Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

A Bakers Dozen Menu for the 2022 Buffet:

Challenge #1 - New & Old TBR
Challenge #2 - Second Place or Worse
Challenge #3 - Decade/Century/Millennium Challenge
Challenge #4 - Members Choice Challenge
Challenge #5 - Short Story Challenge
Challenge #6 - 2022 Group Reads Challenge
Challenge #7 - Expand Your Horizon With New Authors
Challenge #8 - Does the Passage of Time Make a Difference?
Challenge #9 – Fiction/Non-Fiction
Challenge #10 - The Half a Millennium Challenge with a Sour Lemon Twist of Difficult
Challenge #11 - Old and New Linked Categories
Challenge #12 - A-Z Author Challenge
Challenge #13 - A-Z Title Challenge

Challenge #1 - New & Old TBR

Old
1. Gösta Berling's Saga
2. Lysistrata Completed 26 April 4 stars
3. Sappho Completed 7 December 4 stars

New
4. The Blind Owl
5. The Harafish Completed 27 January 4 stars
6. The Bone People

Wild cards
7. A Doll's House Completed 24 February 4 stars
8. East Lynne
9. The Moonstone Completed 26 June 5 stars
10. The Last Chronicle of Barset
11. The Book of the City of Ladies
12. Oronooko: The Royal Slave Completed 12 July 3 stars

Alternates
13. Interior Castle
14. If Beale Street Could Talk Completed 5 August 4 stars

Challenge #2 - Second Place or Worse

Old School:
Completed Oronooko: The Royal Slave 12 July 3 stars

Options
The Forsaken Inn
The Innocents Abroad
The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes
The Alexiad
Aesop's Fables
The Saga of Gösta Berling
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Tale of Genji
Red Pottage
The Doctor's Wife
The Book of the City of Ladies
Quo Vadis
The Bhagavad Gita
Tartuffe
The Odd Women
The Social Contract
The Pilgrim's Progress
Sylvia's Lovers
Waverley
The Book of Margery Kempe
Love in Excess

New School:
Completed The Prophet 27 February 4 stars
Completed We 19 June 4 stars
Completed Quartet in Autumn 27 August 4 stars
Completed Testament of Youth 23 December 4 stars
Completed Nervous Conditions 28 December 4 stars

Options
The Bone People
The Summer Book
The Keepers of the House
Go Tell It on the Mountain
The Bridge on the Drina
Death Comes for the Archbishop
The Pursuit of Love
The Yearling
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Parable of the Sower
Woman at Point Zero
The House of the Spirits
Death and the Penguin
The Woman in Black
The Song of the Lark
Trustee from the Toolroom
Jazz
Lakota Woman
The Neverending Story
Swann's Way


Short Story:
Completed Jamila 28 February 4 stars
Completed Lysistrata 26 April 4 stars
Completed Sultana's Dream 20 June 3.5 stars
Completed A Worn Path 12 July 4 stars
Completed The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas 26 July 4 stars
Completed How Much Land Does a Man Need? Completed 24 October 3.5 stars
Completed Glittering City 12 September 3.5 stars

Options:
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The 13 Clocks
The Blind Owl
Miss Lonelyhearts
The Hunting Gun
The Story of an Hour
The Christmas Hirelings
The Blazing World
Sonnets from the Portuguese
No One Writes to the Colonel
The Machine Stops
Phèdre
Medea
The Devil's Pool
The Fatal Eggs
The Colour Out of Space
Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali
The Duchess of Malfi
A Horseman in the Sky
The Servant of Two Masters

Long Read:
East Lynne
Five Smooth Stones
A Fine Balance
The Tale of Genji
The Golden Notebook
He Knew He Was Right

Challenge #3 - Decade/Century/Millennium Challenge

Century of Middle East and North African Authors

1910: The Tears, The English Translation of Al-Abarat: Mustafa Lutfi Al-Manfaluti, Translated by Majid Khan Malik Saddiqui Completed 11 June 4 stars
1920: The Prophet (Lebabon) Completed 27 February 4 stars
1930: The Blind Owl (Iran)
1940: Madonna in a Fur Coat (Turkey) Completed 29 July 4 stars
1950: Jamila (Kyrgyzstan) Completed 28 February 4 stars
1960: Children of the New World (Algeria) or The Open Door (Egypt)
1970: The Harafish (Egypt) Completed 28 January 4 stars
1980: Naphtalene (Iraq)
1990: Touba (Iran)
2000: Once upon a country (Palestine)
2010: The Ardent Swarm (Tunisia) Completed 19 January 4 stars
Celestial Bodies Completed 17 July 4 stars
2020: The Island of Missing Trees (Cyprus) Completed 24 May 5 stars

Century of Scandinavian literature
1860: The Snow Man and The Ice-Maiden and Other Tales (Contains The Ice Maiden, Butterfly, Psyche and The Snail and the Rose Tree) by Hans Christian Andersen (Denmark) Completed January.
1870: A Doll's House(Norway) Completed 24 February 4 stars
1880: Hunger (Norway)
1890: Gosta Berling's Saga (Sweden)
1900: The Iron Chariot: The Original Scandinavian Crime Novel (Norway) Completed 29 June 3.5 stars (or Sidsel Longfrock (Norway)
1910: The Dangerous Age (Denmark) Completed 5 August 4 stars
1920: The Wreath (Norway)
1930: Independent People (Iceland) Or Seven Gothic Stories (Denmark)
1940: The Children of Noisy Village (Sweden) Completed 3 June 4 stars
1950: The Long Ships (Sweden) Completed 30 May 5 stars
1960: Roseanna (Sweden) Completed 12 August 4 stars
1970: The Summer Book (Finland)
1980: The Dog (Sweden) Completed 26 February 4 stars
1990: Her Enemy (Finland) Completed 14 September 4 stars
2000: Flatey Enigma (Iceland)
2010: Hummingbird (Finland)


Century of Crime
1840-1849: The Murders in the Rue Morgue - a C. Auguste Dupin Short Story / C. Auguste Dupin Collection Completed 24 July 3 stars
1850-1859: Three Detective Anecdotes, On Duty with Inspector Field, The Detective Police or Recollections of a Police Man,
1860-1869: The Moonstone (1868)
1870-1879:The Count's Millions (1870)
1880-1889: A Study in Scarlet (1887)
1890-1899: The Sign of Four (1890)
1900-1909: The Red Thumb Mark (1907)
Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief (1907)
1910-1919: Trent's Last Case (1913)
1920-1929: Inspector French's Greatest Case (1924)
The Three Taps: A Detective Story Without a Moral (1927)
1930-1939: Murder at Monk's Barn (1931)
Behold, Here's Poison (1932)
They Found Him Dead (1937)
Dictator's Way (1938)
Suspects Nine (1939)
1940-1949: Tragedy at Law (1942)
1950-1959: Murder in Vienna (1956)
1960-1969: The Religious Body (1966)
1970-1979: Unholy Writ (1976)
1980-1989: Dead Man's Ransom (1984)
The Sirens Sang of Murder (1989)
1990-1999: Murder on the Ballarat Train (1991)
The Man Who Cast Two Shadows (1995)
Death at La Fenice (1995)
2000 2009: Death Without Company (2006)
2010-2019: Enigma of China (2013)
A Death in the Family (1915)
2020-2022: The Thursday Murder Club (2020)

Two Centuries of Short Stories/Essays:
1816: The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann (German)

1827: On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts by Thomas De Quincey(English)

1836: Three Hundred Years Hence by Mary Griffith (American)

1840: The Murders in the Rue Morgue - a C. Auguste Dupin Short Story (American)

1853: Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville (American)

1861: The Snow Man and The Ice-Maiden and Other Tales (Contains The Ice Maiden, Butterfyl, Psyche and The Snail and the Rose Tree) by Hans Christian Andersen (Danish)
1865: How I Built Myself a House by Thomas Hardy (English)

1871: Twin-Love by Bayard Taylor https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
1872: A Ride Across Palestine by Anthony Trollope (English)
1872: Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Irish)
1876: Danilo Stackpole: The Fool Who Outwitted the Devil by Ion Creangă (Romanian)

1883: The Hand by Guy de Maupassant (French)

1886: How Much Land Does a Man Need? by Leo Tolstoy(Russian)

1891: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
(American)

1905: Sultana's Dream by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (modern Bangladesh)

1917: The Mark on the Wall by Virginia Woolf (English)

1919: England to America by Margaret Prescott Montague (Inaugural winner of the O. Henry Prize) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

1921: A Haunted House, Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf (English)

1922: Before the Party by W. Somerset Maugham (English)

1932: Sarkiss: A true story by Panaït Istrati (Romanian)

1936: Bookshop Memories by George Orwell (English)

1937: The Kimono by H.E. Bates (English)

1941: The Library of Babel (Argentinian)
1941: A Worn Path by Eudora Welty (American) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

1946: how the poor die by George Orwell (English)

1949: The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (American)

1950: Home is the Spaceman https://www.gutenberg.org/files/68533...

1960: My grandfather's ghost by RP Lister (American) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

1965: Computers don't argue by Gordon R. Dickson (American) https://vdocuments.mx/reader/full/com...

1973: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin (American)

1983: From the poets in the kitchen by Paule Marshall (American) https://idoc.pub/documents/from-the-p...

1997: Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx (American)

1998: Yonder: Essays by Siri Hustvedt (American)

2008: Stand by me by Wendell Berry (American) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

2011: Sold by Wendell Berry (American) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

2012: Monstro by Junot Díaz (Dominica) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

2016: Goldfish and Concrete by Maartje Wortel (Dutch)
The Great Silence by Ted Chiang https://electricliterature.com/the-gr...

2017: The Drone King by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (American) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

2022: A Substitution Said Sayrafiezadeh https://www.theatlantic.com/books/arc...

Millennium

1901-2000: Angel (British) 1957 Completed 8 January
1801-1900: Tess of the D’Urbervilles (British) 1891
1701-1800: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) (British)
1601-1700: Oronooko: The Royal Slave (1688) (British) Completed 12 July 3 stars
1501-1600: Interior Castle (1588) (Spanish)
1401- 1500: The Book of the City of Ladies (1405) (Italian)
1301 - 1400: The Dialogue of Saint Catherine of Siena (1377) Italian
1201 - 1300: The Saga of the Jomsvikings Completed 3 June 4 stars
1101 - 1200: The Alexiad (1148) Byzantium
1001 - 1100: The Diary of Lady Murasaki (1010) Completed 24 January 4 stars

Challenge #4 - Members Choice Challenge

1. 19th Century, Lady Susan Completed 12 February 3.5 stars
2. 20th Century, Angel Completed 8 January 3.5 stars
3. 21st Century Potential Future Classic, The Island of Missing Trees Completed 24 May 5 stars
4. Current or Past Group Read, Carmilla Completed 8 January 3 stars
5. An Author not read before, Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes by Ella Cheever Thayer Completed 7 April 4 stars
6. Diversity Classic, read a book from a religion, culture, country, or race different than yours. The Harafish Completed 28 January 4 stars
7. Science Fiction, Completed We 19 June 4 stars
8. A book originally written in a language other than your own, The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky Completed 27 January 4 stars
9. A Banned Book, Lysistrata Completed 26 April 4 stars
10. Nonfiction, The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter Completed 5 January 3.5 stars
11. Mystery/Crime, Dictator's Way Completed 3 January 3.5 stars
12. Horror or Humor, Arabella Completed 1 January 4 stars

Challenge #5 - Short Story Challenge

Pre-2000
1. The Snow Man
2. Sarkiss: A true story
3. Carmilla
4. Computers don't argue by Gordon R. Dickson (1965) https://vdocuments.mx/reader/full/com...
5. The Drone King https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
6. Danilo Stackpole: The Fool Who Outwitted the Devil
7. The Diary of Lady Murasaki
8. A Ride Across Palestine
9. The Watsons
10. Jamila
11. The Kimono https://doclecture.net/1-10111.html
12. The Library of Babel
13. Sultana's Dream
14. On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts
15. England to America by Margaret Prescott Montague (Inaugural winner of the O. Henry prize) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
16. A Worn Path https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
17. Home is the Spaceman https://www.gutenberg.org/files/68533...
18. On Duty with Inspector Field
19. Three Hundred Years Hence
20. The Detective Police
21. The Murders in the Rue Morgue - a C. Auguste Dupin Short Story
22. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
23. How I Built Myself a House
24. A Haunted House
25. Kew Gardens

2000 and on

1. Stand by Me by Wendell Berry https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
2. Sold by Wendell Berry https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

Challenge #6 - 2022 Group Reads Challenge

1. Carmilla
2. The Gambler
3. The Waste Land and Other Poems
4. Bartleby the Scrivener
5. The Library of Babel
6. The Age of Innocence
7. The Mark on the Wall
8. how the poor die
9. Before the Party
10. Nutcracker and Mouse King and the Tale of the Nutcracker
11. The Hand
12. The Vicar of Wakefield

Challenge #7 - Expand Your Horizon With New Authors

Pre 2000:
1. Albie Sachs - The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter
2. Catherine Aird - The Religious Body
3. Murasaki Shikibu - The Diary of Lady Murasaki
4. Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Gambler
5.Winston Graham - Ross Poldark
6. Herman Melville - Bartleby the Scrivener
7. Ella Cheever Thayer - Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes

2000 and on:
1. Yamen Manai - The Ardent Swarm

Challenge #8 – Does the Passage of Time Make a Difference?

This is a maybe

Challenge #9 – Fiction/Non-Fiction

Completed
LM Montgomery
Fiction: Anne of Avonlea
Non fiction: The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career

Slains/18th century Scotland
Non-fiction: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
Fiction: The Winter Sea

Mendabilly:
Fiction: The King's General
Non-fiction: House of Fiction: From Pemberley to Brideshead, Great British Houses in Literature and Life

Shirley Jackson
Fiction: The Lottery
Non-fiction: Life Among the Savages

Lady Evelyn Cobbold
Non-Fiction: Pilgrimage to Mecca
Fiction: Bird Summons

Stonehenge
Non-fiction: Britain by the Book: A Curious Tour of Our Literary Landscape
Fiction: Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Maybe
Duke of Wellington
Non-fiction: Random Shots From a Rifleman
Fiction: The Spanish Bride

New York
Non-fiction: The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge
Fiction: The House of Mirth

Cornwall:
Non-fiction: A Gull on the Roof
Fiction: Ross Poldark or Frenchman's Creek

Middle East/Persia/Egypt:
Non-fiction: Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life
Fiction:

Mythology:
Non-fiction: The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work
Fiction: Agamemnon

Australia:
Non-fiction: The Road from Coorain
Fiction: Murder on the Ballarat Train

West-Africa:
Non-fiction: Travels in West Africa
Fiction: Segu

South African Wars:
Non-fiction: Commando: A Boer Journal Of The Boer War
Fiction: The Camp Whore or Ruiter in die Nag

French Crime
Non-Fiction: The First Detective: The Life and Revolutionary Times of Eugene Vidocq, Criminal, Spy and Private Eye
Fiction: The Count's Millions

Jane Austen
Only a Novel: The Double Life of Jane Austen
Something by Jane Austen

Georgette Heyer
Non-Fiction
Fiction

First World War:
Non fiction: Fighting France. from Dunkerque to Belport
Fiction: The Romantic

Challenge #10 - The Half a Millennium Challenge with a Sour Lemon Twist of Difficult

1980-1989: Dead Man's Ransom (1984) Completed 4 January 3.5 stars
1880 -1889: Hansom Cab
1780-1789: Lover's Vows (1786) (British)
1680-1689: Oronooko: The Royal Slave (1688) (British) Completed 12 July 3 stars
1580-1589: Interior Castle (1588) (Spanish)

Challenge #11 - Old and New Linked Categories

Completed

Romanian short stories
Old: Danilo Stackpole: The Fool Who Outwitted the Devil (1876)
New: Sarkiss: A true story (1932)

England and Palestine
Old: A Ride Across Palestine (1861)
New: Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour (1956)

Regency England
Old: Lady Susan Completed 12 February 3.5 stars
New: Arabella Completed 1 January 4 stars

Jomsvikings
Old: The Saga of the Jomsvikings
New: The Long Ships

Crime novels by French authors
Old: The Count's Millions
New: Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief

La dame aux camilles:
Old: La Dame Aux Camelias: Camille: A Play In Five Acts
New: The Tears, The English Translation of Al-Abarat: Mustafa Lutfi Al-Manfaluti, Translated by Majid Khan Malik Saddiqui

Women's utopian literature:
Old: Three Hundred Years Hence
New: Sultana's Dream

Children
Old: Little Men
New: Anne of Green Gables

Crime featuring the Andaman islands
The Sign of Four
Death in the Andamans

American crime writers
Old: The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales
New: The Man Who Cast Two Shadows

Christmas short stories
Old: Nutcracker and Mouse King and the Tale of the Nutcracker
New: Auggie Wren's Christmas Story

Options:
Duke of Wellington or The Peninsular Campaign
Old: Random Shots From a Rifleman
New: The Spanish Bride

Travel in the Middle East
Old: The Pilgrimage of Etheria: with footnotes
New: The Road to Oxiana or The Towers of Trebizond

The legend of King Arthur
Old: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
New: The Once and Future King

Some other options:
Norway
Old: Hunger - Knut Hamsun Newly Revised Edition
New: The Wreath

Christmas
Old: Christmas at Thompson Hall and Other Christmas Stories
New: Lanterns Across the Snow

Crime set in Australia
Old: The Mystery of a Hansom Cab
New: Murder on the Ballarat Train

Vampires:
Old: Carmilla
New: Carpe Jugulum

Russian literature:
The Gambler

Challenge 12: A-Z authors

A - Catherine Aird - The Religious Body
B - Barbara W. Tuchman - Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour
C - Sarah Caudwell- - The Shortest Way to Hades
D - Dalene Matthee - Susters van Eva
E - Ellis Peters - Dead Man's Ransom
F - Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Gambler
G - Georgette Heyer - Arabella
H - Cyril Hare - Tragedy at Law
I - Ianthe Jerrold - The Studio Crime
J - James Baldwin - If Beale Street Could Talk
K - M.M. Kaye - Death in the Andamans
L - L.M. Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables
M - Toni Morrison - Sula
N - Naguib Mahfouz - The Harafish
O - Carol O'Connell - The Man Who Cast Two Shadows
P - E.R. Punshon - Dictator's Way
Q - Kwei Quartey - Murder at Cape Three Points
R - Ronald Knox - The Three Taps
S - Albie Sachs - The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter
T- Elizabeth Taylor - Angel
U - Luis Alberto Urrea - The House of Broken Angels
V - Vera Brittain - Testament of Youth
W - David Williams - Unholy Writ
X - Qiu Xiaolong - Enigma of China
Y - Yevgeny Zamyatin - We
Z - Oksana Zabuzhko - Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex

Challenge 13 - A-Z Titles

A - Arabella
B - Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour
C - The Country Girls
D - Dictator's Way
E - Enigma of China
F - The First Violin
G - The Gambler
H - The Harafish
I - Inspector French's Greatest Case
J - Jo's Boys
K - The King's General
L - Lady Susan
M - The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales
N - Nutcracker and Mouse King and the Tale of the Nutcracker
O - Our Hearts Were Young and Gay: An Unforgettable Comic Chronicle of Innocents Abroad in the 1920s
P - The Pilgrim of Hate
Q - Quartet in Autumn
R - The Religious Body
S - The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter
T - Testament of Youth
U - Unholy Writ
V - The Vicar of Wakefield
W - With a Bare Bodkin
X - Xingu
Y - Yonder: Essays
Z - Zola

.

I'm looking for a crime novel of some kind set in the 1850's. I've got The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales for 1840's and The Moonstone for 1860's, but any ideas for the 1850's? It's too early for Mary Elizabeth Braddon, but someone similar would work as well. I'm not familiar enough with European authors, but there may also be an option?

Carolien wrote: "I'm looking for a crime novel of some kind set in the 1850's. I've got The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales for 1840's and The Moonstone for 1860's, but any ideas..."

East Lynne by Mrs. Henry Wood? Not sure how 'crime' it is, but the work's asssociated with both Collins and Braddon.

That will definitely work and it's been on my TBR for a while, thanks, Aubrey!

OK, I have something that looks like An Old and New Challenge and two Century challenges. Any suggestions for North African/Middle Eastern Authors prior to 1920 will also be useful if anybody has ideas.

I'm looking for a book published between 1910 and 1919 by a Scandinavian author who is not Selma Lagerlöf or Sigrid Undset. And any ideas for same region published between 1980 - 1989? Available in English please as well. Thank you, I do appreciate the wisdom of crowds in this group!

I had a look Carolien, and think I am going to add Jane Smiley's The Greenlanders. I will also try to get into Henning Mankell's Wallander series

Just realised that Jane Smiley is off course from the USA.

Thanks, Wayne! Any idea helps here. It turns out I own a lot of Scandinavian books and I have the makings of a Century challenge without real effort.

Carolien wrote: "I'm looking for a book published between 1910 and 1919 by a Scandinavian author who is not Selma Lagerlöf or Sigrid Undset. And any ideas for same region published betw..."

I have The Dangerous Age by Karin Michaëlis and With the Lapps in the High Mountains: A Woman Among the Sami, 1907-1908 by Emilie Demant Hatt, both Danish authors. Copies might be hard to acquire, so good luck with that.

As for pre 1920 North African/Middle Eastern, everything I have is much older than that period. The most contemporary is Napoleon in Egypt by Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti from 1798, if that helps.

The Dangerous Age is available on Kindle and I actually own a copy, so that is perfect, thank you!

Napoleon in Egypt may well become useful, so I'll stick it on a list.

Thank you! I've got her on for 1940 at this stage, but I'm also tempted by her biography. She'll definitely be part of this one.

Carolien wrote: "I'm looking for a book published between 1910 and 1919 by a Scandinavian author who is not Selma Lagerlöf or Sigrid Undset. And any ideas for same region published betw..."

I'm Swedish, I might help you =). From Sweden 1910 - 1919 I would suggest The Serious Game by Hjalmar Söderberg, one of the most famous books from that time that also is translated into English. I could also recommend one of the most loved children's books from that time, a book that is still loved by kids today Aunt Green, Aunt Brown and Aunt Lavender by Elsa Beskow. During that time it was common with a lot of poetry, I don't know if you'd like to read poetry that's translated? And there is also a lot of theatre plays. But when it comes to novels - that aren't written by Selma Lagerlöf, I don't think there is so much to find that has been translated into English unfortunately. There is one other famous novel that I found in translation God's Orchid by Hjalmar Bergman.

Carolien wrote: "I'm looking for a book published between 1910 and 1919 by a Scandinavian author who is not Selma Lagerlöf or Sigrid Undset. And any ideas for same region published betw..."

From the 1980's I'd like to suggest A Living Soul: by P.C. Jersild a remarkable book! Sort of a mixture between Sci Fi and philosophy ... at a research departement there is a living human brain in an aquarium. He has got one eye and is connected to the outer word with tubes so that the scientists can bring the data they wish for from him. He is in love with one of the women who works at the research faculty. This is a fascinating story about what we are.
Other books I'd like to recommend are Gentlemen by Klas Östergren, Agnes Cecilia by Maria Gripe (originally a childrens book but one that is also very loved and read by adults), The Way of a Serpent by Torgny Lindgren, The Christmas Oratorio by Göran Tunström, Simon and the Oaks by Marianne Fredriksson and The Forest of Hours by Kerstin Ekman. These are all very appreciated and several of them have been awarded. Please, feel free to ask me for more suggestions if you like but not all the books that I wanted to suggest have been translated to English.

I missed the 1980s request. There's Fair Play by Tove Jansson, as well as The Downfall of the Gods - Ragnarok by Villy Sørensen.

Thank you so much, Nike and Aubrey! These would never have surfaced without your help.

Some progress in January. I finished the first book in my Old and New Challenge The Harafish by Nobel prize winner Naguib Mahfouz. This is also the second book in my Middle East and North Africa challenge. I love his books and this was a very easy read.

I made a start on my 3 century challenges (yes, I know, madness). I started my Middle East and North Africa challenge in Africa with The Harafish (Egypt) and The Ardent Swarm by Tunisian born author Yamen Manai. The latter is an allegory of a country in the aftermath of a revolution. Absolutely lovely characters.

My Century of Scandinavian authors started with Hans Christian Andersen. I read a few of his stories including The Snow Man on which Olaf of Frozen is supposed to be based. "In Summer" was running through my head as this snowman is in love with a coal stove. The Ice-Maiden and Other Tales is quite tragic and definitely not for children.

My century and a bit of crime fiction are 4 books down. Dictator's Way is the tenth in the Bobby Owen series. I thoroughly enjoy this series of well-written police procedurals with interesting plots. The Religious Body is the first in the series by Catherine Aird and I liked the setting in the convent. Will continue the series. Unholy Writ is also a first in a series and involves a lost manuscript by Shakespeare. Dead Man's Ransom is the ninth in the Brother Cadfael series which I adore. I'm rereading the series for the third time.

I read seven short stories including 2 that comprise the first completed category in my Old and New Linked Categories challenge, Romanian short stories. Danilo Stackpole: The Fool Who Outwitted the Devil was written in 1876 and tells of a very foolish man who gets entangled with a bunch of demons in a pond. Great fun. Sarkiss: A true story is a bleak tale published in 1932 of a man who tries to survive unemployed in a town.

February should see some progress on the Scandinavian authors challenge.

Currently reading:
Anne of Green Gables
The Gambler

Currently listening:
Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour

Next up:
A Doll's House
Play It As It Lays
The Dangerous Age

Carolien thanks for sharing something of of your read of The Ice-Maiden and Other Tales as I am doing a fairy and folktale mini-study, a study that may become an on-going study.

Cynda wrote: "Carolien thanks for sharing something of of your read of The Ice-Maiden and Other Tales as I am doing a fairy and folktale mini-study, a study that may become an on-going study."

Good luck with your study! It's available on Project Gutenberg.

You sound so organized, Carolien. I am all over the place this year and almost everything I have read is an after 2000 publication and cannot find its way into any of my challenges.

What I really love about reading your progress report is how many books you are reading that I have no knowledge of and need to explore further. I can see you will be ballooning my TBR this year.

Carolien wrote: "Some progress in January. I finished the first book in my Old and New Challenge The Harafish by Nobel prize winner Naguib Mahfouz. This is also the second book in my Mi..."

I enjoyed reading your January progress. What a lot of interesting books and short stories you've read.

If you want any suggestions for your Scandinavian challenge feel free to ask me =). At least for when it comes to Swedish literature.

Sounds like a good reading month for you too.

It felt like I got very little read in February, but there was some progress.

I read A Doll's House for my Old/New category which I found very modern in its outlook on women's roles in society. That counted for my Scandinavian century where I also added The Dog to that challenge which was an unexpected find. Written from the perspective of a puppy that gets lost in the snow and then has to survive on its own, it was beautifully written,

My Middle East and North Africa century progressed as well. I reread The Prophet and then added Jamila which was another pleasure. My first exposure to Kyrgyzstan literature and it was beautifully translated.

I added Lady Susan and The Gambler to the genre challenge.

Lady Susan allowed me to complete and Old/New Linked category for Regency England combined with Arabella.

Looks like marvelous progress to me, Carolien.

Not a ton of progress, but I finished my first Fiction/Non-fiction category with L.M. Montgomery. I am rereading the Anne books and also read The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career which was interesting as it is a short autobiography mostly focused on her writing.

I finished Lysistrata which was great fun and meant some progress on the Old/New and Genre challenge. I also added Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes by Ella Cheever Thayer as Author not read before to the genre challenge. Such a sweet romance in the days before email and text messages.

If all goes to plan I'll finish the genre challenge this month. That's probably the most I can hope for at the moment. I start a new job tomorrow and we're in the process of packing up the house to relocate to England at the end of the month as a result. There are boxes of books all over the place.

Good luck with the move, they are always so stressful to me. Great opportunity to sort out all those books, though.

Finishing the genre challenge is a major accomplishment. Finishing anything seems grand to me at the moment!

The Genre challenge is done. I finished with We for Sci-fi which is never my strongest suit.

In theory I have finished a Century of Crime reads, but I still plan to read more for that challenge to end up at about a century and a half.

I've started making progress with my Scandinavian century. I highly, highly recommend The Long Ships.

Carolien wrote: "The Genre challenge is done. I finished with We for Sci-fi which is never my strongest suit.

In theory I have finished a Century of Crime reads, but I still plan to read more for tha..."

What did you think about "We"? I read it earlier this year and I loved it.

Good to hear Carolien that you enjoyed Lysistrata. I may read it too this year. Looks like fun.

Carolien wrote: "The Genre challenge is done. I finished with We for Sci-fi which is never my strongest suit.

In theory I have finished a Century of Crime reads, but I still plan to read more for tha..."

A challenge finished--yay! And I'm glad to hear about The Long Ships. I'm hoping to get to that one some day.

I liked We more than expected, dystopian sci-fi is not normally my thing, but it's very readable. I will have to go and reread 1984 some time soon.

I can say the same. I really enjoyed We more than I expected (5*s). I read 1984 after We with a gap of almost six months between the two but didn't like it as much (just 2*s)

Congrats on completing the genre challenge. It always feels so good to put "finished" on one of them.

Sara wrote: "Congrats on completing the genre challenge. It always feels so good to put "finished" on one of them."

It does, especially as the Old/New is not getting very far!

I have several challenges this year that I have not marked a single book off of the list. I keep telling myself that there are still six months left, but I can feel the walls closing in. :o)