Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Challenge #1 - New & Old Challenge
✔︎Challenge #2 - Second Place or Worse Century Challenge
Challenge #3 - Decade Challenge
✔︎Challenge #4 - Members Choice Challenge
✔︎Challenge #7 - Expand Your Horizon With New Authors
✔︎Challenge #9 – Fiction/Non-Fiction

The plan for 2022 is more emphasis on reading enjoyment and less on finishing challenges. Although, I do love a challenge. So, I am posting more challenges for more options and doing less planning.

✔︎ as completed

Old & New Challenge
Completed: 11/12

Old School
✔︎1. The Poor Clare by Elizabeth Gaskell (1856)
✔︎2. How Much Land Does a Man Need? by Leo Tolstoy (1886)
✔︎3. The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)

New School: The Awakening Land Trilogy
✔︎4. The Trees (#1) by Conrad Richter (1940)
✔︎5. The Fields (#2) by Conrad Richter (1946)
6. The Town (#3) by Conrad Richter (1950)

Wild Cards
✔︎7. The Professor's House by Willa Cather (1925)
✔︎8. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
✔︎9. Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden (1939)
✔︎10. Babette’s Feast by Isak Dinesen (1958)
✔︎11. The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark (1970)
✔︎12. The Dry by Jane Harper (2016)

Alternates: Wind, Drought, and the Depression
13. The Wind by Dorothy Scarborough (1925)
14. Whose Names Are Unknown by Sanora Babb (written in 1939, published in 2004)
15. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah (2021)

Second Place or Worse Century Challenge
Completed: 10/10

✔︎1900: The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace
✔︎1910: Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
✔︎1920: The Fatal Eggs by Mikhail Bulgakov
✔︎1930: Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
✔︎1940: Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
✔︎1950: Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
✔︎1960: Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry
✔︎1970: Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
✔︎1980: Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
✔︎1990: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Women Authors Decade Challenge: The 1960s
Completed: 8/10

✔︎1960: The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien
✔︎1961: Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen
✔︎1962: Cover Her Face by P.D. James
✔︎1963: The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
✔︎1964: A Chosen Sparrow by Vera Caspary
1965:
1966:
✔︎1967: I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven
✔︎1968: The Wedding Group by Elizabeth Taylor
✔︎1969: Patience & Sarah by Isabel Miller

Members Choice Challenge
Completed: 12/12

✔︎1. 19th Century: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
✔︎2. 20th Century: No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase
✔︎3. 21st Century: Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation by Anne Frank, Adapted by Ari Folman, Illustrations by David Polonsky
✔︎4. Current or Past Group Read: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
✔︎5. New Author: July's People by Nadine Gordimer
✔︎6. Diversity Classic: Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya
✔︎7. Science Fiction: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
✔︎8. Book in Translation: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
✔︎9. Banned Book: The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
✔︎10. Nonfiction: Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson
✔︎11. Mystery: Journey Into Fear by Eric Ambler
✔︎12. Humor: Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym

Expand Your Horizon With New Authors
Completed: 6/6

1. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
2. Irmgard Keun
3. Banana Yoshimoto
4. Dav Pilkey
5. Margaret Craven
6. Art Spiegelman

Fiction/Nonfiction
Completed: 5/5

✔︎1) Postwar - Holocaust
➤The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
➤Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt

✔︎2) World War II: Women in Translation
➤After Midnight by Irmgard Keun
➤A Bookshop in Berlin by Françoise Frenkel

✔︎3) Disability
➤The Chance to Fly by Ali Stroker
➤Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann

✔︎4) Didion
➤Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
➤Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

✔︎5) Serial Killers
➤In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
➤I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

➤ read

Reserved

Another year of great challenge options! I'm really hoping that the nonfiction challenge helps me get started on my very long TBR list.

I looked at what I posted. Then I looked at my many spreadsheets and asked myself, "What do you really want to read?" The Old & New Challenge changed significantly and the others were tweaked. Next year I will ask myself that question in November.

Marilyn, what a great idea to ask yourself that question. You have some great choices-In a Lonely Place is the perfect noir, and your fiction/non-fiction pairs are inspiring. Enjoy!

That is an important question, Marilyn! You have a few of my favourites on the list - Mrs Palfrey and In this House of Brede and Quicksand. I look forward to your thoughts.

Hi Marilyn, I love that you're reading the Richter series. I do hope you'll join in the Buddy read of these three novels next summer! I'm looking forward to reading them. Have fun with your challenges!

Matt wrote: "Good luck Marilyn! Your selections look great."

Thanks, Matt!

Kathleen wrote: "Marilyn, what a great idea to ask yourself that question. You have some great choices-In a Lonely Place is the perfect noir, and your fiction/non-fiction pairs are inspiring. Enjoy!"

Thanks, Kathleen. I am intrigued by the fiction/nonfiction challenge. It was supposed to pare down my TBR but I think it's expanding.

Carolien wrote: "That is an important question, Marilyn! You have a few of my favourites on the list - Mrs Palfrey and In this House of Brede and Quicksand. I look forward to your thoughts."

I really enjoyed other books from these authors so I am looking forward to these. Happy reading!

Lori wrote: "Hi Marilyn, I love that you're reading the Richter series. I do hope you'll join in the Buddy read of these three novels next summer! I'm looking forward to reading them. Have fun with your challen..."

I have found that the New School section of the Old and New Challenge is a great place for a trilogy. Looking forward to the buddy read!

A really varied and unique selection. All the best

First book finished - Station Eleven. I gave it four stars for the first 3/4 of the book. When it reached the point where the author had to bring together all of the parts I thought it kind of fizzled.

Always feels so good to have the first read under your belt! Have a great year, Marilyn.

I got close but I'm calling it done and moving on.

It was a great achievement, Marilyn. You had some super reads. Off to 2023, now, and no worries.

Great job! So many challenges.

You did a great job Marilyn! Four challenges were completed!!