Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

For those of us who love books, narrowing down the choices can be a problem! Come tell us what you are thinking about. You never know when you'll inspire someone else or find a bit of inspiration yourself.

Hello. I really have an unrealistic list this month. Oh well, let's see how things go.

First, I want to finish the second half of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868) 528 pages.

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (1937) 401 pages

also I want to read
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1625), 1026 pages

I am definitely aware that this is not a one month plan.

What I have in mind for this month is....

to finish La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman for the group read

and just today I picked up Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America by Leila Philip that I'd like to read

as well as The Plague by Albert Camus

I also picked up Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow. I don't expect to finish that one any time soon but I would like to maybe start it

We'll see how it all goes!

Oh, and Nemesis Games by James S. A. Corey

March goals

Challenge books to read/finish in March
✔️Homer, tr. Watson: The Odyssey (-700)
✔️"Homer," tr. Athanassakis: The Homeric Hymns (-700)
✔️"Homer," tr. Crudden: The Homeric Hymns (-700)
✔️Montaigne: The Complete Essays (1580)
✔️Shakespeare: Hamlet (1601)
✔️Swift: Gulliver's Travels (1726)
✔️Swift: A Modest Proposal & Other Stories (1729)
✔️Tennyson: Enoch Arden (1864)
✔️Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876)
✔️Chekhov: The Beauties (1888)
✔️Melville: "Billy Budd, Sailor" (1924), fromBilly Budd and Other Stories
✔️O'Casey: Juno And the Paycock (1924)
✔️Wodehouse: Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963)
✔️Leiber: Swords and Deviltry (1970)

Non-challenge books to read/finish in March
✔️Pratchett: Thief of Time (2001)
✔️Klune: The House in the Cerulean Sea (2020)
✔️McMillan: Pity (2024)
✔️Waidner: Corey Fah Does Social Mobility (2024)

Long read
Plutarch, tr. Waterfield: Greek Lives (100)

Added later
✔️Saadawi: Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013)

Challenge completions this month
Challenge #5 - Short Story Challenge - 3/28/24
...though this is with a combination of short fiction, plays, and essays. I'll continue to track short stories until I get to 24.
Challenge #14 - Rereading - Some do. Some don't - 3/27/24

Lynn wrote: "...also I want to read
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra"

Oh, if you haven't bought a copy yet, I highly recommend Edith Grossman's translation: Don Quixote. I read it in January/February and loved it. I was surprised how easy and enjoyable it was. (I was kind of fearing it would be a bit of a slog, like I found The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman to be. I read that last year, and it makes frequent allusions to DQ.)

A terribly busy month for me with exams and all that jazz.

I'd like to complete The Secret History and finish reading Die Judenbuche. If time permits, Effi Briest and Narcissus and Goldmund are on the cards.

I wish I could do a re-read of Don Quixote with the group--have fun!

Finishing very soon
Swann's Way, Marcel Proust
Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, Kazuo Ishiguro

Non-fiction I'm slowly working through
The Cambridge Illustrated History of Germany, Martin Kitchen
Italian Villas And Their Gardens, Edith Wharton

Group and Buddy Reads
The Beauties, Anton Chekhov
My Name Is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
In This House of Brede, Rumer Godden
Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell

Challenge books
Images in a Mirror, Sigrid Undset
On Becoming a Novelist, John Gardner

Considering starting
Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy

I would like to read this month...


Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Wadpole
Middlemarch by George Eliot (re-read)
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (re-read)
The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett

March "Core 6":
Strumpet City Plunkett, James 1969 (first half)
Mayor Of Casterbridge, The Hardy, Thomas 1886
Naked Lunch Burroughs, William S. 1959
Foundation Pit, The Platonov, Andrei 1930
War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, The de Bernières, Louis 1990
Woodcutters, The Bernhard, Thomas 1984

This is my current plan

Finish up from last month:
in progress Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

Definitely:
My Work by Olga Ravn
in progress 20% Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson
Oil and Marble by Stephanie Storey

Probably:
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (start)
The Activist by Renee Gladman
Independent People by Halldór Laxness

Possibly:
East of Eden by John Steinbeck (more likely April)
The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch
The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

Unplanned:

This is the plan.
Reading
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Susan B. Anthony Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian by

Planning
The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories by Carson McCullers
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Middlemarch by George EliotAlma Lutz

Read
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
A Preface to Paradise Lost by C.S. Lewis
Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815-1897 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Fences by August Wilson
Paradise Lost by John Milton
The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World by William Egginton (reread)
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Michael J. Sandel
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
A Preface to Paradise Lost by C.S. Lewis (reread)

I am still reading Swann’s Way. I keep setting it aside; I’ll finish eventually. I just started Don Quixote (the Edith Grossman translation), The Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, and All Systems Red by Martha Wells. All of these are much better at keeping my attention than Proust.

I am adding one more...lol, that's always the problem.

I want to finish reading The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868) 528 pages, with the Buddy Read this month.

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (1937) 401 pages

Next there is Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1625), 1026 pages

This is more than I could possibly read in one month. They will be ongoing ... so now I'm adding even more!!

Antiquities: Seven Stories by John Crowley (1993) I read a short story by Crowley in a different short story collection and wanted to read more. The short story I read "Snow" was nominated for both a Hugo and Nebula in 1984. This collection Antiquities received the World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Collection 1994. There are seven short stories in this collection. I found a collection of Crowley's complete short stories on Kindle, and it has the collection broken down into the separate books as they were first published.

Oh good Lynn. I will be reading Don Quixote into April.

RJ's MARCH 2024 READS

Will Finish

McNally's Secret by Lawrence Sanders
Gone Fishin' by Walter Mosley
The Fall of Babel by Josiah Bancroft
Adulthood Rites by Octavia E. Butler
A Killer Is Loose by Gil Brewer
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Kolyma Stories by Varlam Shalamov

Will Be Reading But Will Not Finish in March

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler
The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor
Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors by Stephen E. Ambrose
Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Roughing It by Mark Twain
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume II B edited by Ben Bova
Asimov's Chronology of the World: The History of the World From the Big Bang to Modern Times by Isaac Asimov

First, I wanted to finish the second half of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868) 528 pages. ☑


I didn't even start these:
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (1937) 401 pages
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1625), 1026 pages

I did read:
"The Doom of the Griffiths" by Elizabeth Gaskell (1858) March 2, 2024 (reread)
How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning by Rosalyn Schanzer (2002) March 7, 2024
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George (1959) March 10, 2024 5*
On the Far Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George (1990) Mar 11, 2024 5*
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (1951) March 27, 2024 5*
The Building of the Ship. by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1869) March 30, 2024 4*

mostly dispatched my March "Core 6":

Strumpet City Plunkett, James - I was looking to reach half-way, but only got to about 25%

other 5 were finished:
Mayor Of Casterbridge, The Hardy, Thomas - 3 Stars
Naked Lunch Burroughs, William S. - 1.5
Foundation Pit, The Platonov, Andrei - 4
War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, The de Bernières, Louis - 4
Woodcutters, The Bernhard, Thomas - 4