Earlier this week, I shared a post with my list of books for the newest Classics Club Spin challenge (see it here), and today, this spin’s number was announced. (For those keeping track, it’s CC Spin #32, and for me personally, #4!)
Hosted by The Classics Club blog, the Classics Club Spin is a reading adventure where participants come up with a list of classics they’d like to read, number them 1 to 20, and then read the book that corresponds to the “spin” number that comes up.
For CCSpin #32, the lucky number is:
And that means I’ll be reading:
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather (published 1913)
Synopsis:
O Pioneers! (1913) was Willa Cather’s first great novel, and to many it remains her unchallenged masterpiece. No other work of fiction so faithfully conveys both the sharp physical realities and the mythic sweep of the transformation of the American frontier—and the transformation of the people who settled it. Cather’s heroine is Alexandra Bergson, who arrives on the wind-blasted prairie of Hanover, Nebraska, as a girl and grows up to make it a prosperous farm. But this archetypal success story is darkened by loss, and Alexandra’s devotion to the land may come at the cost of love itself.
At once a sophisticated pastoral and a prototype for later feminist novels, O Pioneers! is a work in which triumph is inextricably enmeshed with tragedy, a story of people who do not claim a land so much as they submit to it and, in the process, become greater than they were.
I’m excited for this one! I read My Antonia many years ago, but haven’t read anything else by Willa Cather, and I actually have a few of her books on my (never-ending) to-read list.
O Pioneers! is relatively short (just 159 pages), so I may wait until early January to get started. The target date for finishing is January 29th, 2023, so I should be in really good shape.
It turns out that this is my third American classic in a row for my CCSpin books. That’s okay… but I may need to revise my list to try to broaden the selections a bit more before the next spin comes along.
What do you think of my newest spin book?
Here’s my list of 20 titles for Classics Club Spin #32:
- Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne DuMaurier
- Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
- An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- Peony by Pearl Buck
- O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
- Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
- Howards End by E. M. Forster
- The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
- Foundation by Isaac Asimov
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
- Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
- Passing by Nella Larsen
- The Awakening by Kate Chopin
- The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima
- Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Porter
My previous Classics Club Spin books:
Are you participating in this Classics Club Spin? If so, what book will you be reading?
Bookshelf Fantasies 
Hi Lisa – this sounds fun! I enjoyed your list. I’ve only read 3 of them, all excellent. In Cold Blood , The Awakening and The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Interestingly, I just added The Painted Veil to my list because my work friend just read it and recommended it. Hope you are doing well 🙂
I’m looking forward to all of those! I think I actually read The Awakening for a women’s studies class back in college, but I don’t remember anything about it. I’ve been having so much fun with these. It’s a great prompt for me to make time to break away from contemporary fiction from time to time and push myself to read something else!
Wow! Your list is great! I love Daphne Du Maurer and named one of my hamsters after her 😃 I also have all of her books. I read O Pioneers in college for one of my classes, and I found it very enjoyable! I hope you do as well! Thank you for sharing 😃
I’ve been waiting for the spin to land on Daphne Du Maurier since I started participating! 🙂 I may just have to go ahead on my own — I have a bunch of her books on my shelf that I’d love to read. I’m excited for O Pioneers — thanks for the good wishes!
I love that! Jamaica Inn is my favorite Daphne Du Maurer novel. If you have it, you have to read it eventually! I gave it 5 of 5 stars. You’re very welcome, and happy holidays too 😊🥰
I have a copy of Jamaica Inn, and definitely look forward to reading it. Thanks for the recommendation! Happy holidays!!
Yay! You’re very welcome 😊
I do like the sound of this. Maybe I’ll pick up a copy for the next CCSpin… or… if it doesn’t get picked, I could read it for Novellas in November as well!
I read My Antonia ages ago and remember really liking it, so I’ve been meaning to read more by this author — all in all, quite pleased with my spin results!
Oh cool, I hope you enjoy it! I haven’t read it myself but I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Thanks! This has been on my to-read list for years, so I’m glad for the prompt to finally do it!
I had to read O! Pioneers two or three times for school (that’s what comes of being from Nebraska). Overall, I enjoy the book and its description of the landscapes and the people, though there is a bit at the end that has come to sour my appreciation of the whole thing, though I’d say it is still worth reading for the descriptions of the prairie alone.
Great to know. Isn’t it funny how where we grow up in some defines what we read? I know I must have read The Witch of Blackbird Pond (which I loved) at least two or three times while growing up in Connecticut.
Teachers must look out for books that happen in the area they teach in. I think it’s a good way to bring kids closer to literature.
Totally agree — I just find it amusing to see what books people experience during their school years in relation to their geography.