Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

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 #3 - Century Around the World Challenge COMPLETE

10/10 read

1910-19 Despised and Rejected by Rose Allatini (1918) 1/12/22 ★★★★½
1920-29 The Wife by Sigrid Undset (1921) 3/31/22 ★★★
1930-39 Jezebel by Irène Némirovsky (1936) 8/9/22 ★★★★
1940-49 The Street by Ann Petry (1946) 5/15/22 ★★★★½
1950-59 Owls Do Cry by Janet Frame (1957) 9/4/22 ★★★½
1960-69 Iza's Ballad by Magda Szabó (1963) 8/25/22 ★★★
1970-79 The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector (1977) 1/2/22 ★★
1980-89 Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories by Alifa Rifaat (1983) 4/12/22 ★★★½
1990-99 Changes: A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo (1991) 2/21/22 ★★★
2000-09 Gerta by Kateřina Tučková (2009) 2/27/22 ★★★★

Challenge #4 - Members Choice Challenge COMPLETE

12/12 read

1. 19th Century Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs 5/26/22
2. 20th Century If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin 2/17/22
3. 21st Century Potential Future Classic A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers 6/24/22
4. Current or Past Group Read The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens 2/5/22
5. An Author not read before My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell 1/23/22
6. Diversity Classic, read a book from a religion, culture, country, or race different than yours Changes: A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo 2/21/22
7. Science Fiction A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin 8/29/22
8. A book originally written in a language other than your own The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector 1/2/22
9. A Banned Book Despised And Rejected by Rose Allatini 1/12/22
10. Nonfiction Rachel Carson - Under the Sea Wind 1/7/22
11. Mystery/Crime All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny 3/30/22
12. Horror or Humor Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay 9/10/22

Challenge #7 - Expand Your Horizon with New Authors COMPLETE

1. Clarice Lispector - The Hour of the Star 1/2/22
2. Rachel Carson - Under the Sea Wind 1/7/22
3. Despised and Rejected by Rose Allatini 1/12/22
4. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell 1/23/22
5. Changes: A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo 2/21/22
6. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim 4/17/22

Challenge #8 - Does the passage of time make a difference?

Select 10 books from any single year of interest, then select 10 more from 100, 50, or 25 years earlier, for a total of 20 books. The challenge is to successfully read 10 of the 20 books selected, five from your year of choice and five from the earlier year chosen.

5/10 read

1922
1. Miss Mapp by E.F. Benson
2. The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. The Cross by Sigrid Undset 6/11/22
4. One of Ours by Willa Cather
5. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
6. The True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun
7. The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield
8. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim 4/17/22
9. Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
10. The Heir; A Love Story by Vita Sackville-West 9/13/22

2019
1. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
2. Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis 6/28/22
3. The Yield by Tara June Winch
4. This Green and Pleasant Land by Ayisha Malik
5. A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
6. The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
7. The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
8. Room for a Stranger by Melanie Cheng
9. When All Is Said by Anne Griffin 6/21/22
10. The Atlas of Reds and Blues by Devi S. Laskar

Challenge #9 - Fiction/Nonfiction COMPLETE

I have lots of possible pairings so I'll include some topics and we'll see as I go what fits for 5 pairings.

5 pairs complete

Animals/Nature ✔
Fiction The Dog Who Dared to Dream by Sun-mi Hwang 5/2/22
Nonfiction Under the Sea Wind by Rachel Carson 1/7/22

LGBTQ ✔
Fiction Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud 5/24/22
Nonfiction Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir by Bishakh Kumar Som 6/12/22

Race Relations
Fiction
Nonfiction I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown 4/19/22

Books About Books ✔
Fiction The Sentence by Louise Erdrich 1/17/22
Nonfiction I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel 7/30/22

Travel
Fiction The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim 4/1/22
Nonfiction

Feminism ✔
Fiction Changes: A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo 2/21/22
Nonfiction Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard 3/16/22

Incarceration ✔
Fiction If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin 2/17/22
Nonfiction Citizen 13660 by Mine Okubo 5/9/22

Jillian ❀‿❀ wrote: "Hi Laurie! Looks like you have a ton of great reading planned. I just wanted to wish you the best in the new year. :-)"

Thank you, Jillian.

Laurie, I really thought about doing an around the world century challenge too. Looks like you came up with great choices!

Thanks, Lori. I really want to focus on an ongoing personal challenge I have which has books from various countries so that worked well for my century challenge.

Laurie wrote: "Challenge #3 - Century Around the World Challenge

Subject to change

1900-09 I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki (1905)
1910-19 Despised and Rejected by [au..."


There are some really interesting reads in that list, Laurie. Good luck with your challenges.

Liesl wrote: "Laurie wrote: "Challenge #3 - Century Around the World Challenge

Subject to change

1900-09 I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki (1905)
1910-19 [book:Despised and Rejected|5..."

Thanks, Liesel

Added Despised And Rejected to my TBR. I love finding the hidden treasures from that decade.

Like many others, loving your take on the century challenge, Laurie. Gives me some ideas for my own challenge structures.

Marilyn wrote: "Added Despised And Rejected to my TBR. I love finding the hidden treasures from that decade."

I find many hidden treasures from early in the century that are not well known to me. This was one I had never heard of before this year, and I am quite excited to read it.

Aubrey wrote: "Like many others, loving your take on the century challenge, Laurie. Gives me some ideas for my own challenge structures."

Thanks, Aubrey. I need to do better than I did this year in reading outside the US and UK. This will hopefully get me on a more diverse geographic path.

I've added my first book to three of the challenges by reading The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector. My apologies to those who love Lispector because this book was really not my thing. I gave it two stars. I am not a reader who enjoys philosophical musings which is why I also don't on with Fyodor Dostoevsky most of the time. I was also able to use this book for Bingo, so at least it worked in lots of areas for challenges.

I've added another challenge like some kind of fool. Challenge #8 was calling to me to read some books from 100 years ago. I paired them with 2019 which is the year I own the most books from. Although it isn't quite 100 years apart, it will give me a good judgment of the difference of a century.

It is easy to add a book to multiple challenges at this point. I finished Despised and Rejected by Rose Allatini first published in 1918. I gave it 4.5 stars and here is my review.

I like your plans, Laurie, and the more challenges, the more room for overlap. :-) Great review--I'd never heard of that one and it sounds very interesting.

Kathleen wrote: "I like your plans, Laurie, and the more challenges, the more room for overlap. :-) Great review--I'd never heard of that one and it sounds very interesting."

Thanks, Kathleen. I heard about this book last year from someone on youtube.

I haven't posted a new comment here in 8 months but I have been working on these challenges. I've completed 4 of the 5 that I attempted: the century challenge, members choice challenge, expand your horizon with new authors, and fiction/non-fiction.

It's unlikely I will complete the remaining challenge Does the Passage of Time Make a Difference because I need to read 7 more books and I'm not terribly interested in some of those right now. But I'm happy with what I accomplished.

Amazing, Laurie! You are blazing through your challenges!
Good luck on finishing your last seven books. Maybe you're experiencing a little bit of an fall reading slump ;)
Hope they turn out to be unexpectedly good!

Terris wrote: "Amazing, Laurie! You are blazing through your challenges!
Good luck on finishing your last seven books. Maybe you're experiencing a little bit of an fall reading slump ;)
Hope they turn out to be ..."

Thanks, Terris.

Congratulations on finishing these, Laurie! I'm going to have to add some of your books to my list.

Carolien wrote: "Congratulations on finishing these, Laurie! I'm going to have to add some of your books to my list."

Thanks, Carolien. I've read some interesting books so far this year.