Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

✔ B1: 18th Century or Earlier Classic Othello
✔ B2: Book Chosen by the Cover When Saigon Surrendered: A Kentucky Mystery
✔ B3: European Classic The Professor
✔ B4: Telegraph’s 100 Novels List The Unbearable Lightness of Being
✔ B5: 20th Century Classic Howards End

✔ I1: Book from the Group’s Bookshelf Prior to 2019 The Caine Mutiny
✔ I2: New-to-You Author Strange Fruit by Lillian E. Smith
✔ I3: Classic Play Our Town
✔ I4: Literary Prize of Your Country Alice Adams
✔ I5: Classic on Your Bookshelf For over a Year The Big Rock Candy Mountain

✔ N1: South American Classic The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Not written by a South American, but the book takes place in Peru
✔ N2: Short Story Collection The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
✔ N3: FREE SPACE The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty
✔ N4: Poetry or Essay Collection Renascence, and Other Poems
✔ N5: Asian Classic Snow Country

✔ G1: Winner of a Foreign Literary Prize Staying On
✔ G2: Classic By a Female Author Laura by Vera Caspary
✔ G3: Classic Non-fiction The Guns of August
✔ G4: Written by Nobel Laureate Blindness
✔ G5: Book from the Group's 2019 Bookshelf Kindred

✔ O1: 19th Century Classic Les Misérables
✔ O2: Classic Sci-fi or Fantasy Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
✔ O3: Classic Comedy or Satire The Princess Bride
✔ O4: Classic Romance Green Darkness
✔ O5: 21st Century Potential Classic The Secret Scripture

B1: B2: B3: B4: B5:
I1: I2: I3: I4: I5:
N1: N2: N3: N4: N5:
G1: G2: G3: G4: G5:
O1: O2: O3: O4: O5:

Reserved

Welcome to the challenge for 2019 Sara. I hope you enjoy yourself.

Love your title ,Sara.
Definitely bound to it.

Thanks, Katy, and for your work making the list.

Thanks, Elena.

Bingo or Bust! Bring it on, Sara! Can't wait to see your list!

Thanks, Tammy! I think I am going to do this one without a list...just filling them in as I go for a while. I have so many other challenges, hopefully things will fit here naturally.

Sara wrote: "Thanks, Tammy! I think I am going to do this one without a list...just filling them in as I go for a while. I have so many other challenges, hopefully things will fit here naturally."

Just your normal reading can go a long way in filling a Bingo card. I haven't done a Bingo challenge for the last two years. The first year I was two books short of a black out and this year I'm three books short.


This year I posted a card and I have listed possibilities for a lot of squares, but they are not must reads, just suggestions. Happy reading!!

Dang, Bob, this is gonna be the year you blackout for sure! I can usually wing it for at least half the year and then there are always a few categories that I have to go pick a specific book for. But it wouldn't be a challenge otherwise. :) Having a suggestion list is always a good idea. I have identified about ten books that are on other challenges that are going to fit neatly into this one.

Unexpected first entry is O5: Potential 21st Century Classic The Secret Scripture. I gave it 5-stars and love the way it encourages you to think about truth and memory and how well we can know even our own stories.

Five stars, is a great way to start the new year. I hope is becomes a trend.

Amen.

Great start to the year Sara! I had never heard of this but have added it to my TBR.

It really is a great way to start out. I'm sure you will love it Rachel.

Sara, I remember starting off last year with a 5-star book - So Big. Such a great feeling! I agree that The Secret Scripture definitely qualifies as a potential future classic!

I thought that might be a hard slot for me to fill, but this book absolutely makes the cut.

I hadn't heard of this book, but it sounds great. Added to my TBR.

So glad, Laurie!

Nice review for your first book! :0)

Thanks, Vero.

Shakespeare's Othello for my pre 18th Century entry. Four squares filled and three good reads.

Sara wrote: "Shakespeare's Othello for my pre 18th Century entry. Four squares filled and three good reads."

You're on a roll!
But now I want to know, which was the bad read? :D

When Saigon Surrendered. Never pick a book by its cover. lol.

Sara wrote: "Shakespeare's Othello for my pre 18th Century entry. Four squares filled and three good reads."

Awesome.

Thanks, Katy.

Wonderful, Sara! (with the exception of the one not-so-good read ;)

Shakespeare is not my go to author, but I did like Othello, a lot. Nice to see you are on a roll.

Sara wrote: "When Saigon Surrendered. Never pick a book by its cover. lol."

haha ... I bet most of us do, tho, many times :). Covers can be so enticing

Finished Howards End and was torn between a 3 or a 4 rating. There were parts of it I liked very much and parts that just didn't work for me. It couldn't hold a candle to A Passage to India.

I enjoyed both and also think Passage to India is the better of the two, but my favorite byE.M. Forster is Where Angels Fear to Tread

I haven't read that one yet, Bob, although I have it on the TBR.

I preferred A Passage to India and A Room with a View (the Merchant Ivory film adaptation is one of my favourite films) too. Still have to try Where Angels Fear to Tread, and Maurice.

Now I want to push Howards End further down the TBR. I didn't like A Passage to India.

If you didn't like A Passage to India, I would say Forster just isn't for you and, since we all have limited time for reading, you might do better to pick another author. I have done that with a few authors that are beloved by others, but just not a fit for me.

Sara wrote: "If you didn't like A Passage to India, I would say Forster just isn't for you and, since we all have limited time for reading, you might do better to pick another author. I have done that with a fe..."

I gave up on Hemingway. Maybe I should give up Forster.

lol. I gave up on Virginia Woolf and future Forster's are pretty far down on my list.

If you do want to try more Forster, the only one I’ve rated higher than A Passage to India was Maurice, so it might be worth giving that one a try.

I actually like A Room with a View by Forster a little more than Howard's End, but I do not believe either were five stars for me. A Room With a View seemed to completely revolve around a man wishing the women of his time were a little more emotionally free. I'm sure a lot more happened and the book felt long, but that was the gist I took from it.

I4: Literary prize of your country - I read Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington, winner of the 1922 Pulitzer. It was a good story and well-written with the unfortunate caveat that it contains some obviously unnecessary derogatory racial references, which prevented me from thoroughly enjoying it.

No closer to a bingo.

Sara wrote: "I4: Literary prize of your country - I read Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington, winner of the 1922 Pulitzer. It was a good story and well-written with the unfortunate caveat that it cont..."

Too bad about that. It sounds otherwise like a great read. I remember enjoying the Katharine Hepburn film.

The bingos will come--it's only February! :-)

I would like to see the film. I remember one year I was far into the summer before I had a bingo, so I'm not sweating it. :)

It's funny how, if you just keep reading, the Bingos start to just fall into place! I think that is what will happen for me -- but you're right -- it will be June and after!!! ;)

Of course, we could all bingo right away if we just structured the reading around the challenge. I'm with you, Terri, they will fall in eventually.

Sara wrote: "Of course, we could all bingo right away if we just structured the reading around the challenge. I'm with you, Terri, they will fall in eventually."

Just grabbing what I felt like reading, or reading a group read a fitting it in, I think it took me 17 books to get a bingo last year.

I think I was the last one to bingo the first year I did this, but the point for me is to read them, not to bingo, so no worries. Still, feels good when you get your first bingo done. I like the freedom of just plugging them in as I go.

Sara wrote: "...I like the freedom of just plugging them in as I go."

The same! Also with the A-Zs. 'course, come December, there might be a scramble ;-)

Yes, December is always a scramble for me...because there are always those categories you just don't read unless you are reading specifically for the challenges.

Sara wrote: "Yes, December is always a scramble for me...because there are always those categories you just don't read unless you are reading specifically for the challenges."

Z ... Q ... X ...

And for me, for Bingo, this year I will be chasing Non-Fiction, Poetry or Essay, Short Story, and Romance, I'd guess.

Some of the continents might be tricky, I'm not certain my natural reading pattern will take me naturally to Asia or South America.

How come there's never an Imaginary World? :p
Those I could get with no problem! :D