The Reading Challenge Group discussion

2025 reads
============

In 2025 my target is 62 books.

I’m reading a mix of fiction and nonfiction from Classic Reads to fairly contemporary.

I tend to pick picks that challenge me. This year my main focus is Jane Austen, Bloomsbury Group, continuing with mythology, and starting / trying to read some books about science. And I’m sure there will be a lot of other books that I will distracted by on the way.



2025 reads covered in
======================
message 2 - 4 ---- fiction
message 5 - 7 ---- nonfiction

2025 reads --- fiction part 1
======================

A Doll's House (Henrik Ibsen; Bryony Lavery) ---📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Jan 2025
Camille (Alexandre Dumas fils) 📖 ✅3.5* my review read in Mar 2025
Dream Play (August Strindberg) 📖 ✅ 3* my review read in Jan 2025
Patriotism (Yukio Mishima) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Mar 2025
The Post Office Girl (Stefan Zweig; Joel Rotenberg) --- Reading the first few pages caught my attention.
Contemplation (Franz Kafka) 📖 ✅ 3* my review read in Jan 2025
Six Characters in Search of an Author (Luigi Pirandello) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review read in Mar 2025
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Luo Guanzhong; Martin Palmer)
All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque)
The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury) 📖 ✅ 5* my review read in Jan 2025


The Trojan Women (Euripides) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Jan 2025
Hecuba (Euripides) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review read in Jan 2025
Helen (Euripides) (translator: Emily Wilson) --- It will be good to revisit this one again, it's been a few years since I read this one.
Six Tragedies: Phaedra / Oedipus / Medae / Trojan Women / Hercules Furens / Thyestes (Oxford World's Classics) (Seneca; Emily Wilson) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in March 2025

Cymbeline (William Shakespeare) --- Second read.
Tales from Shakespeare (Mary Lamb & Charles Lamb) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Apr 2025
New Boy (Tracy Chevalier) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review read in Apr 2025
The Tempest (William Shakespeare) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Feb 2025
Tender Buttons (Gertrude Stein) 📖 ✅ 3* my review read in Feb 2025
The Task and Other Poems (William Cowper) --- A revisit, Cowper was one of Jane Austen's favourite poets.
Chinese Poetry (translated by Charles Budd (1912)) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review read in Jan 2025
Poems by Emily Dickinson, Series One

2025 reads covered in
======================
message 2 - 3 ---- fiction
message 4 - 5 ---- nonfiction

2025 reads --- fiction part 2
======================

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) --- the novel
Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride & Prejudice (Curtis Sittenfeld) 📖 ✅ 2.5* my review read in May 2025
Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Apr 2025
Sense and Sensibility (Joanna Trollope) 📖 ✅ 1.5* my review read in Apr 2025
Jane Austen Collection Volume 2: Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Jan 2025
The Jane Austen BBC Radio Drama Collection 📖 ✅ 3.5 - 4* my review read in Feb 2025
Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride & Prejudice (Curtis Sittenfeld) 📖 ✅ 2.5* my review read in May 2025
The Jane Austen BBC Radio Drama Collection 📖 ✅ 3.5 - 4* my review read in May 2025
Emma: the *BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation 📖 ✅ 4* my review (* A different production to the book cover here listing Eve Best) read in May 2025


Passing (Nella Larsen) 📖 ✅ 4.5* my review read in Jan 2025
Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Feb 2025
The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga) 📖 ✅ 3* my review read in Apr 2025
Jacob's Room (Virginia Woolf)
Good (C.P. Taylor) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review read in Mar 2025
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) 📖 ✅ 5* my review read in Apr 2025
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1) (Stieg Larsson) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Mar 2025
The Women (Clare Boothe Luce) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Feb 2025
Moon Over Minneapolis (Fay Weldon) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Jan 2025
Top Girls
You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories (Alice Walker) 📖 ✅ 4.5* my review read in Feb 2025
In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women
The Wheel Spins
Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell, #2) (Hilary Mantel) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Feb 2025
The Mirror & the Light (Thomas Cromwell, #3) (Hilary Mantel) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Mar 2025
Wolf Hall: (Thomas Cromwell, #1) (Hilary Mantel) 📖 ✅ 3* my review read in Mar 2025

2025 reads covered in
======================
message 2 - 3 ---- fiction
message 4 - 5 ---- nonfiction

2025 reads --- nonfiction part 1
=========================

The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: 500 Years of Women's Self-Portraits (Jennifer Higgie) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Mar 2025
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose

The Greek Epic Cycle and its Ancient Reception: A Companion (Marco Fantuzzi; Christos Tsagalis) --- I've been trying to work this out and I think this might help.
The Middle East: The Cradle of Civilization (Stephen Bourke) --- One of the books I've lined up to get a little more familiar with Mesopotamia.

The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance (Anthony Gottlieb) --- I enjoyed this last time and reading agin.
Brief Answers to the Big Questions (Stephen Hawking) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Feb 2025
Brief Answers to the Big Questions (Stephen Hawking) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Mar 2025

2025 reads covered in
======================
message 2 - 3 ---- fiction
message 4 - 5 ---- nonfiction

2025 reads --- nonfiction part 2
=========================
Vanessa Bell: Portrait of the Bloomsbury Artist (Frances Spalding) --- One of the two books lines up.
The Art of Bloomsbury: Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, and Duncan Grant (Richard Shone) --- Looks interesting.
Roger Fry (Virginia Woolf) --- Second read, a nonfiction biography by Virginia Woolf of her friend, artist and art critic, Roger Fry.


Jane Austen: A Life (Claire Tomalin) --- I found this helpful last time, and it will be good to read again.
A Memoir of Jane Austen: And Other Family Recollections (James Edward Austen-Leigh) --- I've been wanting to read this for sometime.
The History of England by a partial, prejudiced & ignorant historian (Jane Austen) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review read in Mar 2025
Jane Austen at Home (Lucy Worsley) 📖 ✅ 4* my review read in Jan 2025



2025 reads covered in
======================
message 2 - 3 ---- fiction
message 4 - 5 ---- nonfiction

Jan was filled with many surprising reads, and this was one of them

and this another

Roundup: Books Read in Jan 2025
===========================

A Doll's House (Henrik Ibsen; Bryony Lavery) ---📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Moon Over Minneapolis (Fay Weldon) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Contemplation (Franz Kafka) 📖 ✅ 3* my review .

The Trojan Women (Euripides) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Jane Austen at Home (Lucy Worsley) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Dream Play (August Strindberg) 📖 ✅ 3* my review .

Chinese Poetry (translated by Charles Budd (1912)) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review .

The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury) 📖 ✅ 5* my review .

Hecuba (Euripides) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review .

Jane Austen Collection Volume 2: Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Passing (Nella Larsen) 📖 ✅ 4.5* my review .

Roundup: Books Read in Feb 2025
===========================

Tender Buttons (Gertrude Stein) 📖 ✅ 3* my review .

The Women (Clare Boothe Luce) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Brief Answers to the Big Questions (Stephen Hawking) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

The Jane Austen BBC Radio Drama Collection 📖 ✅ 3.5 - 4* my review .

Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell, #2) (Hilary Mantel) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories (Alice Walker) 📖 ✅ 4.5* my review .

The Tempest (William Shakespeare) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Roundup: Books Read in Mar 2025
===========================

Patriotism (Yukio Mishima) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Camille (Alexandre Dumas fils) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review .

The Mirror & the Light (Thomas Cromwell, #3) (Hilary Mantel) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Six Tragedies: Phaedra / Oedipus / Medae / Trojan Women / Hercules Furens / Thyestes (Oxford World's Classics) (Seneca; Emily Wilson) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1) (Stieg Larsson) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Brief Answers to the Big Questions (Stephen Hawking) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: 500 Years of Women's Self-Portraits (Jennifer Higgie) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Wolf Hall: (Thomas Cromwell, #1) (Hilary Mantel) 📖 ✅ 3* my review .

The History of England by a partial, prejudiced & ignorant historian (Jane Austen) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review .

Six Characters in Search of an Author (Luigi Pirandello) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review .

Good (C.P. Taylor) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review .

Roundup: Books Read in April 2025
===========================

The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga) 📖 ✅ 3* my review .

New Boy (Tracy Chevalier) 📖 ✅ 3.5* my review .

Tales from Shakespeare (Mary Lamb & Charles Lamb) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) 📖 ✅ 5* my review .

Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen) 📖 ✅ 4* my review .

Sense and Sensibility (Joanna Trollope) 📖 ✅ 1.5* my review .

Roundup: Books Read in May 2025
===========================

Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride & Prejudice (Curtis Sittenfeld) 📖 ✅ 2.5* my review .

The Jane Austen BBC Radio Drama Collection 📖 ✅ 4* my review second read

Emma: the *BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation 📖 ✅ 4* my review (* A different production to the book cover here listing Eve Best).