Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

I was going to do a mad catch-up-on-21st-century read. But my classics-reading friends are reading such exciting books and other texts that I just need to put off the mad catch up for another year or two.

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BINGO 2023

🎒B1: Book Published 1950 - 1999 - Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor Feb 10 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎒B2: Classic written in your native language - The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau Feb 18 ⭐⭐⭐
🎒B3: Classic of Europe- If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino March 06 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎒B4: Classic involving art - Yosemite by Ansel Adams Jan 15 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎒B5: Classic from your bookshelf - Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler March 23 ⭐⭐⭐

🎒I1: Book from the Group’s Bookshelf Prior to 2023 - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson April 24 ,⭐⭐⭐
🎒I2: Classic biography/autobiography or memoir - The Alexiad by Anna Comnena
🎒I3: Classic horror or gothic - The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice by Wilkie Collins Jan 07 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎒I4: Classic comedy, satire, or humor -Matilda by Roald Dahl March 17 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎒I5: Book from the group’s Favorites of 2022 - This Craft of Verse by Jorge Luis Borges June 11 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

🎒N1: Classic of the Americas - book:[El Aleph|15792480] by Jorge Luis Borges March 11
🎒N2: Classic Western - By Ox Team to California: A Narrative of Crossing the Plains in 1860 by Lavinia Honeyman Porter .July 29 ⭐⭐⭐
🎒N3: Reader’s Choice - The Godfather by Mario Puzo ⭐⭐⭐
🎒N4: Classic mystery or thriller - Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King April 30 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎒N5: Classic of Africa or Oceania -- traditional stories African Tales: A Barefoot Collection by Geina Mhlophe Gcina Mhlophe Aug 10 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

🎒G1: Classic from a group poll that did not win - Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner April 7 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎒G2: Classic action or adventure - Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne April 04 ⭐⭐⭐
🎒G3: Classic history or historical fiction - The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas April 07 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎒G4: Classic fantasy or science fiction - Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang March 11 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎒 G5: Book from the Group’s 2023 Bookshelf - A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole Read Jan 05 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

🎒 O1: Book Published before 1900 - The Lais of Marie de France by Marie de France Jan 13 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎒O2: New-To-You Classic Author - The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan March 04 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎒O3: Classic of Asia - Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung by Mao Zedong June 20 ⭐⭐⭐
🎒O4: Classic in translation - The Letters of Abélard and Héloïse by Pierre Abélard May 27 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🎒O5: Book Published 1900 - 1949 -Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield (1930) Jan 19 ⭐⭐⭐

Cynda wrote: "I was going to do a mad catch-up-on-21st-century. But my classics-reading friends are reading such exciting books and other texts that I just need ro put for another year or two."

Hooray, we are happy to have you doing Bingo with us.

Thanks Katy :-) I will stop by your thread soon.

Cynda, there's always room for Bingo!! Glad you could join us. I'm sure you'll read some wonderful books in 2023! :)

Wonderful news Cynda!👏🏻👏🏻

I know just how you feel, Cynda, but here's to reading more great books together!

Thanks Terris and Lori! I am looking forward to our buddy and group reads that help me fill the bingo card.

Kathleen, we cross posted ;-)
Yes to reading more great books together!

That is so funny, Cynda, although I have to admit that my 21st century reading has also declined in the past 2 years as I have concentrated on classics.

I'm glad you were tempted by the buddy reads!

This bingo is nigh on impossible to resist :O)
Enjoy!

Thanks Caroline and Veronique! I am glad to be in good company :-)

Half of January already come and gone. Oh my. Time to record what classics I have I have read for Bingo.

5 stars

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Time/Age has shown me new depth to this picaresque novel. This tome O saw the tragic aspects, not just the comic.

The Lais of Marie de France by Marie de France. New literary style of poetic narrative called "lais" which described new ways of love and romance written by a woman, describing to both men and women of the evolving sensibilities of women.

Yosemite by Ansel Adams. How I would like to see this red-filtered black and white photographs. Must be jaw-dropping beautiful.

4 stars
The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice by Wilkie Collins. Really 3 1/2 stars. I wanted to read good Wilkie Collins selections without yet reading the masterpieces. This novel qualifies and entertains. Here Wilkie Collins seems to have written an homage to some of the writers who influenced him, better than expected. Well done.

Great start! :O)

LOL I am sure you can madly dash to read the 21st Century later in the year. You are flying through the Bingo Challenge!

Good start Cynda, and at least one of those is a quite long one too! Nice to have three books you enjoyed enough for 5 stars already! That's great!

Way to go, Cynda! You're doing a great job on your Bingo.

Thanks my friends :-) I will some months focus on classics and other months on nonfiction. . . . I have even scheduled a very few 21st-century fiction novels. . . . .A very few will very much content me for 2023.

Enjoying my Bingo Card. I hope you all are too :-)

*** Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield. I read this book to accompany my reading friends at another GR group. I enjoyed the read as it reminded me of my own middle age with all those questions about who I had become and who I may yet become.

****Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot. Having grown up Catholic, I have special feelings for Archbishop Thomas Becket. Having last year read a City Study, paying some attention to the rise of the merchant class, I found this story shed light on the amount of power merchants came into in the medieval period. Having some experience reading medieval mystery plays, I found this story-within-the-play to be a complex/interesting development on mystery plays. Would very much like to reread.

****Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor. This novel shows much without telling much. Well done.

A wonderful start Cynda! And two reads done together so far. I am glad you are enjoying your bingo!

Thank you for being my reading friend Lori. Of course I like reading, yet reading with friends is a joy :-)

I plan to read Defying Hitler: A Memoir but I think all my challenges are planned out, so not this year. I could read it early next year though, so looking forward to how you like it.

Yes my year is filling up quickly too. I have requested a buddy read at GR Non Fiction Book Club for April. It is an open group, so if you--or anyone else--finds time to read this memoir, you/anyone else is free to join. Open invite. No expectations.

Your bingo card certainly looks like fun, Cynda! Glad to hear you're enjoying your reading. :-)

Cynda wrote: "Enjoying my Bingo Card. I hope you all are too :-)

*** Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield. I read this book to accompany my reading friends at another GR..."

All books I need to read sometime soon. You're doing a great job, Cynda!

Thanks ladies! Most of these were read with reading friends ⭐

I came to fill in shift and re-shift books. Seems I have 2 bingos when I thought I had none 🐣 One bingo at a time.

Today: Four Corners

1. Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor Feb 10 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
2. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler March 23 ⭐⭐⭐
3. The Lais of Marie de France by Marie de France Jan 13 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
4. Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield Jan 29 ⭐⭐⭐



All four of these books I read/am reading with reading friends here at CUC. Reading together is more fun and is more of a learning experience as well 🌻

Well done!! 2 Bingos!! Look at you, Cynda!

Thanks Lori :-)

Second Bingo I found I had completed. Surprise to me.
B-Column
B1: Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor Feb 10 ⭐⭐⭐
B2: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau Feb 18 ⭐⭐⭐
B3: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino March 06 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
B4: Yosemite by Ansel Adams Jan 05 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
B5: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler March 23 ⭐⭐⭐



Three of these books I read with others here at CUC, one with another group, and one in tandem with my father. Books are more than just solitary pleasures . . . .

Cynda wrote: "Thanks Lori :-)

Second Bingo I found I had completed. Surprise to me.
B-Column
B1: Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor Feb 10 ⭐⭐⭐
B2: [book:The Keepers..."

And you have a few star and 4 star reads as well! Congrats, Cynda.

You're filling up the board, Cynda, so I think we'll be seeing more bingos soon. Well done!

How lovely that you read with your father, Cynda!

Thanks ladies :-)

Sara, my father took our family on road trios each summer. We never quite made it to Yosemite, so I borrowed this book from the library. My brother's younger daughter was at the house when I took the book with me to the parents' house. So really I read the Yosemite book in tandem with my niece and my father. It is lovely to share things of beauty, such as those photographs are.

Also lovely to have the memories of the trips, Cynda. I am a sucker for Ansel Adams photographs!

about Easter Sunday. I will be home reading as I continue to recover from a communicable infection. I do not want to communicate infection to either my frail elderly parents or to my brother who lives with them and helps them. If you too will be reading at home in Sunday when fewer people are reading and want a book chat, I am here.

First Diagonal Bingo.

B5: Parable of the Sower March 23 ⭐⭐⭐
I4: Matilda March 17 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
N3: Stories of Your Life and Others March 11 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2: Around the World in 80 Days April 06 ⭐⭐⭐
O1: Diary of a Provincial Lady Jan 19 ⭐⭐⭐



Looking forward to this month reading Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day so that I read what others think is a delight :-)

Congrats, Cynda. Expect to see you bingo regularly now.

Congratulations Cynda! It’s been a Bingo week for you and me!

I see that Lori! I am going through and leaving notes for various friends and group members :-)

Well done! I also very much enjoyed Stories of You Life and Others. It is so creative.

Nice job Cynda!!

Thanks Sara, Wobbly and Lynn! Group members help me achieve reading goals. You all improve my reading life.

Congrats, Cynda! Hope you get better soon

The most of all I like Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield.Diary of a Provincial Lady When I picked up this book, I was so engrossed in reading it that I forgot about doing my nursing school homework. I was lucky then, I found a good site https://assignmentbro.com/ca/nursing-... that helped me prepare my written work. But the time spent reading the book was incredible. For me, it was an interesting story filled with humorous moments. I am grateful to the chance that made me come across this book and nursing assignment help for getting rid of learning problems.

Thanks Ila. The medicine does its job. I am getting better. In a couple of months I will be good as before in my body and as fast as before in my reading :-)

Evelyn, while I enjoyed Provincial Lady, I can tell that the humor and the insights encouraged would have been just the thing to entertain my girlfriend group in our 30s, even into our 40s. . . . .I am glad you read the novel at the right stage of your life when big changes in life could be expected, changes Provincial Lady was experiencing or hoping for, or both.

Approaching a Blackout!
Today I finished reading:

🎒I5: Book from the group’s Favorites of 2022: This Craft of Verse by Jorge Luis Borges June 11 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I have yet to read:
I2 Classic biography/autobiography or memior - The Alexiad by Anna Comnena

N2 Classic Western - Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865 by Sarah Raymond Herndon

N5 Classic if Africa or Oceania - The Concubine by Elechi Amadi

O3 Classic of Asia - Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung by Mao Zedong

Getting there.
I will still read shorter buddy reads or group reads through rest of year, but my focus will move on to other fiction and nonfiction challenges.

Such a short way to go to completion! I admire your varied reading choices, Cynda. Often they are books that I mean to get to but never seem to.

Getting close, Cynda! You’ll be finished before you know it!

Wow, and the year not yet half over--good work, Cynda! Your upcoming reads sound fascinating, as your reading always does. :-)