What is Ye Olde Book Club?
My consistent challenge that I try to maintain with Darkcargo is to ask readers to continue to pick up other genres, and especially those older books that have won like them Pullitzer Prize-ums and stuff like that. 
It’s important to me to continue to read what is globally considered to be the best in fiction in order to better understand my favorite genre (SF/F).
This Choose Your Own Adventure this year. Maybe you’ll read one. Maybe you’ll read 12. Maybe you’ll hate all of them, maybe you’ll never read SF/F again. I dunno, it’s your challenge this year. You tell me!
I’ve put a page up here on Darkcargo listing those bloggers who think they might enjoy doing this, plus their suggested titles. I like the titles list because it gives us ideas of what might be enjoyable to read.
Elizabeth at Darkcargo:
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, The Mabmo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos , White Teeth by Zadie Smith, Grimus by Salman Rushdie, The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson, The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela, The Buru Quartet by Pramoedya Ananta Toer.
Here’s my list for YOBC: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, Sr., The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas, Sr., The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, Sr., Lolita by Vladimir Nobokov, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, The Pearl by John Steinbeck
The Scarlet Pimpernel surprised me, I liked it. It was fun to read with the idea that this sort of novel was totally the equivalent of Prime Time sensational TV.
You haven’t read The Diary of Anne Frank?
I haven’t read any of the books on this list. Shocking, I know. And while Diary of Anne Frank isn’t fiction, I really feel that it is a classic and I would gain something from reading it. I am very excited about this list.
Well, I was in two minds about reading Les Miserables – it is a rather huge book though so we’ll see how I get on.
Lynn
Grant read that last year and he reported that it took quite a while, but overall worth it. Shall I add you to the list on the page?
Yes please. I will definitely read some classics this year – planning on either 20,000 Leagues or Jekyll and Hyde for Vintage sci fi.
Lynn
In keeping with my adopted persona, I can recommend some Japanese literature. Carl already mentioned Murakami Haruki, who I love, but for “classics,” I particularly enjoy Tanizaki Junichiro. Kawabata Yasunari’s Thousand Cranes and Oe Kenzaburo’s Quite Life were Nobel prize winners that I liked. I’m less enamored with Mishima, though my opinion of his writing is likely colored by my disdain for his politics.
For SF, one of my goals this year is to read The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, by Tsutsui Yasutaka. It is available in English and there are a couple of movie versions as well.