Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

Our Classics in Translation Topic is getting a new name and a new method of choosing our monthly reads.

The title will now be Authors from Around the World to reflect the fact that our members who don't have English as a first language often read books translated from English into their language.
That means we will be reading some English language books, by lesser known authors, as well as authors in many other languages.

Our selection method will be informal, and a combination of Moderator's Choices and Member input.
There will be no formal nomination and seconding this time, since members sometimes find that life gets in the way of their reading plans, especially these last two years, and they can't get around to reading their choice.
That has happened to me as well.


There are a number of authors I would like to share with the group, including some major authors we have overlooked, and some lesser known authors I have really enjoyed reading.

Please share any authors you think would be interested in reading, as long as they fit our classic definition and are not English language authors.
You can list as many as you like, including authors mentioned by other members. Just remember that availability is a factor to take into consideration when making your list.

A wonderful plan Rosemarie!

I second the process :)

Great plan, Rosemarie. Those I would be most interested in reading next year are -

Hermann Hesse
Jean-Paul Sartre
Thomas Mann
Franz Kafka
Simone de Beauvoir
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Marlen Haushofer
Robert Walser
Alessandro Manzoni
Albert Camus
And the unknown author of Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney

I would like to suggest some ancient epics, like Metamorphosis, Inferno and Aenied by Virgil.


I will be reading Mahabharata the longest epic in the world, next year but it has ten books so it will be difficult to read as a group.

John, we read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich this past January in Reading the Russians.
Please feel free to comment on any of his books under that heading. I look forward to reading any you, or our other members, make.

Nidhi, in the past we had a section called Epic Poetry, in which we read some of these works. The threads are still open for comments, since all of our book discussion threads stay open, so that anyone can comment at any time.
Enjoy the Mahabarata.

Great plan, Rosemarie. I'd like to suggest the following authors.

Guy de Maupassant,
Stendhal,
Selma Lagerlöf,
Knut Hamsun,
Marcel Proust,
Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Thomas Mann

From those authors listed already, I am definitely interested in:

Franz Kafka
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Stendhal
Thomas Mann
Herman Hesse

I'm also interested in these authors:
Stefan Zweig
Nikolai Leskov
Vsevolod Garshin (Might be hard to find. I have 1 of his books and it wasn't even listed in GR. Someone had to add it for me.)

I hope to be able to participate more in 2022! My timing is always off with what the group is reading.

I love this group! I'd never heard of the last three authors on Pam's list, but having had a quick look at their details, I definitely hope to read them in the next year.

(Who could resist being intrigued by the story of The Steel Flea - aka The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea??)

Pam, we read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in January of this year. Please feel free to comment any time, if you've read the book. It's an amazing book!

John, Camus is our current author of the month in Classics in Translation.

Hi Rosemarie, I'm reading his The First Man, at the moment. But I'd be very happy to re-read some of his other books next year.

We'll see what happens. My goal is to read some authors we haven't read before, and I've already seen a couple on the various lists.
It is highly unlikely that we'll be reading an author whose works we read in the past three years-but you never know.

I'm interested in:
Émile Zola
Alessandro Manzoni
Madame de La Fayette
Eileen Chang

I am also interested in Zola.

How about George Sand?

Looking for author's that get less coverage, I'm planning to read some more Magda Szabó (Hungary) next year.

I've really enjoyed both Abigail and The Door.

Next on my list are Katalin Street and Iza's Ballad in 2022.

I like seeing new authors on the list!

I have some authors in mind-but they're going to be a surprise.

And we can do some really early pre-planning for the following year, if our list is just too long to do in one year.

Rosemarie wrote: "I like seeing new authors on the list!

I have some authors in mind-but they're going to be a surprise.

And we can do some really early pre-planning for the following year, if our list is just too..."

Pre-planning reminds me of the term pre-thinking. My husband s has a field day with "pre-thinking" by taking it literally, so now I do this with pre-planning ;) and I think of it as I am planning to plan.

Whatever works!

Pre-thinking doesn’t attempt to predict the future or even plan for it. Rather, it describes what is possible and considers how we might respond to those possibilities.

Interesting difference!

I thought pre-thinking came before pre-planning! Who knew!

Lesle wrote: "Pre-thinking doesn’t attempt to predict the future or even plan for it. Rather, it describes what is possible and considers how we might respond to those possibilities.

Interesting difference!

I..."

My husband just takes these terms LITERALLY in jest. As in pre-thinking comes before someone every thinks, and pre-planning before anyone plans, but I wasn't clear so I have had us in a fun, thoughtful discourse by mistake :)!

I suppose it could be called dad jokes since he's also a dad.

I'd like to add Charles Baudelaire to my already suggested list in message 10. Sorry, Rosemarie, for this late input. I totally forgot him and remembered only when I just checked my kindle!

No worries, Piyangie. It's an informal process this year, and maybe even into the next year. I have a few surprise authors in mind, that I really want to share with the group too-some lesser known authors and some Nobel Prize winners as well.

My mod's choice authors for 2022 so far are:

Italy:
Giovannino Guareschi who wrote The Little World of Don Camillo and other books in that series. They are fun reads for the most part, although a very few have more serious topics since they refer to events that happened in World War 2. The main character is a very unusual Roman Catholic priest.
The Little World refers to his small town parish in the Po valley.

British Commonwealth:
Nevil Shute wrote numerous novels, of which I have read quite a few.
His most famous books are On the Beach and A Town Like Alice. His most engaging book is The Pied Piper.
I have enjoyed every book that I've read by this author.

Israel:
Nobel Prize winning author in 1966, S.Y. Agnon. I've read it twice and will most likely read it again in 2022.

Female Authors which haven't been read by our group:

Marlen Haushofer
Magda Szabó
Simone de Beauvoir
Madame de La Fayette
Eileen Chang
Selma Lagerlöf(we read one book in YA)
Sigrid Undset
George Sand (one of her books may be in the Hefty read section, in which case we won't be reading her here)

Which three authors would you like to read in 2022?

Would anyone be interested in a month dedicated to poetry? Maybe December 2022 when we are busy trying to finish our reading challenges or getting ready for the holidays.

Charles Baudelaire has been mentioned already, but there are many more!
We could perhaps share a favourite poem?
Victor Hugo wrote poetry and plays as well as novels, as did Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
And as I said earlier, there are so many others we could read and share with the group.

We will be reading at least work of Émile Zola in 2022.

Which of his works would you like to read? We don't all need to read the same book, of course, but some members really enjoy reading a book along with other members in the group.

One of his shortest books is Thérèse Raquin, a stand alone book.
Then there is his Rougon-Macquart series. Each book has a different theme or looks at a different aspect of society. Some of them are very long, but all worth reading.

Male Authors we haven't read as a group.

Hermann Hesse
Jean-Paul Sartre
Robert Walser
Alessandro Manzoni (might be read in the heftys)
Max Frisch
Ferenc Molnár

Please choose one author from the list, thanks.

I choose Jean-Paul Sartre from male authors and Selma Lagerlöf, Magda Szabó and Madame de La Fayette from female authors.

Of Zola’s books, I have 4 on my shelves that I am interested in reading, in this order: 1) Nana, 2)The Paradise (The Ladies Paradise), 3) The Belly of Paris, and 4) L’Assommoir. I haven’t read any of his books so I’m open to suggestions.

For the male authors, I’m interested in Hesse.

Nana is the weakest of the four you've mentioned, Pam. It starts out well but verges on the ridiculous towards the end. The other three you've mentioned are much better.
Nana is introduced as a child in L'Assommoir, which is one of my favourites.

Rosemarie- Thanks for that info! I will def not read Nana first. My husband read it and recommended it and I saw the movie. The others I have no familiarity with.

Rosemarie wrote: "Female Authors which haven't been read by our group:

Marlen Haushofer
Magda Szabó
Simone de Beauvoir
Madame de La Fayette
[author:Ei..."

My three favourites from that list would be Haushofer, de Beauvoir, and Sand.

Rosemarie wrote: "Male Authors we haven't read as a group.

Hermann Hesse
Jean-Paul Sartre
Robert Walser
Alessandro Manzoni (might be read in the heftys)..."

My favourites would be Hesse, Sartre, and Walser.

Rosemarie wrote: "Would anyone be interested in a month dedicated to poetry? Maybe December 2022 when we are busy trying to finish our reading challenges or getting ready for the holidays.

[author:Charles Baudelair..."

Fantastic idea, Rosemarie!

Just a reminder
It looks like we will be reading under Husky's:

The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse (578 pages) - IIII

Tony wrote: "Looking for author's that get less coverage, I'm planning to read some more Magda Szabó (Hungary) next year.

I've really enjoyed both Abigail and The Door.Next on m..."

Tony these look very interesting and are quite affordable too. (Not in hardcover though lol)

Rosemarie wrote: "Female Authors which haven't been read by our group:

Marlen Haushofer
Magda Szabó
Simone de Beauvoir
Madame de La Fayette
[author:Ei..."

I like this list Rosemarie.

Thanks. It was suggested by our group members.

Rosemarie wrote: "We will be reading at least work of Émile Zola in 2022.

Which of his works would you like to read? We don't all need to read the same book, of course, but some members really enjoy r..."

Zola is on my list, having Thérèse Raquin and the Rougon-Macquart series on my TBR pile.

Assuming that Hesse’s Glass Bead is a Hefty/Husky read, I will go with Sartre and Szabó.

Also, I like the idea of a poetry read in December but can’t see myself reading a whole book of poetry! I could read a few select poems, though. I’m getting ready to read The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by the Japanese poet Basho. (I usually avoid poetry but I do like Haiku.) I just finished I am a Japanese Writer by Dany Laferrière, in which the main character is reading Basho’s book throughout the entire book.

The poems don't need to be all by the same author. Browsing is good.

I like the idea of a poetry month, Rosemarie. December should be a good time. I'll keep my Baudelaire till then. I'm very interested in reading his Les Fleurs du Mal

I look forward to poetry month already! I'll be rereading Baudelaire as well as some other favourites.

I'm setting myself a 2022 personal target of reading 12 books of pre-1972 poetry by Scottish poets - and I'll use the poetry month of December to make up any ground I lose over the year. I've just spent a happy half-hour selecting the 12 books from my bookshelves.

I like your plan, John!