Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Challenge #1 - Old & New TBR Challenge

Came very close to finishing this challenge in 2020 so here's hoping that 2021 is the year that I actually successfully complete this one!

Old (pre 1900):
1. The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
2. The Book of the Courtier - Baldassare Castiglione 22/01/21
3. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë 02/08/21

New (1900-1999):
1. The Stranger - Albert Camus 16/04/21
2. Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett 17/10/21
3. Life and Times of Michael K - J.M. Coetzee 05/01/2020

Others:
1. The Bell - Iris Murdoch
2. A Haunted House and Other Stories: The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf - Virginia Woolf 12/09/21
3. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 23/08/21
4. Harland's Half Acre - David Malouf
5. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
6. A Passage to India - E.M. Forster 08/05/21

Alternates:
1. Black Skin, White Masks - Frantz Fanon
2. Image - Music - Text - Roland Barthes

Challenge #8 New Authors to me:

1. Baldassare Castiglione
2.Patricia Grace
3.Octavia E. Butler
4. William Blake
5. Gail Anderson-Dargatz
6.W. Somerset Maugham

Challenge #6 Short Story Challenge:

1. The Old Women Who Were Skinned - Carmen Maria Machado 23/01/21
2. Songs of Innocence and of Experience - William Blake 03/02/21
3. The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter 04/03/21
4. The Courtship of Mr Lyon - Angela Carter 6/03/21Anton Chekhov
5. The Tiger`s Bride - Angela Carter 08/03/21
6. Puss-in-boots - Angela Carter 09/03/21
7. Gooseberries - Anton Chekhov 01/04/21
8. The Kiss - Anton Chekhov 02/04/21
9. The Two Valodyas - Anton Chekhov 02/04/21
10. The Man in a Case - Anton Chekhov 16/04/21
11. About Love - Anton Chekhov 17/04/21
12. Glittering City - Cyprian Ekwensi 02/05/21
13. Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri
14. Nobody's Business - Jhumpa Lahiri
15. Going Ashore - Jhumpa Lahiri
16. Goblin Market - Christina Rossetti 04/07/21
17. The Necklace - Guy de Maupassant 02/08/21
18. Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare 08/08/21
19. An Unwritten Novel - Virginia Woolf 10/08/21
20. The New Dress - Virginia Woolf 13/08/21
21. Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett 17/10/21
22. A Christmas Tree - Charles Dickens 13/12/21
23.
24.

Challenge #4 - Members Choice Classic/Genre Challenge:

1. 18th Century or older: The Book Of The Courtier - Baldassare Castiglione 22/1/21
2. 19th Century: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë 02/08/21
3. 20th Century: Life and Times of Michael K - J.M. Coetzee 05/01/21
4. Current or Past Group Read: Waiting for Godot - 17/10/21
5. An Author not read before: Potiki - Patricia Grace 30/01/21
6. Diversity Classic, read a book from a religion, culture, country, or race different than yours: Kindred - Octavia E. Butler 05/02/21
7. Science Fiction:
8. Romance: The Painted Veil - W. Somerset Maugham 25/02/21
9. Historical fiction: A Passage to India - E.M. Forster 08/05/21
10. Nonfiction: The New Feminism - Natasha Walter 11/02/21
11. Mystery/Crime:
12. Horror or Humor: Dracula - Bram Stoker 22/03/21

I think your doing pretty well with the Buffet. You have read quite a lot so far.

I plan to read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall this month and Canterbury Tales and The Strange are on my list for this year.

I managed to finish a read for my Old/New Classics challenge yesterday with The Stranger by Albert Camus. It is such an interesting read. I feel as if it is one that I will be contemplating for quite a while and I am planning to read Jean Paul Sartre's discussion of it this afternoon. I don't know if it is because of all the behavioural analysis TV series that we have become familiar with but I kept feeling that Mersault would today be classified as a sociopath. Nice to get another read in for this challenge which has been taking a bit of a backseat.

Liesl wrote: "I managed to finish a read for my Old/New Classics challenge yesterday with The Stranger by Albert Camus. It is such an interesting read. I feel as if it is one that I ..."

Congratulations on another one done Liesl. I love The Stranger and remember thinking about it for a while also.

I see you have The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall coming up on your Old and new. Those two were 5 star reads for me. I hope you like them too.

Congratulations Liesl on your progress. You are halfway there on several challenges. Your short story and Reader's Choice are both really filling up!

Maybe a slow start for Old and New, but you are smoking through the others.

Sue wrote: "I see you have The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall coming up on your Old and new. Those two were 5 star reads for me. I hope you like them too. ..."

That is good to hear. I am currently reading A Passage to India and I am not enjoying it as much as I expected. I normally breeze through books about India but this is a drudge at the moment. I am hoping that it will improve as the story unfolds.

Lynn wrote: "Congratulations Liesl on your progress. You are halfway there on several challenges. Your short story and Reader's Choice are both really filling up!"

I feel as if I have cheated on the short story challenge. The collection I bought for Gooseberries contained different stories than the ones that were being discussed in the chat. So, I had to go find those stories as well. A couple of them were very short.

Bob wrote: "Maybe a slow start for Old and New, but you are smoking through the others."

It is the Old/New that I am motivated to complete this year. Last year, I didn't even come close and I am determined to get there this time. As long as I make it by December 31, I'll be happy.

Sue wrote:" see you have The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall coming up on your Old and new. Those two were 5 star reads for me. I hope you like them too. "

I agree with Sue, Liesl. Both books are fabulous 5 star classics. Enjoy!

Feeling pleased to actually tick off one of my Old & New Classics choices. Last night I finished A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. I feel as if I should have loved this work as it is a theme I generally enjoy reading. Unfortunately, I feel that I have read better versions of this story, most notably The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott. I hope that the author chose to write this work in this manner in order to highlight the problems with the system of colonisation. I'm not sure how successful he was though as it really just plays into some of the dreadful attitudes & stereotypes that people held in that time. This seems to be one classic that has not aged well.

I finally managed to finish The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë. I really struggled to find the motivation to read this one. Both the narrator, Mr Markham, and the diarist, Mrs Graham/Huntingdon, were such awful people and the novel was so dry and humourless.

I gave this 3 stars in recognition of the work that Anne Brontë set out to achieve. It makes a wonderful companion for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman as it illustrates much of what Mary Wollstonecraft argued in her work.

Liesl wrote: "Bob wrote: "Maybe a slow start for Old and New, but you are smoking through the others."

It is the Old/New that I am motivated to complete this year. Last year, I didn't even come close and I am d..."

I hope you make your goal. Sorry Wildfel Hall was not up to par, I rather liked it.

Liesl wrote: "I finally managed to finish The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë. I really struggled to find the motivation to read this one. Both the narrator, Mr Markham, and th..."

Liesl, I'm sorry to hear that you were disappointed by Tenant of Wildfell hall. I liked it a lot but I have to agree with you nasty characters and and the lack of humor. I appreciated Anne's courage in writing about physical and emotional abuse as well as alcoholism.

Anne (On semi-hiatus) wrote: "I appreciated Anne's courage in writing about physical and emotional abuse as well as alcoholism..."

Yes, this is a good point. Today we are accustomed to reading accounts of these issues but I imagine at the time that Anne Bronte wrote this it was not a common perspective to take.

Liesl wrote: "Anne (On semi-hiatus) wrote: "I appreciated Anne's courage in writing about physical and emotional abuse as well as alcoholism..."

Yes, this is a good point. Today we are accustomed to reading acc..."

Exactly. And certainly not by a woman writer. Anne was writing about her brother, btw. She created quite a stir.