Category: Classics Club

And the Winner is…

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The Classics Club announced the Spin number yesterday:

3

Which means I’ll be reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.  I’ve been wanting to read it for awhile, but I’ve been putting it off in the hopes of reading it for RIP.  I honestly don’t know if I will finish it since I’ve been an extremely moody reader lately.  I’m also in the middle of several other books.  I’ll try though because I have just a little more than a year to finish the 50 book challenge.

  1. Kafka, Franz: The Trial
  2. Lawrence, D.H.: Lady Chatterley’s Lover
  3. Du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
  4. Barrie, J.M.: Peter Pan
  5. Beckett, Samuel: Waiting for Godot
  6. Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front
  7.  Melville, Herman: Moby Dick
  8. Bronte, Anne: Agnes Grey
  9. Proust, Marcel: Swann’s Way
  10. Gogol, Nikolay: Dead Souls
  11. Eliot, George: Middlemarch
  12. Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter
  13. Heller, Joseph: Catch-22
  14. Hemingway, Ernest: A Farewell to Arms
  15. Cooper, James Fenimore: The Last of the Mohicans
  16. Crane, Stephen: Red Badge of Courage
  17. Hugo, Victor: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  18. Irving, Washington: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
  19. Hugo, Victor: Les Misérables
  20. Tolstoy, Leo: War and Peace

The Classics Club Spin #17

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It’s time for another Classics Club Spin!  Below is my Spin list.  I only have 18 books remaining on my master list, so I added the two I’m already reading that weren’t on the list to get the full 20.  I’ll have to start repeating titles for future spins as I get closer to finishing the challenge 🙂

  1. Kafka, Franz: The Trial
  2. Lawrence, D.H.: Lady Chatterley’s Lover
  3. Du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
  4. Barrie, J.M.: Peter Pan
  5. Beckett, Samuel: Waiting for Godot
  6. Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front
  7.  Melville, Herman: Moby Dick
  8. Bronte, Anne: Agnes Grey
  9. Proust, Marcel: Swann’s Way
  10. Gogol, Nikolay: Dead Souls
  11. Eliot, George: Middlemarch
  12. Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter
  13. Heller, Joseph: Catch-22
  14. Hemingway, Ernest: A Farewell to Arms
  15. Cooper, James Fenimore: The Last of the Mohicans
  16. Crane, Stephen: Red Badge of Courage
  17. Hugo, Victor: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  18. Irving, Washington: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
  19. Hugo, Victor: Les Misérables
  20. Tolstoy, Leo: War and Peace

Back to the Classics Challenge 2018

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I only have a little more than a year and a half to finish my Classics Club list, with 21 books remaining.  So, I decided to join the Back to the Classics Challenge, hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate.
It’s simple; there are 12 categories, and the idea is to read one book, published at least 50 years ago, from each of the categories, review it, and link the review to the category your fulfilling.  At the end of the year, participants will post a challenge wrap-up and link that up as well.  We’re not required to read all 12 books or choose our books in advance, but I listed my potential reads next to each category below.  Go to the main challenge page for the full details.
The Categories:
1.  A 19th century classic – Dickens, Charles: Oliver Twist
2.  A 20th century classic – Kafka, Franz: The Trial
3.  A classic by a woman author – Brontë, Anne: Agnes Grey
4.  A classic in translation – Remarque, Erich Maria: All Quiet on the Western Front
5. A children’s classic – Barrie, J.M.: Peter Pan
6.  A classic crime story, fiction or non-fiction – Collins, Wilkie: The Woman in White
7. A classic travel or journey narrative, fiction or non-fiction – Tolkien, J.R.R.: The Hobbit
8. A classic with a single-word title – Du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
9. A classic with a color in the title – Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter
10. A classic by an author that’s new to you – Lawrence, D.H.: Lady Chatterley’s Lover
11. A classic that scares you – Melville, Herman: Moby Dick
12. Re-read a favorite classic – Hugo, Victor: Les Misérables
The deadline to sign up for the challenge is March 1, 2018.  Are you planning to participate in Back to the Classics challenge?  Are participating in the Classic Clubs reading challenge?  Let me know in the comments!

The Classics Club Spin #16 – Short and Sweet

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The Classics Club announced the Spin number yesterday:

4

Which means I’ll be reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  While it wasn’t the book I really wanted, it will be a quick, easy read and that’s probably a good thing right now.  I’m in the middle of reading The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien and it is definitely not light reading.

  1. Kafka, Franz: The Trial
  2. Lawrence, D.H.: Lady Chatterley’s Lover
  3. Du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
  4. Burnett, Frances Hodgson: The Secret Garden
  5. Barrie, J.M.: Peter Pan
  6. Beckett, Samuel: Waiting for Godot
  7. Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front
  8. Melville, Herman: Moby Dick
  9. Hemingway, Ernest: A Farewell to Arms
  10. Bronte, Anne: Agnes Grey
  11. Flaubert, Gustav: Madame Bovary
  12. Eliot, George: Middlemarch
  13. Proust, Marcel: Swann’s Way
  14. Gogol, Nikolay: Dead Souls
  15. Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter
  16. Heller, Joseph: Catch-22
  17. Cooper, James Fenimore: The Last of the Mohicans
  18. Crane, Stephen: Red Badge of Courage
  19. Hugo, Victor: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  20. Dickens, Charles: Oliver Twist

Are you participating in the Classics Club Spin?

The Classics Club Spin #16

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It’s time for another Classics Club Spin!  Below is my Spin list.  While I’m interested in reading all of the books on this and my master list, I’m really hoping it will be one of the books below in particular.  I’m not saying which one, though.

  1. Kafka, Franz: The Trial
  2. Lawrence, D.H.: Lady Chatterley’s Lover
  3. Du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
  4. Burnett, Frances Hodgson: The Secret Garden
  5. Barrie, J.M.: Peter Pan
  6. Beckett, Samuel: Waiting for Godot
  7. Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front
  8. Melville, Herman: Moby Dick
  9. Hemingway, Ernest: A Farewell to Arms
  10. Bronte, Anne: Agnes Grey
  11. Flaubert, Gustav: Madame Bovary
  12. Eliot, George: Middlemarch
  13. Proust, Marcel: Swann’s Way
  14. Gogol, Nikolay: Dead Souls
  15. Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter
  16. Heller, Joseph: Catch-22
  17. Cooper, James Fenimore: The Last of the Mohicans
  18. Crane, Stephen: Red Badge of Courage
  19. Hugo, Victor: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  20. Dickens, Charles: Oliver Twist

The Spin number will be chosen on Friday, November 17th, and then those of us participating will have until the end of the year to read the book that corresponds to that number.
Are you participating in the Classics Club Spin?

The Classics Club Spin Number…

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The Classics Club announced the Spin number yesterday:

12

Which means I’ll be reading Paradise Lost by John Milton.  I’ll take a look at the book later today and figure out if I want to do a read along.  My copy is 737 pages, but I’m not sure how much of that is Introduction, Notes, etc.

Classics Club Spin #15

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It’s time for another Classics Club Spin!  Below is my Spin list.  While I’m interested in reading all of the books on this and my master list, I’m really hoping it will be one of the books below in particular.  I’m not saying which one, though.

  1.  Lawrence, D.H.: Lady Chatterley’s Lover
  2. Atwood, Margaret: A Handmaid’s Tale
  3. Du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
  4. Barrie, J.M.: Peter Pan
  5. Beckett, Samuel: Waiting for Godot
  6. Dumas, Alexandre: The Count of Monte Cristo
  7. Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front
  8. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
  9. Bronte, Anne: Agnes Grey
  10. Fitzgerald, F. Scott: Tender is the Night
  11. Flaubert, Gustav: Madame Bovary
  12. Milton, John: Paradise Lost
  13. Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
  14. Burnett, Frances Hodgson: The Secret Garden
  15. Eliot, George: Middlemarch
  16. Goethe, Johann: Faust
  17. Proust, Marcel: Swann’s Way
  18. Heller, Joseph: Catch-22
  19. Hemingway, Ernest: A Farewell to Arms
  20. Crane, Stephen: Red Badge of Courage

The Spin number will be chosen on Friday, and then those of us participating will have until May 1st to read the book that corresponds to that number.
Are you participating in the Classics Club Spin?  Whether or not you’re participating, would you be interested in doing a read-along of any of the books on my list?  Let me know in the comments!

The Classics Club Spin Number

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The Classics Club announced the Spin number today:

1

Which means I’ll be reading Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe? by Edward Albee.  I’ll take a look at the book later today and figure out if I want to do a read along.  I might just decide to buckle down and finish it so I can get back to my #FrightFall TBR.  It’s a fairly short book, so we’ll see.

The Classics Club Spin #14

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It’s time for another Classics Club Spin!  Below is my Spin list, and since I failed miserably at the last Spin (I didn’t even start Lord of the Flies) , I will probably do a read-along.  While I’m interested in reading all of the books on this and my master list, I’m really hoping it will be one of the books below in particular.  I’m not saying which one though because I don’t want to jinx it.  Regardless of whether or not it ends up being my Spin book, I will be reading it before the end of the year, so you’ll know which one I’m referring to soon enough.

  1. Albee, Edward: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
  2. Lawrence, D.H.: Lady Chatterley’s Lover
  3. Atwood, Margaret: A Handmaid’s Tale
  4. Du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
  5. Beckett, Samuel: Waiting for Godot
  6. Dumas, Alexandre: The Count of Monte Cristo
  7. Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front
  8. Bronte, Anne: Agnes Grey
  9. Flaubert, Gustav: Madame Bovary
  10. Milton, John: Paradise Lost
  11. Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The House of the Seven Gables
  12. Proust, Marcel: Swann’s Way
  13. Goethe, Johann: Faust
  14. Eliot, George: Middlemarch
  15. Golding, William: Lord of the Flies
  16. Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter
  17. Hemingway, Ernest: A Farewell to Arms
  18. Cooper, James Fenimore: The Last of the Mohicans
  19. Crane, Stephen: Red Badge of Courage
  20. Irving, Washington: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

The Spin number will be chosen on Monday, and then those of us participating will have until December 1st to read the book that corresponds to that number.
Are you participating in the Classics Club Spin?  Whether or not you’re participating, would you be interested in doing a read-along of any of the books on my list?  Let me know in the comments!

The Classics Club: The Fellowship of the Ring

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Fellowship

  • Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Pages: 407
  • Genre: Fantasy

 
 
I have the audiobook version of The Lord of the Rings, but since I haven’t read it since I was 12, I decided to borrow the Boyfriend’s copy instead of listening to the audio for #FanspeakTheRing.
Did you know that The Lord of the Rings is not actually a trilogy?  Though it’s usually broken down into three books (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King), it’s actually six books broken down into three parts/volumes.  Did you also know that, as a whole, they’re on the banned and challenged books list?  According to the ALA, it was burned in Alamogordo, New Mexico for being “satanic.”  My guess is that the people behind such a horrible act have never actually read The Lord of the Rings or know anything about its author.
Since I’m following the schedule for #FanspeakTheRing, I’ve only just started the second part.  So, I don’t yet have an opinion about it or the third part.  However, so far, it’s much better than I remember it being.  The Hobbit has always been my favorite book by Tolkien, and even though I love the movies based on The Lord of the Rings, I remember feeling as if the books dragged on a bit and were easily confusing when I read them all those years ago.  I never felt that way during this re-read, and if the rest is as wonderful, I’m fairly certain it will be joining the ranks of The Hobbit on my all-time favorites list.
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