Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

This year's Expanded Menu for our 2024 Buffet:
Details See Messages 2-17

✔️Challenge #1 - New & Old TBR completed April
✔️Challenge #2 - Second Place or Worse completed Oct
✔️Challenge #3 - ✔️✔️Decade/✔️Century/Millennium Participating Century completed Oct Modern Decade +5 completed Dec, New school classics completed Nov
✔️Challenge #4 - Members Choicecompleted Oct
✔️Challenge #5 - Short Story completed March 153 stories & counting
✔️Challenge #6 - Group Reads and/or Buddy Reads Participating
✔️Challenge #7 - Expand Your Horizon with New Authors completed March
✔️Challenge #8 - Most Popular Goodreads Books Listed by Yearcompleted Oct
✔️Challenge #9 – Fiction/Non-Fiction Completed Aug
Challenge #10 - The Half a Millennium Challenge with a Sour Lemon Twist of Difficult
Challenge #11 - Old and New Linked Categories
✔️Challenge #12 - Series Books – Start, Continue, Complete hope so
✔️Challenge #13 - Travel the World One Continent at a Time. hope so
✔️Challenge #14 - Rereading Some do Some don't hope so
Challenge #15 - A-Z Author
Challenge #16 - A-Z Title

#1 COMPLETED

Old and New

1899 and earlier/Old School
✔️1. The Cossacks read March 3 stars
✔️2. Daisy Miller Feb 4 stars
✔️3. Behind a Mask, Or, a Woman's Power read Jan 3 stars

1900-1999/New School
✔️4. Rabbit Redux read Jan 5 stars
✔️5. Lamb in His Bosom Pulitzer Feb 4.5 stars
✔️6. House Made of Dawn Pulitzer read Jan 5 stars
Wild Card 6 any year
✔️7. Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer Pulitzer read Feb 4 stars
✔️8. A Farewell to Arms (Modern Library) read March 5 stars
9. Chenneville
✔️10.The Word is Murder read Jan 4 stars
✔️11. The Sentence is Death read April 3 stars
✔️12. A Line to Kill read Nov 4 stars

Alternates
A-1. The Sign of Four
✔️A-2.The Stories of John Cheever Pulitzer Read Jan 4.5 stars
✔️A-3.vThe Collected Stories of Jean Stafford Pulitzer read Jan 4 stars

#2 COMPLETED

Second Place or Worse

New School
✔️1. Rabbit Redux

Old School
✔️1. The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare read May 4.5 stars Liza of Lambeth, The Black Robe or The Bhagavad Gita

Short Story/Novella
✔️1. Why I Live at the P.O. and Other Stories read April 5 stars
✔️2.The Offshore Pirate read Sept 4 stars

Quarterly Long Read
✔️1.Advise and Consent read Oct 3.5 stars

reply | flag

#3 DECADE, CENTURY

CENTURY owned titles

✔️1900-1909 - The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare read May 4.5 stars Nostromo
✔️1910-1919 - or Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady read May 4 stars
✔️1920-1929 -Pulitzer ArrowsmithArrowsmith read July 3 stars
✔️1930-1939 - Lamb in His Bosom Pulitzer Feb 4.5 stars
✔️1940-1949 - The Member of the Wedding read May 5 stars In This Our Life, Dragon's Teeth
✔️1950-1959 Advise and Consent read Oct 3.5 stars
✔️1960-1969 - House Made of Dawn Pulitzer Jan 5 stars
✔️1970-1979 - The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford Pulitzer Jan 54stars
✔️1980-1989 - Rabbit Is Rich Pulitzer read June 4.5 stars
✔️1990-1999 - Rabbit at Rest Pulitzer read Sept 5 stars

Shelf clearing owned Modern Decade + 5
✔️2024 Table for Two: Fictions < read Aug 5 stars
✔️2023 The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, read Aug 4 stars
✔️2022 Undistracted: Capture Your Purpose. Rediscover Your Joy.
✔️2021 A Line to Killb
✔️2020 Where I Come From: Stories from the Deep South, read Dec 4 stars ]

✔️2019 Lost Roses read May 3 stars
✔️2018 The Sentence is Death read April 3 stars Love and Ruin, The Nickel Boys
✔️2017The Word is Murder
✔️2016 Fallen Land read Dec 4 stars
✔️2015 Thirteen Ways of Looking read Dec 5 big big stars!
✔️2014 Euphoria read Dec 5 stas
✔️013 We Live in Water read Dec 4 stars
✔️2012 Calico Joe
✔️2011 The Crowded Grave read dec 5 stars
✔️2010 Crooked Letter, Crooked Letterread Dec 5 stars

Optional 2nd decade owned
Optional 2nd modern decade owned

✔️2009 Remarkable Creatures,
✔️2008 The Last Lecture physical Read dec 3.5 stars
✔️2007 Walk the Blue Fields read Dec 4 stars
2006 Winter's Bone (kindle)
2005 Looking for Alaska
2004 Hannah Coulter (Kindle)
2003 Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
✔️2002 Train Dreams read Oct 5 stars
2001 The Shell Collector
2000 Dressing Up for the Carnival

New School Classics Decade
✔️1999 Disgrace own read Oct 5 stars
✔️1998 Miracle on 10th Street: And Other Christmas Writings read Nov 4 stars,
✔️1997 The God of Small Things read April 5 stars
✔️1996 Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer (pulitzer) read Feb 4 stars
✔️1995Independence Day Pulitzer read nov 4 strs
✔️1994 In the Time of the Butterflies read Dec 5 stars
✔️1993 The Christmas Boxread Nov 3 stars
✔️1992 Jesus’ Son read Nov 4 stars
✔️1991 Saint Maybe Read Nov 4 stars
✔️1990 Rabbit at Rest read Sept 5 stars

#4 COMPLETED

MEMEBERS CHOICE

✔️1. 19th Century, The Cossacks read March 3 stars
✔️2. 20th Century The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories read Feb 5 big stars
✔️3. 21st Century,Table for Two read Aug 5 stars
✔️4. A book originally written in a language other than your own,The Cossacks read March 3 stars
✔️5. An Author never read before, House Made of Dawn Pulitzer Jan 5 stars
✔️6. Diversity Classic, read a book from a religion, culture, country, or race different than yours. Quicksand Jan 4.5 stars
✔️7. Science Fiction/Fantasy,We read June 4 stars
✔️8. Action/Adventure, Cup of Gold read March 3.5 stars
✔️9. Childrens/Young Adult The Secret Garden reread Oct still 5 stars
✔️10. Nonfiction Memoir/Biography, Confessions Jan 5 stars
✔️11. Mystery/Thriller, Jamaica Inn read Oct 4 stars
✔️12. Horror or Humor, Scoop Modern library read March 4 stars

#5 COMPLETED

24 SHORT STORIES

✔️1 Behind a Mask, Or, a Woman's Power Jan 3 stars
✔️2 The Beauties: Essential Stories title story Feb 4 stars
✔️3 Why I Live at the P.O. and Other Stories Feb 5 stars
✔️4 The Garden of Forking Paths Aug 5 stars
✔️5 The Immortal Aug 4 stars
✔️6 The Eyes < b> Aug 3.5 stars
✔️7 What the Shepherd Saw read Oct 3 stars
✔️8 Big Two-Hearted River: The Centennial Edition Read Nov 5 stars
✔️9 Christmas at Thompson Hall and Other Christmas Stories
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12
Short Story Collections
✔️1. The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford 30 stories Jan 4 stars
✔️2. The Stories of John Cheever Jan 61 stories Jan 4.5 stars
✔️3. House Made of Dawn Jan 18 stories 5 stars
✔️4. The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories 7 stories Feb 5 stars
✔️5. The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter 27 stories March 5 stars
✔️6. Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson 12 stories read March 5 stars
✔️7. Why I Live at the P.O. and Other Stories 5 stars
✔️8. Table for Two Aug 5 stars
✔️9. Jesus’ Son Nov 4 stars
✔️10. Miracle on 10th Street: And Other Christmas Writings read Dec 4 stars
✔️11. Thirteen Ways of Looking Dec 5 big stars!
✔️12. We Live in Water read Nov 4 stars
✔️13. Where I Come From: Stories from the Deep South read Dec 4 stars
✔️14. Walk the Blue Fields read Dec

#6 COMPLETED

12 GROUP READS/BUDDY READS

✔️1 Quicksand grp Jan 4.5 stars
✔️2 Behind a Mask, Or, a Woman's Power Jan grp 3 stars
✔️3 Rabbit Redux buddy Jan 5 stars
✔️4Confessions grp Jan 5 stars
✔️5 Lamb in His Bosom Feb 4.5 stars
✔️6 The Gentle Spirit read Feb 4 stars
✔️7 The Garden of Forking Paths read Aug 5 stars
✔️8 The Immortal
✔️9 The God of Small Things April 5 stars
✔️10 Rabbit at Rest read Sept 5 stars
✔️11 What the Shepherd Saw Oct 3 stars
✔️12Big Two-Hearted River: The Centennial Edition read Nov 5 stars

#7 COMPLETED

6 NEW AUTHORS

Classic authors
✔️1 Jean Stafford by The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford
✔️2 John Cheever Collected Stories and Other Writings
✔️3N. Scott Momaday House Made of Dawn
✔️Augustine of Hippo Confessions
✔️5 Carson McCullers The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories
✔️6 Caroline Miller, Lamb in His Bosom
✔️7 Katherine Anne Porter
✔️ 8 James Alan McPherson Elbow
Room
✔️ 9 Steven Millhauser Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
✔️ 10 Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things
✔️ 11 John Dos Passos The 42nd Parallel
✔️ 12 Sinclair Lewis Arrowsmith
✔️ 13 Rainer Maria Rilke Letters to a Young Poet: With the Letters to Rilke from the ''Young Poet''
✔️ 14 Louis Bromfield Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady

Modern Authors

✔️1. ] Anthony Horowitz The Word is Murder

#8 COMPLETED
5 OF 10 MOST POPULAR GOODREADS BOOKS IN A YEAR

1929
✔️1. A Farewell to Arms (Modern Library) Read March 5 stars
✔️2. Doña Barbara (GAR) read Oct 4 stars
✔️3. A High Wind in Jamaica (Modern Library_ read Aug 4 stars
✔️4. Letters to a Young Poet (classics group catchup) read Aug 4 stars
5. Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
6. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
7. The Luzhin Defence by Vladimir Nobokov
✔️8. Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck read March 3.5 stars
9.Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis
10. Mr. Mulliner Speaking by P.G. Wodehouse

#9 COMPLETED

FICTION/NONFICTION
Possible choices
✔️ 1. Hollywood/Noir
✔️ Fiction : Table for Two: Fictions (Eve in Hollywood read Aug 5 stars
✔️ Nonfiction: The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood read Aug 3.5 stars
✔️2. Trouble at sea
✔️Fiction: Cup of Gold read March 3.5 stars
✔️ Nonfiction: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder Read Aug 4 stars
3. Romantic Generation and Science
✔️Fiction: Remarkable Creatures read Feb 5 stars
Nonfiction: The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
4. WWII
Fiction: A Pale View of Hills
Nonfiction: The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War
5. Vietnam War
Fiction: The Things They Carried
Nonfiction: The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War
6. Isolation
Fiction: My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Nonficiton: Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation
✔️7. The 70's
✔️Fiction Rabbit Is Rich read June 4 stars
✔️Nonfiction Sting-Ray Afternoons read Aug 4 stars
✔️8. Christian
✔️Fiction The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare 4.5 stars May
✔️Nonfiction: Confessions 5 stars
✔️9. Newspapers
✔️Fiction: Scoop 4 stars March
✔️Nonfiction: Battle of Ink and Ice: A Sensational Story of News Barons, North Pole Explorers, and the Making of Modern Media read April 3.5 stars
10. WWII Secret Heroes
Fiction
Nonfiction: Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain's Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War
11. Cold in World War II
Fiction:The Siege (physical)
Nonficition: Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II (physical)
12. 1920's America
Fiction Save Me the Waltz (Kindle)
Nonfiction (One Summer: America, 1927 (physical)

#10

#11

#12 Series Books – Start, Continue, Complete

Start: U.S.A. Trilogy Complete 1 or 2 this year
✔️1. The 42nd Parallel read 2024 July 5 stars
2.1919 optional
3. The Big Money optional

Start: Hawthorne & Horowitz by Anthony Horowtiz 5 books complete 2 or 3

✔️1. The Word is Murder Jan 4 stars
✔️2. The Sentence is Death April 3 stars
✔️3. A Line to Kill read Nov stars


Continue: Bruno Chief of Police 1- 17 + 5 add between shorts
Completed 1-3 + 5.5 Read between 1 and 3 in 2024
✔️1. #4 The Crowded Grave read Dec 5 stars
2. #5 The Devil's Cave optional
3. #6The Resistance Man optional

Complete: Rabbit Angstrom Quartet complete # 1-3
✔️1. Rabbit Redux Jan 5 stars
✔️2. Rabbit Is Rich completed June 4 stars
✔️3. Rabbit at Rest completed 5 stars

Series I want to get to 2025 & 2026
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (read 1 of 4)
The Border Trilogy by Cormac Mccarthy (read 1 of 3)
George Smiley by John Le Carre ( read 3 of 9)

#13 COMPETED

Travel the World One Continent at a Time


✔️Africa Disgrace (South Africa) read Oct 5 stars
✔️Asia The God of Small Things read April 5 stars
✔️Australia On the Beach(Australia) read Nov stars
✔️Europe A High Wind in Jamaica read Aug 4 stars
✔️North America The 42nd Parallel read Jul 5 stars
✔️South America Love in the Time of Cholera (Columbia) or Doña Barbara (Venezuela) red Oct 4 stars
*Antarctica (optional)

#14 COMPLETED

Rereading Some do Some don't

Read 2 of 7
1. Rules of Civility
2. Their Eyes Were Watching God
3. Mrs. Dalloway
4. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
✔️5. The Secret Garden read Oct 5 stars
6. East of Eden
✔️7. Mere Christianity read Sept 5 stars

#15

#16

extra

extra

extra

Enjoy your buffet challenges! Hope you read some good ones :)

Thank you Terris and Matt. I can't wait to start planning.

Welcome to the table, Sue!

Enjoy planning your challenges -- it's a fun part!

Hi Sue. It's nice to see you reading here again this year.

Thank you Sara, Wobbley and Lynn!

You have some wonderful selections. I think you will really like Lamb in His Bosom. Thank you for the encouragement about Middlemarch, I'm looking forward to it. Have a good year.

Bob wrote: "You have some wonderful selections. I think you will really like Lamb in His Bosom. Thank you for the encouragement about Middlemarch, I'm looking forward to it. Have a g..."

thanks Bob, I'm excited to start it!

January update:
3 star reads
Behind a Mask, Or, a Woman's Power used for Old and New & Short Story, Group read
4 star reads
The Word is Murder used for Old & New and Decade, Series and New Author
The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford used for Old and New , New Author, Century
4.5 star reads
The Stories of John Cheever used for Old & New & Short Stories & new author
Quicksand used for Members Choice and Group read
5 star reads
Confessions used for members choice & Group read
Rabbit Redux used for Old and New & buddy read, 2nd place & Series
House Made of Dawn ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
used for Old & New, New Author, Short Stories, Member's choice & Century

Great list and terrific start for the challenges!

Wow, Sue this is phenomenal progress!! Did I count 6 complete for Old and new!?!?!?! Amazing work! You’ll be finished with that quite soon!

Great month, Sue!! I can tell you're having fun!! Keep at it :)

Thank you Sara, Lori and Terris! I'm pretty happy about how many spaces I ticked off and the quality of the books

Lori - I do have 6! It takes some pressure off but I hope not to have to use the alternates. I want to get to all those books, but it's nice to have a cushion.

Wow, amazing progress this month, and it sounds like some were definite winners for you!

Wobbley wrote: "Wow, amazing progress this month, and it sounds like some were definite winners for you!"

Thank you, Wobbley. I'm hoping to be better at updating my challenges and reading more this year.

Fabulous, Sue! So glad you loved House Made of Dawn. I just recently discovered Momaday, and was so sad to hear of his passing.

You're off to a great start!

Good luck on your challenge Sue : )

Kathleen wrote: "Fabulous, Sue! So glad you loved House Made of Dawn. I just recently discovered Momaday, and was so sad to hear of his passing.

You're off to a great start!"

Thank you, Kathleen. I just did too after I finished and was looking to find out more about him. He is so talented. I wasn't surprised to learn he was a poet. That whole book is a long poem.

Rora wrote: "Good luck on your challenge Sue : )"

thank you, Rora

January was good for you. I hope in February you have at least as many 4 and 5 star reads.

Bob wrote: "January was good for you. I hope in February you have at least as many 4 and 5 star reads."

Thank you, Bob. I hope so too!

Great job so far Sue on a very ambitious challenge!

I haven't read many on your list but really enjoyed The English Patient and Arrowsmith.

Thank you, Erich. I'm happy to hear you liked those. My list is ambitious and I won't likely get to many of them, but it's nice to put them out there since many are owned in one format or another. When I don't get to them, on they go to next year's challenge. : )

Wow, you are tearing up your Pulitzer challenge. I absolutely have to concentrate on mine a little more this year. But, so far, I am reading at random and not checking off many challenge entries.

Sue wrote: "January update:
3 star reads
Behind a Mask, Or, a Woman's Power used for Old and New & Short Story, Group read
4 star reads
The Word is Murder used for Old & New a..."

My goodness Sue that was a full January. You had so many high ratings. Congratulations.

Thank you, Lynn!

Sara wrote: "Wow, you are tearing up your Pulitzer challenge. I absolutely have to concentrate on mine a little more this year. But, so far, I am reading at random and not checking off many challenge entries."

I think I have a little over 30 left, Sara, and I thought at 5 a year that's 6 years more to complete! 5 is my minimum but I'm hoping to get 7-10 this year because 6 years seems too overwhelming. The short story collections make it easier because you can pluck a way with a story a day and still read something else. With our two Rabbit's in June and Sept, I'll be at 5 so I believe I can likely get to at least 7. Feb-May and Aug-Oct are hard reading months for me with working long hours, so I had to attack in Jan!

My February reads for these challenges were:

5 stars:
The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories (used for Memebers Choice and Short stories - So impressed by this collection! I shied away from McCullers thinking she might not be my style for some reason. Boy was I wrong! Love, love, love this and need to get to more of her writing.
Remarkable Creatures - used for Fiction/nonfiction and Decade. I loved this historical fiction about the real friendship between Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot whose love of fossil hunting broke class barriers. This one had special meaning for me since my Grandmother was an amateur fossil hunter.
4.5 stars:
Lamb in His Bosom used for Old and New and Century. This is a fantastic book about the working poor in pre-civil war GA . So many wonderfully crafted scenes in this beautiful book.
4 stars
Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer Used for Old and New. I loved this cautionary tale about dreaming too big.
Daisy Miller - Used for Old and New. Great little unreliable narrator story from James.

What a marvelous line-up, Sue. McCuller's is a favorite author of mine, so I am super pleased you have become a convert.

I've read all your choices, except Martin Dressler (on the TBR). Looking forward to it now!

Nice, Sue!
If you enjoyed Carson McCullers you might try The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. At the time, I didn't know if I really liked it. But it just keeps coming back to me, and I think of it every once in awhile. I think you'd like it. Put it on your list :)