Would anyone like to join me in a modern classics challenge for 2015?

[mmack]

This year I read some very good books but a lot of mediocre ones as well. So next year I plan to read 12 modern classics that I haven't read before. Would anyone be interested in doing something similar? Or in discussing any of the books with me? My list is below. It's a bit male-dominated but that's because I tend to read mostly female writers so the classics I haven't read are mostly by male writers.

1. Saul Bellow; Herzog 2. Martin Amis; Money 3. Truman Capote; In Cold Blood 4. John Updike; Rabbit, Run 5. Philip Roth; American Pastoral. 6. Kent Haruf; Plainsong 7. Kurt Vonnegut; Slaughterhouse 5 8. Iris Murdoch; The Sea, The Sea 9. Doris Lessing; The Golden Notebook 10. Margaret Atwood; The Handmaid's Tale 11. Ron Moody; The Ice-Storm 12. J.M. Coetzee; Disgrace.

Don't want to usurp the OP's role - but for myself I guess "modern" means anyone who has shared (or continues to share) the planet with at least one of my parents. Or whose clothes would not cause bemusement on a 21stC street.

I was ambivalent about plays (because they're not fiction on stage - not to me anyway,) but I am at least very likely to read them if nothing else. But I know when anyone else posts a list I will be and will want to destroy mine and start again.

Thank you zero.

That's workable criterion .

Out of interest, I'd be glad to hear of any suggestions from posters of books/authors they have read in this category and really urge upon others.

I've started compiling my list. So far I fancy reading or re-reading:

The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
Herzog, Saul Bellow
V., Thomas Pynchon
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume
The World According to Garp, John Updike
Rabbit, Run, John Updike
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin
Ulysses, James Joyce
Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow
A Book of Common Prayer, Joan Didion
The White Album, Joan Didion
The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
Cathedral, Raymond Carver
The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
Neuromancer, William Gibson
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
The Black Book, Orhan Pamuk
The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald
The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
The Women's Room, Marilyn French
A House for Mr Biswas, V S Naipaul

Also:

The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
Jamaica Inn, Daphne Du Maurier
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
Stoner, John Williams

My original list is mostly books published between 1950 and 1990 that I think I should have read by now. When I was a teenager I read pretty much everything in the local library which seems to have been heavily weighted towards early to mid 20th century writers. John Steinbeck was my favourite. From 1990 onwards I was living in the city and would have been aware of new books from browsing bookshops so I've read lots of very recent novels.
Bsshbosh, that's a mighty list. Are you planning all those for next year??? I have read Beloved, The Bell Jar, Wide Saragasso Sea, the Judy Blume one, Garp, A Confederacy of Dunces, Miss Jean Brodie. I'm not sure how well I remember them all though.

This year mmack I've read around 80 books so far so you never know... I read loads at night (hardly ever watch TV and DD still goes to bed early and DH often works late) and read fast.

Reading this thread and the books on the site that the OP linked to has made me realise how very little modern classics I've read. But that's going to change as of next year.

For Word and anyone else who's interested, these are the ones I highly recommend:

The Catcher in the Rye - J.D Salinger
Notes on a Scandal - Zoë Heller
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Lolita - Vladimir Nabakov
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
The Hours - Michael Cunningham

mmack - I've been meaning to read Updike and Bellow for years I've read In Cold Blood and The Handmaid's Tale already (and re-read them, they're classics for a reason ) and Disgrace. Will you PM us when it's time to discuss?

Am quickly place marking, but think it's a fab idea and will be back to sort out my list!

It's great that so many people are interested. For the people who want to read the same book I guess we could do something like start a thread for the book on the fourth Monday of the month. That would mean discussing In Cold Blood on 26th January. We could pick the second one to read then as well.

Some that I've read and would highly recommend are:
The Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath
Sophie's Choice-William Styron
The Catcher in the Rye-J.D. Salinger
Lolita-Vladimir Nabokov
We Need to Talk About Kevin-Lionel Shriver
The Bonfire of the Vanities-Tom Wolfe
Atonement-Ian McEwan
Unless-Carol Shields
A Thousand Acres-Jane Smiley
It's hard to pick just one Anne Tyler because they are all perfect.
Ditto Wally Lamb.
The Poisonwood Bible-Kingsolver

Southeastdweller, we have very similar taste. My sister and I were just discussing Notes on a Scandal. I lent it to her years ago because I really liked it but she thought the people in it were so awful that she couldn't get into it at all.

I think that Bonfire of the Vanities influenced a lot of writers-particularly crime writers. It would be a good Christmas book.

I'm still in. I'll buy In Cold Blood this weekend. Will also read some from the other lists posted and might add a couple of my own, but will pop back to make a list (I'm one of those ballet and gym parents who spends a lot of time waiting, reading and sewing outside classes every day, so I get through a lot of reading material and have been in need of inspiration).

I'd love to join. I've read quite a few on your list mmack and I'm also keen to avoid reading so many duds as I have in 2014! In Cold Blood it is.

My list:

Pale Fire/Despair - Vladimir Nabokov
Stoner - John Williams
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
American Pastoral - Philip Roth
We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
Money - Martin Amis
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
I Know This Much is True - Wally Lamb
The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler
We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson

They're my key ones and will think of others as I go. I'm aiming to read two a month as well as reading my usual modern fiction and biographies.

Would anyone else like to share their lists?

Oh - The Accidental Tourist is one of my absolute favourite films. I often find myself thinking about it at random moments. But I've never read the book so have no idea if all the richness comes from that or originated with the film.

I'd never heard of We Have Always Lived in The Castle - though I was vaguely aware of The Haunting of Hill House generally being at the top of lists of the scariest book ever.

Given that I spent a long-ago Easter holiday in my university room reading Agatha Christie, and took to checking under my bed and behind the bathroom door sick with fright, it's possible that Shirley Jackson may not be my ideal bedtime reading. But they look so intriguing.

I am ashamed to say that with the exception of Doris Lessing I haven't heard of any of these authors and I pride myself being well read. Obviously I am not as well read as I thought. I'm in I'm looking forward to this

Southeastdweller, you have 3 of my favourite books of all time on my list; East of Eden, We Need to Talk About Kevin and I Know this Much is True. It will be interesting to see if you love them too.
I haven't read Stoner or The Wasp Factory either but have been meaning to so I'm putting them on my list too.
I hadn't heard of We Have Always Lived in The Castle either but I love American Gothic so might have to steal that too.
Zero, The Accidental Tourist book is just as good as the film. It was that film that started me reading Anne Tyler.
I'm starting to loose track of the In Cold Blood people for January so I'll start the thread for us to check in. Hopefully this thread keeps going too-I'm enjoying the lists very much.

I'm absolutely in for this.

Stoner was my novel of 2014. At the moment I'm getting into Willa Cather and Rumer Godden - will check the lists properly once I'm on my laptop.

(We Have Always Lived In The Castle is absolutely wonderful)

For anyone who enjoyed Stoner, I've just finished Butchers Crossing and it's excellent - highly recommend. Same spare style to Stoner but a gripping story about a buffalo hunt (I know, sounds unlikely but it's great and a page turner).

Here's my list, not sure they all qualify as 'modern classics' but they are all books I've thought I ought to read, and never really got round to.

1. To Kill A Mockingbird
2. Farenheit 451
3. 1984
4. Ulysses
5. The Sun Also Rises
6. We have always lived in the castle
7. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
8. In Cold Blood
9. Stoner

10. The Handmaid's Tale 11. Midnight's Children 12. Infinite Jest

Oh I might join in with 'in cold blood' in January with everyone else. What's the original list?

Oh - your list is life-changing Clash. After Farenheit 451 you'll never, never watch the TV news without doing thisface.

The "original" list is in the OP's first post.

My hand keeps hovering over Buy Now for In Cold Blood. I lack courage.

Zero, I just found out that Metallica's One was based on Johnny Got His Gun. That has to be one of the best music videos ever made. I knew your list would be educational.
Buy In Cold Blood. You know you want to. And I will buy Johnny Got His Gun.

I would recommend Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - a brilliant novel set during the Biafran war, and Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga. Too many people never get beyond Achebe when looking for literature from Africa!