Reading with Style discussion

Ask questions or post suggestions about books that would be ideal for Reading through Time...especially for those older time periods.

Using the home page for our Bloom's Canon index, are authors by Century.

http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/g...

It still requires a bit of navigating to narrow it down by the 50 years, but helpful.

At this point, I'm looking at Moll Flanders by Defoe for 15.6 1701-1750 and perhaps something by Denis Diderot for 1751-1800.

Most of Shakespeare could be used for 15.9 (1551-1600), but a few can be used for 15.8 (1601-1650). Some were actually not published until after his death.

Sam - can we use these later publication dates? (Scroll down the page to see a list of works)

http://www.online-literature.com/shak...

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Most of Shakespeare could be used for 15.9 (1551-1600), but a few can be used for 15.8 (1601-1650). Some were actually not published until after his death.

Sam - can we use these later publicat..."

Yes, we'll use those publication dates.

Thank you!

Nothing written in stone, but these are my current plans for pre-1850:


Eugenie Grandet, Honoré de Balzac, 1832
The Nun, Denis Diderot, 1796
Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe, 1722
The Princesse de Cleves, Marie-Madeleine de LaFayette, 1678
The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare, 1623
The Spanish Tragedy, Thomas Kyd, 1589
The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli, 1532

Sara -

I want to read Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, too. It is only 64 pages. Hope it will qualify for the task!

Here's my plan. Strike-outs are where I changed my mind and bold are ones I've read.

1500-1551; Utopia, Orlando Furioso ,Gargantua & Pantagruel, The Prince
1551-1600; A Journey to the West, The Spanish Tragedy
1601-1650; Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
1651-1700; A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift, Paradise Lost by John Milton
1701-1750; The Scholars by Wu Jingzi
1751-1800; A Dream of Red Mansions by Cao Xueqin
1801-1850; Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
1851-1900; The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
1901-1950; The Golden Bowl by Henry James
1951-2000; Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

Here are my ideas:
15.10 (1500-1550) The Prince or Utopia
15.9 (1551-1600) Taming of the Shrew or
Dr. Faustus (62 pages?)
15.8 (1601-1650) Macbeth
15.7 (1651-1700) Paradise Lost
15.6 (1701-1750) Moll Flanders or
A Modern Proposal (64 pages?)
15.5 (1751-1800) Candide
15.4 (1801-1850) Agnes Grey
15.3 (1851-1900) Invisible Man
15.2 (1901-1950) Room with a view
15.1 (1951-2000) TBD

Yes to Marlowe's Faustus.

No to Swift's Modest Proposal all by itself. I think the 64 pages is a reference to a Dover edition that has other essays in it. If so, that collection is okay.

Perfect. Thanks! :)

if it is of help to anyone this is my list for the 1001 BYMRBYD that has the publication years included.

Thanks, Kiri! I was thinking of something like that from Robert Teeter's page, but so far have been too lazy to get started.

Tentative list:

1500-1550: The Prince
1551-1600: A Midsummer Night's Dream
1601-1650: Don Quixote
1651-1700: The Pilgrim's Progress
1701-1750: Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
1751-1800: The Monk
1801-1850: Persuasion
1851-1900: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
1901-1950: Rebecca
1951-2000: East of Eden

For anyone interested, I made a list of options for myself here
http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/2...

Cait wrote: "Tentative list:

1500-1550: The Prince
1551-1600: A Midsummer Night's Dream
1601-1650: Don Quixote
1651-1700: The Pilgrim's Progress
1701-1750: [b..."

Nice list, Cait. I may refer to your options more than once.

Tentative list:
2000-1951: Enchanters' End Game
1950-1901: The Postman Always Rings Twice
1900-1851: Journey to the Centre of the Earth
1850-1801: Frankenstein
1800-1751: Candide
1750-1701: Robinson Crusoe
1700-1651
1650-1601: All's Well That Ends Well
1600-1551: A Midsummer Night's Dream
1551-1500: Praise of Folly

For those of you who listen to audio books, for the 1851-1900 time period I can highly recommend Around the World in 80 Days as read by Jim Dale. I am not a big fan of audio books, but this was terrific. Much more humorous than I anticipated.

So, after a purely online search, (I haven't looked into getting a hold of all of these yet) here's what I've come up with...

1500-1550: The Prince
1551-1600: Hamlet
1601-1650: The Rights Of War And Peace
1651-1700: Paradise Lost
1701-1750: Love in Excess
1751-1800: Justine
1801-1850: The Three Musketeers
1851-1900: Dracula
1901-1950: Still debating this one.
1951-2000: Also leaving this one open so far.

By looking at people's choices for the earliest 50 years, we are going to have a lot of Machiavelli to talk about!

Erin wrote: "By looking at people's choices for the earliest 50 years, we are going to have a lot of Machiavelli to talk about! "

There doesn't seem to be many viable choices for 1500-1550:
In Praise of Folly
Utopia
The Book of the Courtier
The Prince
maybe Gargantua or Pantagruel, two parts of a "connected series of five novels", which nowadays is published as one book (the fifth part was published in 1564ish)

1500-1550: Amadis of Gaul or The Prince
1551-1600: Thomas of Reading or Titus Andronicus
1601-1650: Troilus and Cressida or The Unfortunate Traveller
1651-1700: Oroonoko
1701-1750: Love in Excess, Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, or Memoirs Of Fanny Hill
1751-1800: The Female Quixote, The Castle of Otranto, or The Mysteries of Udolpho
1801-1850: Ivanhoe
1851-1900: Journey to the Centre of the Earth or Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.
1901-1950: The Thin Man, Love in a Cold Climate, or The Return of the Soldier
1951-2000: Faces in the Water, The Virgin Suicides, All the Pretty Horses, or Nights at the Circus

These are my plans, as long as I can get my hands on them!
1501-1550 The Prince (1513/1532)
1551-1600 Much Ado About Nothing (1600)
1601-1650 Othello (1622)
1651-1700 The Misanthrope(1666)
1701-1750 The Love Suicides at Sonezaki by Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1703) {it's in my theatre textbook}
1751-1800 Candide(1759)
1801-1850 Frankenstein (1818)
1851-1900Les Miserables (1862)
1901-1950 The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1916/1920)
1951-2000 The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories (1997)

I wanted to read some plays and a few classics as well as something fun like Christie :)

Here is my plan:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...

All of my reading challenge plans are there, but the tabs at the bottom are labeled pretty clearly.

All the eBooks I mentioned for Reading through Time are from Project Gutenberg, by the way.

For the RtT list, could we also include 2000-2010 as an option?

Jayme(the ghost reader) wrote: "For the RtT list, could we also include 2000-2010 as an option?"

Hi Jayme: I'll let Sam be the final word on this, but I think he just wanted to use books published up through the year 2000 for this cycle.

well was worth asking.

Wow! I love this challenge! It makes me full of glee. Unfortunately, I promised myself to clean out my physical TBR first. But I'll add what books from the SRC Fall Challenge 2010 that'll fit Reading Through Time. Winter, I'll have more options. YAY!

Here is my list for the RTT:


1951 - 2000 ~ Angle of Repose (1971)
1901 - 1950 ~ O Pioneers! (1913)
1851 - 1900 ~ Middlemarch (1871)
1801 - 1850 ~ Northanger Abbey (1817)
1751 - 1800 ~ The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
1701 - 1750 ~ Moll Flanders(1722)
1651 - 1700 ~ The Misanthrope (1666)
1601 - 1650 ~ Don Quixote (1605)
1551 - 1600 ~ Love's Labor's Lost (1594)
1500 - 1550 ~ Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532)

Here is my list:

2000-1951 The Adventures of Kavlier and Clay(2000)
1950-1901 All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
1900-1851 A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
1850-1801 Emma (1815)
1800-1751 Candide (1759)
1750-1701 Moll Flanders (1722)
1700-1651 The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
1650-1601 Hamlet (1602)
1600-1551 Romeo and Juliet(1597)
1550-1501 The Prince (1532)

Hmm. I want to enrich myself this fall so this is my compromise -- Do Reading Through Time but alternate between the books that I own. So between these 10 books and whatever is floating on my shelf, I'm certain I can finish. *crosses fingers*

I think I said in another thread that I was not a particular fan of romance novels but that there must be one or two worth reading. The Princesse de Clèves I found to be one of them.

This is a true historical novel in that, though first published in 1678, describes the French court of about 100 years earlier. It starts out in a rather confusing way to describe many of the people - kings, queens, etc. - and their relationships and alliances. Frankly, I couldn't quite keep it straight, but fortunately I was eventually allowed to just concentrate on a few important characters.

The Princesse de Cleves enters an arranged marriage with a man who loves her passionately but whom she does not love. She is honor and duty bound and has enough virtue that she plans above all else to maintain her marriage vows. Soon, of course, she meets the man who she would have married if given the choice. Not a bit of smut follows, but oh the princess certainly is caught between the loves of these two men.

The translator's problem is to be faithful to 17th century French and yet make the story readable in the 20th (now 21st of course) Century. I don't know whether he succeeded in being faithful, but he was very successful in the readability.

An example, later in the book, by one of the men (I'll not tell you who) in a speech to the Princess:

I adore you,I hate you, I offend you, I beg your forgiveness; I am filled with wonder and admiration for you, and with shame at these feelings. In brief, there is no longer tranquillity or reason in me.

Ok, it's over the top - but, heck, isn't that what a romance novel is supposed to be?