Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Woot! Time to plan out my fourth year of the Challenge Buffet.

This year I have two main goals:
1. Focus on 20th-century books.
2. Catch up on unread books on my physical bookshelves (and stacked up on coffee tables).

For the last two years, I've completed all the challenges, including the Millennium Challenge and the Twisted Half-millennium Challenge. To keep to my first goal above, I'm skipping the Millennium Challenge this year, but I hope to finish all the other challenges.

For fun, I've plotted out a pretty compact list of books that meet the goals above: 43 books, over half of which are on my shelves, to which I'll need to add up to ten more, depending on what books are chosen for the Group Reads in Challenge 6.

As a subgoal to #1, though, I'm eager to read some "modernist classics" not listed below, so I'll substitute them in as I go along.

Books marked 📕 were on my physical TBR shelves as of 12/31/24.


Completed
Challenge #1 - Old & New TBR Challenge - 3/30/25
Challenge #2 - Members Choice Challenge - 3/26/25
Challenge #3 - Expand Your Horizon With New Authors - 1/30/25
Challenge #4 - Short Story Challenge - 1/29/25
Challenge #5a - Decade Challenge - 6/7/25
Challenge #5b - Century Challenge - 3/19/25
Challenge #6 - Group Reads, Buddy Reads, or Moderators Run Amok - 5/26/25
Challenge #7 - Series Books – Start, Continue, Complete - 2/8/25
Challenge #8 - Travel the World One Continent at a Time - 5/16/25
Challenge #9 - Rereading - Some do. Some don't - 2/18/25
Challenge #10 –Most Popular Goodreads Books Listed by Year - 4/27/25
Challenge #11 –Future Classics - 1/8/25
Challenge #12 – Fiction/Non-Fiction - 5/28/25
Challenge #13 – Old and New Linked Categories - 5/28/25
Challenge #14 - Publishers Weekly lists of Bestselling Novels in the U.S. - 2/3/25
Challenge #15 - Award Winners - 2/3/25
Challenge #16 - A-Z Title Challenge - 4/28/25
Challenge #17 - A-Z Author Challenge - 6/18/25

✔️Challenge #1 - Old & New TBR Challenge

Completed: 15/12 - 3/30/25

1914 and earlier/Old School
✔️1. 📕Pindar: The Complete Odes (-447)
✔️2. 📕Molière: Amphitryon (1668)
✔️3. Wilde: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

1915-2005/New School
✔️4. 📕Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
✔️5. 📕Rulfo: The Burning Plain and Other Stories (1953)
✔️6. 📕Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

My Wild Card Six
✔️7. 📕Agee: A Death in the Family (1957)
✔️8. 📕Capote: In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences (1966)
✔️9. 📕Dennis: Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of that Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television, Belle Poitrine (1961)
✔️10. 📕Riordan: The Lightning Thief (2005)
✔️11. 📕O'Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)
✔️12. 📕Cisneros: The House on Mango Street (1984)


Alternates
✔️A-1. 📕Nabokov: Lolita (1955)
✔️A-2. 📕Wodehouse: Young Men in Spats (1936)
✔️A-3. 📕Berger: Ways of Seeing (1972)

✔️Challenge #2 - Members Choice Challenge

Completed: 9/9 - 3/26/25

✔️1. 19th Century or Older - 📕Pindar: The Complete Odes (-447)
✔️2. 20th Century - 📕Wodehouse: Young Men in Spats (1936)
✔️3. 21st Century - 📕Smith: Gliff (2024)
✔️4. Nonfiction - 📕Capote: In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences (1966)
✔️5. An Author never read before - 📕Agee: A Death in the Family (1957)
✔️6. Diversity, read a book from a religion, culture, country, or race different than yours - 📕Rulfo: The Burning Plain and Other Stories (1953)
✔️7. Fantasy - 📕Jordan: The Dragon Reborn (1991)
✔️8. Poetry - 📕Shepherd: Angel, Interrupted (1996)
✔️9. Thriller - 📕Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)

✔️Challenge #3 - Expand Your Horizon With New Authors

Completed: 6/6 - 1/30/25

✔️1. 📕Agee: A Death in the Family (1957)
✔️2. 📕Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
✔️3. 📕Pindar: The Complete Odes (-447)
✔️4. 📕Shepherd: Angel, Interrupted (1996)
✔️5. 📕Rulfo: The Burning Plain and Other Stories (1953)
✔️6. Williams: Augustus (1972)

✔️Challenge #4 - Short Story Challenge

Completed: 18/18 - 1/29/25

✔️1. Wharton: "The Angel at the Grave" (1901)

📕Wodehouse: Young Men in Spats (1936)
✔️2. "Fate"
✔️3. "Tried in the Furnace"
✔️4. "Trouble Down at Tudleigh"
✔️5. "Goodbye to All Cats"
✔️6. "The Amazing Hat Mystery"
✔️7. "The Luck of the Stiffhams"
✔️8. "Noblesse Oblige"
✔️9. "Uncle Fred Flits By"
✔️10. "Archibald and the Masses"
✔️11. "The Code of the Mulliners"
✔️12. "The Fiery Wooing of Mordred"

✔️13. 📕Euripides: "Electra" from The Complete Euripides, Volume II (-421)
✔️14. Udall: "Junk Court" from Letting Loose the Hounds: Stories (1997)

📕Rulfo: The Burning Plain and Other Stories (1953)
✔️15. "They Have Given Us the Land"
✔️16. "La Cuesta de las Comadres"
✔️17. "Because We're So Poor"
✔️18. "The Man"

✔️Challenge #5a - Decade Challenge

Completed: 10/10 - 6/7/25

✔️1950 - 📕Highsmith: Strangers on a Train
✔️1951 - Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye
✔️1952 - Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea
✔️1953 - 📕Rulfo: The Burning Plain and Other Stories
✔️1954 - Seuss: Horton Hears a Who!
✔️1955 - 📕Nabokov: Lolita
✔️1956 - Baldwin: Giovanni’s Room
✔️1957 - 📕Agee: A Death in the Family
✔️1958 - 📕Beckett: Krapp's Last Tape
✔️1959 - 📕Burroughs: Naked Lunch

✔️Challenge #5b - Century Challenge

Let's see which 10 successive decades I finish first:

Completed: 10/10 - 3/19/25

✔️1890 - 1899 Chekhov: "The Seagull" from Five Plays (1895)
1900 - 1909 Kipling: Kim (1901)
✔️1910 - 1919 📕Proust: Swann's Way (1913)
✔️1920 - 1929 Wilder: The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927)
✔️1930 - 1939 📕Wodehouse: Young Men in Spats (1936)
✔️1940 - 1949 📕Queneau: Pierrot Mon Ami (1942)
✔️1950 - 1959 📕Agee: A Death in the Family (1957)
✔️1960 - 1969 📕O'Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)
✔️1970 - 1979 Williams: Augustus (1972)
✔️1980 - 1989 Roemer: On a Woman's Madness (1982)
✔️1990 - 1999 📕Jordan: The Dragon Reborn (1991)
✔️2000 - 2005 📕Pratchett: The Wee Free Men (2003)

✔️Challenge #6 - Group Reads, Buddy Reads, or Moderators Run Amok

Completed: 12/12 - 5/26/25

✔️1. Wharton: The Angel at the Grave (1901) - January Short Story
✔️2. Williams: Augustus (1972) - 1st Quarter Mod's Choice
✔️3. Kafka: "Meditation" (1913) from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories - February Old School Classics
✔️4. Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go (2005) - February New School Classics
✔️5. Chekhov: "The Seagull" (1895) from Five Plays - February Short Story
✔️6. Pushkin: "The Queen of Spades" (1834) from The Queen of Spades and Other Stories - March Short Story
✔️7. Tolstoy: A Lost Opportunity (1889) - April Short Story
✔️8. Poul Anderson: "Call Me Joe" (1957) from The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Vol IIA - April Mod's Choice
✔️9. Mann: "Death in Venice" (1911) from Death in Venice and Other Tales - May Old School
✔️10. Forster: The Machine Stops (1909) - May Short Story
✔️11. Padgett: Mimsy Were The Borogoves - May Mod's Choice
✔️12. Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967) - July Short Story
* du Maurier: The House on the Strand - January New School
* Shaw: Pygmalion (1913) - June Old School
* Welty: "Death of a Traveling Salesman" (1936) from Selected Stories of Eudora Welty: A Curtain of Green And Other Stories / The Wide Net and Other Stories

✔️Challenge #7 - Series Books – Start, Continue, Complete

Completed: 2/2 - 2/8/25

I've nearly finished the hundred books in the Collector's Wodehouse edition. I'll try to finish what's left by the end of the year, but in particular, I'll knock out the last two "Uncle Fred" books:

✔️1. 📕Wodehouse: Young Men in Spats (1936)
✔️2. 📕Wodehouse: Uncle Dynamite (1948)

✔️Challenge #8 - Travel the World One Continent at a Time

Completed: 6/6 - 5/16

✔️Africa - Achebe: Things Fall Apart (1958)
✔️Asia - Tawada: The Bridegroom Was a Dog (1993)
✔️Australia - 📕Lindsay: Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967)
✔️Europe - 📕Pindar: The Complete Odes (-447)
✔️North America - 📕Agee: A Death in the Family (1957)
✔️South America - Emar: Ten (1937)

✔️Challenge #9 - Rereading - Some do. Some don't

Completed: 2/2 - 2/18/25

Possible Rereads
✔️1. 📕Lindsay: Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967)
✔️2. 📕Wodehouse: Uncle Dynamite (1948)
3. Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
✔️4. Baldwin: Giovanni’s Room
5. Homer: The Iliad (-801)
✔️6. 📕Proust: Swann's Way (1913)

✔️Challenge #10 –Most Popular Goodreads Books Listed by Year

Completed: 3/3 - 4/27/25

Read 3 of these:

10 Books of Interest for 1967
✔️1. 📕Lindsay: Picnic at Hanging Rock
✔️2. 📕O'Brien: The Third Policeman
✔️3. 📕Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
4. Brautigan: Trout Fishing in America
5. Delany: The Einstein Intersection
6. Barthelme: Snow White
7. Bernhard: Gargoyles
8. Capote: The Thanksgiving Visitor
9. Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita
10. Calvino: t zero

✔️Challenge #11 –Future Classics

Completed: 3/1 - 1/8/25

Since retiring, I've been hoping to find a contemporary author whose work I enjoy so much that I buy and read their new books as soon as they come out. I've found her: Ali Smith. I've read five of her books in 2024, and I've already bought her newest.

My five recommendations
1. 📕Smith: The Accidental (2005)
2. 📕Smith: How to be Both (2014)
3. 📕Smith: Autumn (2016)
4. 📕Smith: Winter (2017)
5. 📕Smith: Spring (2019)

Future greats?
(I'll probably read all three, but definitely Gliff.)
✔️1. 📕Smith: Gliff (2024)
✔️2. 📕Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)
✔️3. Gunn: Boss Cupid: Poems (2000)

I just finished Ali Smith's Gliff. A future classic? Hard to say. The author is reportedly following this one with another book, Glyph which may resolve, or at least force the reader to reinterpret some things that happen in this book. This sounds a little like what she did with the two almost-independent novellas in How to be Both. I loved it, though, and will read the followup as soon as it comes out.

✔️Challenge #12 – Fiction/Non-Fiction

Completed: 3/3 Pairs - 5/28/25

Publishing Triangle Award Winners
✔️Fiction - Gunn: Boss Cupid: Poems (2000) - Thom Gunn Award 2001
✔️Non-Fiction - Sedaris: Naked (1997) - Randy Shilts Award 1998

✔️Crime Thrillers
✔️Fiction - 📕Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
✔️Non-Fiction - 📕Capote: In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences (1966)

✔️Memoir
✔️Fiction - 📕Dennis: Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of that Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television, Belle Poitrine (1961)
✔️Non-Fiction - 📕Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

✔️Challenge #13 – Old and New Linked Categories

Completed: 3/3 Pairs - 5/28/25


✔️The Gay 90s
✔️Old - 📕Wilde: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
✔️New - Sedaris: Naked (1997)

✔️Mythological Retellings
✔️Old - 📕Molière: Amphitryon (1668)
✔️New - 📕Riordan: The Lightning Thief (2005)

✔️Girl Chases Rabbit/Hare
✔️Old - 📕Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Tove Jansson Edition (1865)
✔️New - Ducornet: The Stain (1984)

✔️ Challenge #14 - Publishers Weekly lists of Bestselling Novels in the United States

Completed: 2/2 - 2/3/25

Read two of the following, one from a genre outside my comfort zone and one possible 4-5 star book.

1897 - Sienkiewicz: Quo Vadis
1902 - Wister: The Virginian
1926 - The private life of Helen of Troy: Easy to Read Layout
1927 - 📕Lewis: Elmer Gantry
✔️1928 - Wilder: The Bridge of San Luis Rey <-- possible 4-5 star? It won the Pulitzer Prize
✔️1963 - Le Carré: The Spy Who Came In from the Cold <-- Espionage: kind of out of my comfort zone; definitely not a go-to genre
1966 - Susann: Valley of the Dolls
1969 - Roth: Portnoy’s Complaint
1975 - Doctorow: Ragtime
1992 - King: Dolores Claiborne
1993 - Waller: The Bridges of Madison County <-- Romance: definitely outside my comfort zone

Books read
✔️1. Le Carré: The Spy Who Came In from the Cold - Even for a book outside my comfort zone, this was even less enjoyable than I expected.
✔️2. Wilder: The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Well, for me, it was a solid 3-star book. The individual stories were engaging, but it didn't have the cumulative impact on me it must have had on other readers (like the Pulitzer Prize committee).

This is likely to be my least-favorite challenge this year. I like the general idea of using the Publishers Weekly lists, but the restrictions reduced the fun. Limiting it to #1 books meant that many of the books were Grisham-esque doorstops...and I'm not crazy about spending that amount of time with a book "outside my comfort zone." Challenge #10 (Goodreads Most Popular by Year) is more up my alley.

✔️Challenge #15 - Award Winners

Completed: 4/2 - 2/3/25

I have my eye on two possible pairings. I'll probably read both pairs:

Pulitzer Prize
✔️1. Wilder: The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) - Pulitzer 1928
✔️2. 📕Agee: A Death in the Family (1957) - Pulitzer 1958

Publishing Triangle Award
✔️1. Gunn: Boss Cupid: Poems (2000) Thom Gunn Award 2001
✔️2. Sedaris: Naked (1997) - Randy Shilts Award 1998

✔️Challenge #16 - A-Z Title Challenge

Completed: 23/23 - 4/28/25

✔️A - 📕Shepherd: Angel, Interrupted (1996)
✔️B - 📕Rulfo: The Burning Plain and Other Stories (1953)
✔️C - Poul Anderson: "Call Me Joe" (1957) from The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Vol IIA
✔️D - 📕Agee: A Death in the Family (1957)
✔️E - 📕Euripides: "Electra" from The Complete Euripides, Volume II (-421)
✔️F - Ali Smith: Free Love and Other Stories (1995)
✔️G - Baldwin: Giovanni’s Room (1956)
✔️H - 📕Pratchett: A Hat Full of Sky (2004)
✔️I - 📕Euripides: "Iphigenia in Tauris" from The Complete Euripides, Volume II: Iphigenia in Tauris and Other Plays (-406)
✔️J - Udall: "Junk Court" from Letting Loose the Hounds: Stories (1997)
✔️K - 📕Beckett: Krapp's Last Tape (1948)
✔️L - 📕Apollodorus: The Library of Greek Mythology (200)
✔️M - 📕Fosse: Morning and Evening (2000)
✔️N - Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go (2005)
✔️O - Euripides: "Orestes" from The Complete Euripides, Volume II: Iphigenia in Tauris and Other Plays (-408)
✔️P - 📕Queneau: Pierrot Mon Ami (1942)
✔️*Q - Pushkin: "The Queen of Spades" (1834)
✔️R - Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967)
✔️S - 📕Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
✔️T - 📕O'Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)
✔️U - 📕Wodehouse: Uncle Dynamite (1946)
✔️V - 📕Lidberg: La vie des trolls (1983)
✔️W - 📕Pratchett: The Wee Free Men (2003)
*X -
✔️*Y - 📕Wodehouse: Young Men in Spats (1936)
*Z -

✔️Challenge #17 - A-Z Author Challenge

Completed: 23/23 - 6/18/25

✔️A - 📕Agee: A Death in the Family (1957)
✔️B - 📕Beckett: Krapp's Last Tape (1948)
✔️C - Chekhov: "The Seagull" from Five Plays (1895)
✔️D - 📕Dennis: Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of that Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television, Belle Poitrine (1961)
✔️E - 📕Euripides: "Electra" from The Complete Euripides, Volume II (-421)
✔️F - 📕Fosse: Morning and Evening (2000)
✔️G - Gunn: Boss Cupid: Poems (2000)
✔️H - 📕Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
✔️I - Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go (2005)
✔️J - 📕Jordan: The Dragon Reborn (1991)
✔️K - Kafka: "Meditation" from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (1912)
✔️L - 📕Lidberg: La vie des trolls (1983)
✔️M - 📕Molière: Amphitryon (1668)
✔️N - 📕Nabokov: Lolita (1955)
✔️O - 📕O'Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)
✔️P - 📕Pindar: The Complete Odes (-447)
✔️*Q - 📕Queneau: Pierrot Mon Ami (1942)
✔️R - 📕Rulfo: The Burning Plain and Other Stories (1953)
✔️S - 📕Shepherd: Angel, Interrupted (1996)
✔️T - Tawada: The Bridegroom Was a Dog (1993)
✔️U - Udall: "Junk Court" from Letting Loose the Hounds: Stories (1997)
✔️V - Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
✔️W - 📕Wodehouse: Young Men in Spats (1936)
*X -
*Y -
*Z -

Enjoy planning your challenges, JP!

Off to a good start in January! I read 18 books, plus a couple of standalone short stories, and I finished three (easy) challenges:

Challenge #3 - Expand Your Horizon With New Authors - 1/30/25
Challenge #4 - Short Story Challenge - 1/29/25
Challenge #11 –Future Classics - 1/8/24

JP wrote: "Off to a good start in January! I read 18 books, plus a couple of standalone short stories, and I finished three (easy) challenges"

That's an amazing amount of reading for one month. Congratulations on finishing your first few challenges! I hope you found some new favourites. :)

Just finished the last of my challenges. I was happy about incorporating lots of books from my shelves...though I certainly managed to buy lots more. Now I have 6 months to read those, and to start planning out my 2026 challenges. Fun!

Here's the recap:
Challenge #1 - Old & New TBR Challenge - 3/30/25
Challenge #2 - Members Choice Challenge - 3/26/25
Challenge #3 - Expand Your Horizon With New Authors - 1/30/25
Challenge #4 - Short Story Challenge - 1/29/25
Challenge #5a - Decade Challenge - 6/7/25
Challenge #5b - Century Challenge - 3/19/25
Challenge #6 - Group Reads, Buddy Reads, or Moderators Run Amok - 5/26/25
Challenge #7 - Series Books – Start, Continue, Complete - 2/8/25
Challenge #8 - Travel the World One Continent at a Time - 5/16/25
Challenge #9 - Rereading - Some do. Some don't - 2/18/25
Challenge #10 –Most Popular Goodreads Books Listed by Year - 4/27/25
Challenge #11 –Future Classics - 1/8/25
Challenge #12 – Fiction/Non-Fiction - 5/28/25
Challenge #13 – Old and New Linked Categories - 5/28/25
Challenge #14 - Publishers Weekly lists of Bestselling Novels in the U.S. - 2/3/25
Challenge #15 - Award Winners - 2/3/25
Challenge #16 - A-Z Title Challenge - 4/28/25
Challenge #17 - A-Z Author Challenge - 6/18/25