Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Whether you delve into horror and the supernatural this month or perhaps make an effort to finish off Challenge choices, share your plans with others. Your choices will inspire them.

A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny is on the list for October, along with a couple of group reads - and more.

2022 OCTOBER

5/5 In Search of Lost Time :
Du côté de chez Swann
À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs
Le côté de Guermantes
Sodome et Gomorrhe
La prisonnière
La fugitive
Le temps retrouvé

Brontës §3: letters
3/5 Un così forte desiderio di ali
4/5 Letters 1847-1853

3/5 Of Human Bondage

2022
06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10

Middlemarch( part 3) by George Eliot for Everyone Has Read This But Me Readalong

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles for Everyone Has Read This But Me Catch-Up

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner for the Women's Classic Literature

Front Desk by Kelly Yang for Great Middle School Reads

Persuasion by Jane Austen for Miranda Mills's youtube Comfort Book Club

My Victober books: The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays by Oscar Wilde and I will be reading "The Importance of Being Earnest."

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Best of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, and I will be reading the short story " A Scandal in Bohemia."

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Oathbringer will take me a further 2 more weeks to complete. So part of my 'plan' is how this panned out.

Thank you Matt. I hope your four mentions are more than worth the effort.

As the end if the year approaches, I have fewer and fewer options as I complete my challenges. . . .I hope to complete my challenges. We shall see.

Hoping to Read most of these and then some for a 24-hour readathon, the last for the year.
Books Read
2015 Mandalas: Coloring for Artists by Skyhorse Publishing
1948 Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner
1996 Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
1999 Magic Windows/Ventanas magicas by Carmen Lomas Garza
1993 Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel García Márquez
1867 Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola
1991 Wise Children by Angela Carter
2003 Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi
1995 Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
1945 The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More by Roald Dahl
2016 Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
1944 Dragonwyck by Anya Seton
1998 Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice by A.S. Byatt
1998 Skellig by David Almond
1951The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories by Carson McCullers

Books Planned
Fiction
Folktales of China edited by Wolfram Eberhard
Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice by A.S. Byatt
Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner
Wise Children by Angela Carter
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Skellig by David Almond
Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola
Fools of Fortune by William Trevor
Strange Pilgrims: Twelve Stories by Gabriel García Márquez

Nonfiction
Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre by Jack D. Zipes
The Greeks: A Global History by Roderick Beaton
Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars?: Public Transit in the Age of Google, Uber, and Elon Musk by James Wilt
Religion in the Handmaid's Tale: A Brief Guide by Collete Tennant
Contagious City: The Politics of Public Health in Early Philadelphia by Simon Finger

Seeing these long lists from others gives me hope for my ambitious plans for the month!

Continue:
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
Strange Fruit by Lillian E. Smith

Starting Soon:
Sailor Song by Ken Kesey
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mantel Pieces: Royal Bodies and Other Writing from the London Review of Books by Hilary Mantel

Hope to get to:
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
Music & Silence by Rose Tremain
Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe

So after looking at what I need to finish Challenges and what I would like to read, I have four possible texts:

Bullfight, 1948, Yasushi Inoue, Akutagawa Prize I downloaded this to my kindle from the Pushkin Collection. It should work for Bingo: Winner of a Foreign Prize

The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne which will be a group read plus work for a Bingo Square: Classic Written in My Native Language. Besides I just like Hawthorne.

Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe a group read this month.

The Mark on the Wall by Virginia Woolf because it is a group read, and I already own her collected works on Kindle.

_____________________________________________

A distant possibility is Reynard the Fox: A New Translation . I ordered it a few years ago because it looked intriguing. It would work for a Bingo Square.

Katy wrote: "A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny is on the list for October..."

Always a good October read.

RJ's OCTOBER 2022 READS

Will Finish:
Midnight Riot AKA Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt
The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly
The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell
The Third Man / The Fallen Idol by Graham Greene

Might Finish:
Rage by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman
Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey
A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

Will Read But Won't Finish This Month:
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain
The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu
The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
Asimov's Chronology of the World by Isaac Asimov

Good to see people reading Ken Kesey! Matt, hope you enjoy One Flew Over as much as I did. And Kathleen, I look forward to hearing what you think of Sailor's Song - I've never made it past Kesey's "Big Two."

(sigh, here we go again)

Finishing off The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
Falling Man by Don DeLillo for my IRL book club.
The Sandman Book Two by Neil Gaiman

Maybe:
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James

I also need to lessen my Library book pile, as it's getting exhausting trying to remember when i need to renew everything to avoid getting a fine. So if i can, i'll read:
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present by Yanis Varoufakis

The first two because they're pretty short and should be able to be brushed off quite quickly, the latter because i've loaned it about 9 times and I've nearly run out of times I can renew it.

hereby declaring my October Core 8 :

A Suitable Boy Seth, Vikram 1993 (first third)
Man's Fate Malraux, Andre 1933
Amerika Kafka, Franz 1927
To The Wedding Berger, John 1995
Trent's Last Case Bentley, E. C. 1913
The Mabinogion anon 1410 (re-read)
Quarantine Crace, Jim 1997
The Black Sheep Balzac, Honore de 1842

Darren wrote: "...The Mabinogion anon 1410 (re-read).."

Do you have edition you would recommend to me for a first time read?

I read the free Lady Charlotte Guest translation the first time, which was ok but I thought I might get more from a more modern translation so I've bought the Sioned Davies 2007 version to try again with!

Janice wrote: " Middlemarch( part 3) by George Eliot for Everyone Has Read This But Me Readalong

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles for Everyone Has Read This But Me Catch-Up
..."

Janice, I just got Lolly Willowes this morning from Amazon for Free! I was excited ;)
I only just heard of this book recently. It looks interesting.

Terris, that’s a great find! I’m also reading Lolly this month but luckily it’s on Hoopla! I missed out on the free one. Good job!

I am reading Mexican Gothic in Oct for my spooky read.

I'll be very interested in what you guys think of Lolly Willowes. Very unique book.

I have a lot of books going. Some I’ve been whittling away at for months. Maybe I’ll finish a few in October! Anyway here’s my current pile:

Here Be Dragons
A River Called Titash
Epitaph of a Small Winner
X Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells
X The Grey King
X A Doll's House
X Around the World in Eighty Days
New Mexico Ghost Stories Vol 1 by Antonio Garcez (Does not appear in search but it is in Goodreads?)
X The Whale Rider
X The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating
Less
The Personal Librarian

Terris wrote: "Janice wrote: " Middlemarch( part 3) by George Eliot for Everyone Has Read This But Me Readalong

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles for Everyone Has Read This Bu..."

Lucky you! :)

I love looking at everyone's lists of books because there are so many great books that get added to my TBR. :)

Currently reading Steven King. Not horror though. Fairy Tale

I see that Michelle in my feed. I am looking forward to your thoughts.

She was the first author to be named in all recorded history: the Mesopotamian poet, princess, and priestess Enheduanna.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/2...

October 29th, this is what I have read so far. I might be able to add one more title before the month is over.

Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe 3*
The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon 5*
The Devil's Pool by George Sand 3*
Bullfight by Yasushi Inoue 4*
The Postman by David Brin 4*

The Mark on the Wall by Virginia Woolf

Children's Books
Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann 4*
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson 4*
When Charlie McButton Lost Power by Suzanne Collins 5*

of my core 8,
I completed 6:
Man's Fate Malraux, Andre - 4 Stars
Amerika Kafka, Franz - 3.5
To The Wedding Berger, John - 4.5
Trent's Last Case Bentley, E. C. - 3.5
Quarantine Crace, Jim - 2.5
The Black Sheep Balzac, Honore de - 4
one DNF:
A Suitable Boy Seth, Vikram 1993 (first third) - got to page 300!
and one I'm carrying over into November
The Mabinogion anon 1410 (re-read) - enjoying the Sioned Davies translation so far...

Darren wrote: "A Suitable Boy Seth, Vikram 1993 (first third) - got to page 300!
and one I'm carrying over into November"

Nice list Darren! And congratulations on getting that far with the Seth. I have a copy and I'm not afraid to say that it intimidates me.

you can always just use it as a door-stop even if you never get round to reading it!

Darren & RJ -- You can do it!
A couple of years ago I began on January 1st. I set the number of pages I needed to read per day to finish in three months (so that I had some time to also read some other books along the way). And that's how I did it! It's not a bad book at all. But I will tell you that I could only get a hardback print copy from the library and that thing was huge and heavy in my lap!!!
(P.S. It was checked out through interlibrary loan during Covid, and my library was only accepting books back through the drop box and, of course, the book was so big it wouldn't fit in the drop box! So, I ended up getting to keep the book for about four months when the library workers would come out to your car and get the books out of the trunk! Good thing -- I would never have finished it in the one month I was originally allotted!!).

Good luck on finishing, Darren!
RJ, don't be too intimidated to begin :)

I was only planning on reading the first third (450 pages) in the month,
but I got to 300 in about a week, got the general idea, and decided to forego the remaining 1050
it is firmly on my DNF shelf.

Darren wrote: "I was only planning on reading the first third (450 pages) in the month,
but I got to 300 in about a week, got the general idea, and decided to forego the remaining 1050
it is firmly on my DNF shelf."

Alright, Sir! :)

I said I thought you could do it, but you absolutely do not have to do it! Your choice ;)

Darren wrote: "you can always just use it as a door-stop even if you never get round to reading it!"

Or a step ladder. ;-)

Terris wrote: "Darren & RJ -- You can do it!
A couple of years ago I began on January 1st. I set the number of pages I needed to read per day to finish in three months (so that I had some time to also read some ..."

Thanks Terris. I do want to read it and I'm determined to start it...someday. :D

I will say it was probably on my TBR list (& I hate to say this out loud) for 30 years! But when a friend asked if I'd like to buddy read it together, that was my push to finally try it. I'd say start it -- sometime -- only when you're ready. It's quite a commitment! :)