Aussie Readers discussion

My 2020 challenge will be a real challenge for me; I am aiming to read a lot of 'classics'. For a while now, I have been looking at lists of 'classics' and '100 books you should read before you die' ect ect but I was always pretty dubious about some that made it to those lists. Now I had a good long think about what constitutes a 'classic book' and I have drawn up my own list of 100.

It is not all inclusive, not comprehensive. It will grow, I have no doubt. I have already read a lot of 'classics' and some I hated and will not re-read. Others I love and re-read so often it is no challenge. But some, I have either never read, or read so long ago I barely remember them, or read but never reviewed.

But wait, what IS a 'classic'. Here is my working definition:

A classic is a book accepted as being exemplary, noteworthy or having entered societal reference in some way. Maybe it has even impacted or predicted social change. Often 'a classic' seems to be a book that 'everyone' (or at least a lot of people), 'know about'. People may have an internal relationship with the narrative of, say, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice or The Catcher in the Rye, but when you try to discuss it with them they say they have never read it, though they 'know' what it is about. It does not have to be that old, but the ones that have really sunk into society and lasted there probably, mostly, are.

Well, in 2020 I am going to try and read 100 classics, many of which I 'know about' but I certainly do not know them well. My list of 100 includes 81 traditional classics, 13 classic science fictions novels and 17 classic kids books. So I actually have 111 on the list, but I am sure I am not going to make it through all of them, and I expect that several will fall off the list as I go, and others push their way onto it.

So here is my list, it takes a while to put together even.

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Fall of the House of Usher/The Pit & the Pendulum/Other Tales of Mystery & Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe
Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Tourmaline by Randolph Stow
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
The Sea by Rachel Carson
The Illiad by Homer
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
1984 George Orwell
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
The 39 Steps by John Buchan
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Bostonians by Henry James
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Nana by Émile Zola
Evelina byFrances Burney
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues by Plato
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Sanditon: Jane Austen's Unfinished Masterpiece Completed by Jane AustinJuliette Shapiro
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bridge On The River Kwai byPierre Boulle
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

Science Fcition

Make Room! Make Room! (basis for soylent green) Harry Harrison
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett
Logan's Run by William F. Nolan
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
The Female Man by Joanna Russ
My Name is Legion by Roger Zelazny

Kids classics
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright
The Railway Children by E. Nesbit
The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde
Milly-Molly-Mandy's Adventures by Joyce Lankester Brisley
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner
Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper
The Wolves of Willoughby ChaseJoan Aiken
Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken
Night Birds on Nantucket] by Joan Aiken
Daddy Longlegs by Jean Webster
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Good luck!

Do you listen to audio books? There are some marvellous actors that narrate many classic books.

Em_Jay I thank you so much! I was gutted when I thought I had lost the list! and, yes, I have just got into audio books again - I am open to recommendations. Patrick Stewart narrating Dickens, for example is pure brilliance.

I agree about the importance of reading the classics Deborah, and endorse your 2020 goal. Sometimes I find that the language/writing styles of earlier authors can be a bit off-putting. And sometimes the ideas, norms and social practices of earlier eras are repugnant.
For my real-time book club this year we read a short novel by Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Illych and Other Stories and it was surprising to me, as the club's convenor, how many members of the group really enjoyed it, despite its rather melancholy subject matter.

Sounds great, Deborah!

I'm not sure if Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier counts as a classic for you, but I'm reading and enjoying it at the moment, and you'd be very welcome to it once I'm done - provided I don't drop it in the pool.

I'm looking after a friend's house over Christmas, and it has a pool, and I've discovered that sitting on the second step of the pool is a good height to be almost completely immersed, but still able to hold a book. Obviously this is a practice that is slightly fraught with potential accidents, so I have decided ebooks and library books shouldn't be read in the pool, and since I own Jamaica Inn, it has become my pool read! I still don't want to drop it into the pool, but if it happened, I'd rather it be a paper book I own than a library book or my iPad!

Good luck Deborah, I can't say I'm a fan of the classics, I'm not, but some you've listed I've read and really enjoyed, others I've been meaning to.

You have a second challenge listed for the same thing Deborah - do you want it deleted?

Brenda wrote: "You have a second challenge listed for the same thing Deborah - do you want it deleted?"

Yes, please, Brenda. I am about to go and see if I can do it, if it is still there, I couldn't manage it.

Kerri wrote: "Good luck Deborah, I can't say I'm a fan of the classics, I'm not, but some you've listed I've read and really enjoyed, others I've been meaning to."

Yes, I was never that into them when I was really young, there are quite a few I have enjoyed though and I need to give the genera another go.

Kathryn wrote: "Sounds great, Deborah!

I'm not sure if Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier counts as a classic for you, but I'm reading and enjoying it at the moment, and you'd be ve..."

Oh, funny! Well done reading in the pool.

Good luck and happy reading in 2020, Deborah.

Good luck with your journey into the Classics, Deborah! Happy reading. xo :)

So, I have started, going back in time to 1667, 300 years exactly before I was born, with Paradise Lost by Milton. I thought this would be good as an audio book, being epic poetry. but, having finished the audio book, I can't say I really get it, so I'm moving on to an actual volumn.

My first effort is Paradise Lost by John Milton. It seemed a great idea to start as far back as it goes, almost, in 1667.

I have finished the narrated version, but it did not rock my boat, I am trying again with actual print.

review; https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Also, wordPress,with embedded images.
https://wordpress.com/block-editor/po...

OK, a big, four star, yes to Paradise Lost, Nay to the audiobook. It was much better on paper.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

My first from the sci-fi list: by H.G. Wells

It was every bit as beautifully as I remembered it from years ago. As well as being the first book to ever bring the concept of time travel into literature. Also, this copy belonged to my parents, it is older than I am and has the most amazing cover art.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

For my first from the kid's part of my list, I went with Heidi.
by Johanna Spyri

Review; https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A very internationally influential work, more so than I even realised before I added it to the list!

Very glad to have re-read/ listened to it as an adult.

Finished by Jane Austin and Juliette Shapiro

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I have just started by Rachel Carson

It is an ambitious project as I have never found Rachel Carson fast or easy to read. Her prose is beautiful, but so packed full of detail thatit is a slow read. Also, this volumn is actually three books in one; The Sea Around Us, Under the Sea Wind and The Edge of the Sea so it will take even longer.

I have chosen to read these ones, rather than Silent Spring, which is her real 'classic' because that one breaks my heart, and besides, I think her writing about the sea is nowhere near as rated as it should be.

I have finished The Sea Around Us being the first book in the compendium. As I predicted, it is taking a while.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Deborah wrote: "My first from the sci-fi list: by H.G. Wells

It was every bit as beautifully as I remembered it from years ago. As well as being the first book..."

That's one I'd like to read again. I think I first read it in my late teens, perhaps 45 years ago. The book has not dated, but I sure have!

MaryG2E wrote: "Deborah wrote: "My first from the sci-fi list: by H.G. Wells

It was every bit as beautifully as I remembered it from years ago. As well as bein..."

I think I would say that my ability to read it has matured - I did like it as a teenager, but it was a puzzled sort of liking because I loved the concept but was, at times, impatient with the pace of the writing. Now, many years later, I found I loved the pace of the writing and was still fascinated by the story. So, score one for aging with books :)

The second of the three books in the compendium that I want to read - by Rachel Carson was pure magic.

Not a fast read, and I am afraid that I will have to leave the last in the book for a bit later, but I am so thrilled I have now re-read it.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A Canticle for Leibowitz as audiobook.

One star, bad.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Finished The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien

Such a great book, never grows old

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Just finished The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas

while this is not the most famous of this authors work, it still counts a s a classic to me; practically everything Dumas wrote was, and as I had not read this one before, it leapt ahead of his more famous works that I have read many times.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Deborah wrote: "Just finished The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas

while this is not the most famous of this authors work, it still counts a s a classic to me; practically everything Dumas..."

Absolutely it still counts as a classic! I have to admit I haven't read any Dumas, although I do love the story of The Three Musketeers - maybe one of these days...!

Kathryn wrote: "Deborah wrote: "Just finished The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas

while this is not the most famous of this authors work, it still counts a s a classic to me; practically ..."

Maybe try it someday, he is one of those historical writers that has a very contemporary felling to his writing, making it easy to read and very enjoyable.

Right, I have also crossed off by Franz Kafka

review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Also, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

this is a classic children's story I have always been ambivalent about, but I enjoyed it!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

was an easy four stars, maybe it might even escalate to five. So good that I feel guilty for all those times people recommended it and I did not take them up on it.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle it was an audio book, narrated by Frederick Davidson who did a cracking good job of it.

Really glad I read this lovely five star classic.I think I read it ages ago, but I don't remember it too well and it was heaps of fun.


https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Right, everyone 'knows' Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Now I know, with complete certainty, that it is not for me. One star, DNF 27% of the way through.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I just finished a childhood favourite that I had not re-read for a long time.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
It is a cloth bound copy of my mothers, she won it as a 'Equal Second' prize in 1944
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I have just polished off two more from the children's list. The adult book I am reading at the moment is a bit heavy and needs some light relief;

by E. Nesbit
Is a classic kid's book I had somehow never read before. Loved it! 4stars
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Also by Rick Riordan

Which I was really surpirsed to find on so many 'must read' lists, but, now that I have read it I do see why. It was great.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...

One more classic science fiction done! Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Was everything and more that I remembered from my teens! The writing is actually far more exquisite that I was able to appreciate as a teenager, the story was fast paced and exciting, the characters full of depth and the social commentary was exactly what I love in sci-fi.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I am currently balancing a paperback Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence and the audiobook The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

I was not going to do Dickens, for this challenge because I love his writing and have read quite a bit of it. But I realised I had never read The Pickwick Papers. Also, the Pickwick Papers is a novel that is mentioned in OTHER classics, so it is kind of a double classic.

Lady Chatterley's Lover is certainly a classic. I tried to read it as a teenager and couldn't do it. As an adult who knows more about the author and the era, I thought I might like it better and I am. You have to enjoy the writing itself, as the plot is pretty rudimentary but at present I quite like it when I am in a quiet mood.

I finished The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells with immense enjoyment while still trying to get through the other two. Review; https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Pickwick Papers is an audiobook and I am not driving as much, so it is taking a while. Lady Chatterley's Lover is pleasant, in a meditative sort of way, but it is more narrative than plot, so I need breaks from it.

Finished Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
and quite enjoyed it
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Finished Joan Aiken's

That is actually three books, which I feel like I have to review separately, as they are all so different.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

One more done! Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

And while I put it is the kids books section upon reading it again I am reminded how much NOT a kids book it is.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Pickwick Papers

This is a fail, even though I like the book. I have listened to around %30 using an app that I did not like and I can't renew it any more.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Done and reviewed Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

This 300 year old book was interesting to read but hard to review.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I just finished
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe & Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis
I am about to start on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Goodreads has no search capacity at the moment and tells me I should use this time to read a book! Great advice, I shall take it :)

I reviewed Prince Caspian

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I think it is a foregone conclusion that I need to read the whole series before I can get them out of my system. The sad thing is that among the hundreds of moves in my life, I have lost The Last Battle. The libraries are closed and I will not be able to read it when I get to it. This is going to HURT big time.

Yes, *ahem* so I fell into that rabbit hole and I have now read;

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair

My 'do the classics' has backfired into 'classic childrens books' but I am trying to work my way out with a classic sci-fi next My Name is Legion by Roger Zelazny

Deborah wrote: "I reviewed Prince Caspian

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I think it is a foregone conclusion that I need to read the whole..."

The Brisbane library is going to be open on Saturday, and you can put holds on books again now! The Narnia books are definitely good reads - hope you get The Last Battle soon!! I should have pulled them out in isolation - they'd have made great quarantine reads!

Kathryn wrote: "Deborah wrote: "I reviewed Prince Caspian

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I think it is a foregone conclusion that I need t..."

Oh, you ARE lucky! GC libraries, as of yesterday, were giving no hint when they might open next.

Deborah wrote: "Kathryn wrote: "Deborah wrote: "I reviewed Prince Caspian

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I think it is a foregone conclusi..."

I think it's essentially only a pick-up service since there can't be more than 10 people inside at a time - so you place your books on hold online and then when they're available you can go in and pick them up, and return books in the after hours chutes. I'm sure the GC libraries won't be too far behind... It takes a bit of working out how to do things, I'm sure! I'm not certain when my local library in the Moreton Bay council will reopen, but there's a notice on their website that they're working on a plan, so I'm sure they'll be open either on the weekend or next week. I've had a couple of holds come in that I'm keen to get hold of - although I might still quarantine them for a week myself, once I get them. However they have been sitting in the library for several weeks now, and no one has probably touched them since they were reserved for me...

Oh dear, Deborah - I see that the GC libraries have posted an update: http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/libra..., but it's only that you can now return books... (So you couldn't return books previously?? Both the Moreton Bay and Brisbane libraries have both had their return chutes available all throughout this!!!)

But no mention of when you can either go into the library or pick books up from there - maybe in stage 2?? I guess it depends on their staffing levels, apart from anything else, as well as what they determine to be safe... Hope you have enough of your own books to keep you happy!

Kathryn wrote: "Oh dear, Deborah - I see that the GC libraries have posted an update: http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/libra..., but it's only that you can now return books... (So you couldn't return bo..."

No, hey closed the returns quite a while back. And none of my local libraries are open for returns yet either, only the Northern ones. Ah well, I will not run out of books, I will just have to diversify what I read a little - not a bad thing.