - Emile Zola
19. The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) - Sigmund Freud
20. The Prince (1513) - Niccolo Machiavelli

Five Books I'm Hesitant to Read

1.  The Interpretation of Dreams - Sigmund Freud (uh, why did I include this
           on my list???)

2.  The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli (but it's short so that's not too bad)
3.  Ivanhoe - Walter Scott (only because it's so long)
4.  ------
5.  ------

Five Books I Can't Wait to Read

1.  Ivanhoe - Walter Scott (I've been wanting to read it for ages!)

2.  L'Argent - Émile Zola (I can't wait to visit Zola again)

3.  The Cherry Orchard - Anton Chekhov (I think I'm hooked on Russian lit)

4.  Tevye the Dairyman and Moti the Cantor's Son - Sholem Aleichem
           (looks like fun)
5.  King Lear - William Shakespeare (loved it the first time, what about the
            second?)

This list is a fantastic draw.  My only concern is the length of the book chosen. Reading anything extra in November is impossible, so that will only leave me one month to finish.  Ivanhoe, as much as I'm dying to read it, is probably not the best choice.

So now all I have to do is hold my breath, cross my fingers and wait.

Are you excited about this spin?  Which titles do you hope to see chosen?