RMFAO (Reading My Frigging A** Off) discussion

I will be joining this challenge. I have my favorite but would love some suggestions.

Here's the image for this challenge:

You can download this image here: https://thereadingbud.com/wp-content/...

I'll be going for Level 3: Bookworm: 6 - 8 books for this year. And I'm planning on completing the Richard Hannay Series by John Buchan (an amazing espionage series recommended by our Classics Professor, Dagny.) I'm yet to read the 3rd, 4th and the 5th book, so I'll be reading this in 2019. Plus a couple of other books that would be recommended by Dagny for this year and some Manga Classics if I can get my hands on any.
I also have a couple of Agatha Christie books, so I'll try and tackle them too.

As I mentioned in the audiobook challenge post I seem to have posted everything on the wrong board. Guess I got too excited. For the Classics challenge I'm going to do level 3 for the year. I'm hoping I'll be able to do some overlapping with some of the other challenges.

Heena wrote: "I'll be going for Level 3: Bookworm: 6 - 8 books for this year. And I'm planning on completing the Richard Hannay Series by John Buchan (an amazing espionage series recommended by our Classics Prof..."

Do Agatha Christie books count as part of the Classics challenge? I have several that I need to cross off my tbr list.

Fran wrote: "Heena wrote: "I'll be going for Level 3: Bookworm: 6 - 8 books for this year. And I'm planning on completing the Richard Hannay Series by John Buchan (an amazing espionage series recommended by our..."

Fran,

Yes, Agatha Christie counts as classics.

Thanks for the quick response. This challenge just got a bit easier - I hope :)

Classics is anything before 1950. So you can read early mysteries, fantasy, westerns, science fiction, etc. . We are very flexible in our requirements.

Dagny, I'd really appreciate if you can recommend something on the lines of The Turn Of The Screw. Anything involving a haunted house/mansion/hotel/town would be great too.
And if there's a classic or two on cult killings it would be like hitting a jackpot. I'm researching for 'Sinister Town' and want to understand this genre more as I haven't read as many horror books as I should have, so any horror book that you think is good would do too as I'm planning on focusing on horror genre throughout next year.

Looking forward to reading your recommendations! Please take your time in responding :)

I agree with Dagny on the Edith Wharton story "Afterward". It's subtle horror, but very good.

I'm still traveling, so I don't have access to my files of horror short story lists. If things slow down for me, I could post them for you. Dagny has mentioned good ones to try.

Ok, Heena. Here is one I've recently read that can be found on Project Gutenberg:

Black Spirits and White: A Book of Ghost Stories
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Dagny wrote: "More on the classic horror available for Heena and anyone else interested.

There are short stories galore at both PG and LibriVox, so if you're looking for anything along those lines there are ple..."


Thanks a bunch, Dagny. They all sound spooky and perfect for me. I'll create my list and add all these to it so that they all stay at one place where I can easily find them. Thanks, again! You're the best.
And yes! I'm sure Cheryl will also have some good reccomendations. I'll be sure to take her picks as well :)

Cheryl wrote: "Ok, Heena. Here is one I've recently read that can be found on Project Gutenberg:
Black Spirits and White: A Book of Ghost Stories
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show......"

Thanks, Cheryl. I totally forgot you're a classics pro too! I'm adding all these books to my list (Dagny's recs and the two you mentioned), but please keep addign to this list when you get some free time. I'll be reading horror all throughout the year so I can do with more recs.

Okay so after going thorugh the recommendations by Dagny (more than 3/4th), Cheryl and Mere and Peter from the other threads, here's how my Classics list for 2019 looks so far:

1) Widdershins and with it The Beckoning Fair One
2) The Grey Woman
3) Afterward
4) The Way It Came
5) The Beast with Five Fingers
6) The Return of the Soul
7) Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost StoriesThe Circular Staircase
8) Sweeney Todd and the String of Pearls
9) The Great Gatsby
10) The Odyssey
11) The Iliad
12) The Aeneid
13) The Leavenworth Case (I'll first read this one and then decide if I want to read others in this series. If yes, then I'll count this one for the Series Challenge too.)
14) The Circular Staircase

I'm planning so much because I always fail to read good classics and miss out on so much they have to offer. I'm going to make sure to read these first and then add any other (if I get more recs.)
Thank you everyone for the recommendations! Especially Dagny :)

1) The Great Gatsby
2) The Old Man and The Sea
3) Moby Dick
4) Of Mice and Men
5) The Picture of Dorian Gray
6) Dracula
7) Sense and Sensibilty

I'm going to try and read the Lord of the Rings series and the Sherlock Holmes collection so this will already bring me into level 3: 6 - 8 books for this year.
I might reach level 4 if I find the time for some other classics. I'll update this post with a list as I go through 2019.

Marjorie wrote: "1) The Great Gatsby
2) The Old Man and The Sea
3) Moby Dick
4) Of Mice and Men
5) The Picture of Dorian Gray
6) Dracula
7) Sense and Sensibilty"

I'm also going for The Great Gatsby. It would be fun to discuss it :)

Add me to this challenge. I love the classics!

Heena wrote: "Marjorie wrote: "1) The Great Gatsby
2) The Old Man and The Sea
3) Moby Dick
4) Of Mice and Men
5) The Picture of Dorian Gray
6) Dracula
7) Sense and Sensibilty"

I'm also going for The Great Gatsb..."

I will look forward to it.

I started my own challenge when I retired to read all of Dickens novels as a tribute to my mother who loved his books. During her lifetime I sort of pooh-poohed his works. I started by reading two different biographies on Charles Dickens. When I reached the point when he published a novel, I’ll read that novel. I’m also keeping a log as I read. I’ve already finished Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. I took last year off. These challenges encourage me to pick up with The Old Curiosity Shop. I suspect it will take me more than a year to read the next 12 novels. I may skip A Tale of Two Cities which I did read in high school.

Debara,

What a great tribute to your mother! We do the Classics Catchup Challenge every year, so if you don't finish the Dickens books in 2019, you can just continue adding them the following year.

I'm joining this challenge as Level 2. Want to read The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Mary J Starry wrote: "I'm joining this challenge as Level 2. Want to read The Iliad and The Odyssey."

Love them.

I am not a Fan of the classics, so just stopping by to wish you all good luck!

I am totally in for this challenge. I don't know yet which books, but my husband and I are just watching the Great American Read and there are a bunch of classics on there I never got to read. I just bought War and Peace and Crime and Punishment to try and my husband got Catch-22. And I might try some Dickens. I don't want to select a level yet, I will see how it goes at first.

I've already started reading Wuthering Heights so why not. Also I would love suggestions.

I have a question. Is Sleepy Hallow a classic?

Victoria wrote: "I have a question. Is Sleepy Hallow a classic?"

Yes it is, Victoria. It would count for this challenge.

Sarah wrote: "I've already started reading Wuthering Heights so why not. Also I would love suggestions."

Sarah,

This Goodreads page for Classics might be helpful to you. You can look through the lists and see if any appeal to you.
https://www.goodreads.com/genres/clas...

Yippee I got my first classic completed.

1.) Death on the Nile (AB) - Agatha Christie

Fran wrote: "Yippee I got my first classic completed.

1.) Death on the Nile (AB) - Agatha Christie"

A great choice, too!

I really need to get started on this challenge. But, I keep getting sidetracked. So many books so little time.

2.) Bleak House (AB) - Charles Dickens

After all the books I finish, since joining goodreads, I write a review. Having said that there is a review about this book. But as I mentioned in that, I'm curious if anyone else had read it and what their thoughts were. I rated it 2 stars and felt badly for doing so but I didn't care for it at all, and it's the first book by Dickens that I can say that about.

Abbie DiscoSuperFly wrote: "I am not a Fan of the classics, so just stopping by to wish you all good luck!"

The trick is in the laundry Abbie;) I listen to audiobooks while doing laundry, making dinner, and cleaning up. If you listen an hour a day, that's roughly 50 pages, and oftentimes I've felt that with a really good narrator, the novels you thought you'd have no interest in, somehow transform into something else, something much more enjoyable.

Fran wrote: "2.) Bleak House (AB) - Charles Dickens

After all the books I finish, since joining goodreads, I write a review. Having said that there is a review about this book. But as I mentioned in that, I'm ..."

Fran,

Too bad you did not like Bleak House. It's my favorite Dickens, but I can understand if you didn't like it. It's long and has alot about lawyers and lawsuits - which might not appeal to everyone. I liked the mystery aspect, with the murder, and finding out who did it.

When I first tried reading it, I just was not in the mood for it and put it aside for later. I tried reading it again about a year later and was really in the mood for it, hence my high rating. I don't love every Dickens (I have yet to re-try Old Curiosity Shop and Little Dorrit after initially aabandoning them.) I find I must be in the right mood to read his books.

Hi Everyone. Decided I will attempt this challenge. This fits nicely with my goal to read more history and historical fiction this year.
As the saying goes....Go Big Or Go Home🙀

📚Level 5: Professor 📚
💠 COMPLETED 4/12 💠

Starting with the only known surviving complete novel written in Latin in the 2nd Century (promise that’s as geeked out as i’ll get)

✔️1. The Golden Ass by Apuleius 1/24/19
✔️2. The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar
✔️3. The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett2/3/192/16/19
✔️4.A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain2/20/19
5.
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12.

1. The Gods Themselves - 3/5

A good book with a very interesting story. I liked the 2nd part better than the 1st and the 3rd one. The last part felt like a real slog, especially towards the end and it took me more than 6 days to get through the last 50 pages. The concept was good and overall it was a pretty good read (of course except for the last 50-60 pages.)

1.) The Monk of Hambleton by Armstrong Livingston
4 stars. I really enjoyed this 1928 mystery! My review and the Project Gutenberg link for the book can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Cheryl wrote: "1.) The Monk of Hambleton by Armstrong Livingston
4 stars. I really enjoyed this 1928 mystery! My review and the Project Gutenberg link for the book can be found here: https://www.go..."

That’s sounds like an interesting book Cheryl.. I am going to add The Thin Man as one of my reads

Finished The Great Gatsby. Very disappointing.

Dagny,

Yes, I hadn't heard of this author before. I found the book when I went to the Project Gutenberg home page and clicked on Book Search under Find Ebooks. There is an option called Random that just generates book titles in a random order. This book popped up. At first I thought it might be a historical novel or a gothic novel, but when I looked at the single review for it on Goodreads, I saw it was a mystery. I gave it a try and was pleasantly surprised.

I finally finished The Golden Ass by Apuleius. Off to find my next adventure. This time I am going to find a classic originally written in English. No more translated Latin for me!

I have changed my mind and am going to read The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar. The author is considered one of the greatest Turkish authors of the 20th Century but it took over 50 years for an English translation. Is it eligible to be considered a classic for this challenge?

I started Moby Dick. It is a little slow going. It is beautifully written but the language is so dense that I read it a lot slower.

Marjorie wrote: "I started Moby Dick. It is a little slow going. It is beautifully written but the language is so dense that I read it a lot slower."

It always amazes me how that happens to me with some classics. No matter how fast a reader I am there are some books you just need to slow down to read. Either because of the writing style or just the nuances of the story. Sometimes wonderful but also frustrating. Moby Dick was a slow read for me the first time. Not sure I would want to reread, which means I probably should.

I have finished my first Classic for the challenge. My January Classic was War and Peace... I really liked it, though I had to read all the French in the footnotes. I enjoyed the story and really the only part I disliked was the epilogue. His discussion on what history "is" made my head spin.

Carolyn wrote: "I have finished my first Classic for the challenge. My January Classic was War and Peace... I really liked it, though I had to read all the French in the footnotes. I enjoyed the story and really t..."

Carolyn,

Congratulations! That book has always intimidated me. It's good to know that it's worth reading.

2.) The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
3 stars.

Had to take a break from The Time Regulation Institute, but just finished The Thin Man so I am currently done 2 and muddling thru the third.

3.) Midnight by Octavus Roy Cohen
3 stars.