I am joining the Back to the Classics Challenge for 2020. I am hoping it will help keep me moving along on my Classics Club List. The challenge is hosted by Books and Chocolate and is in its 7th year.
This is similar to another Classics Challenge I signed up for this year, and some of the categories do overlap. For this one I can go for 6 classics, or 9, or all 12.
I have listed possibilities for books I may read but I am not committed to those choices. In some cases there are many possibilities on my Classics Club List to fulfill the category description.
1. 19th Century Classic.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Sign of the Four (1890)2. 20th Century Classic.
Ira Levin – A Kiss Before Dying (1953)3. Classic by a Woman Author.
Shirley Jackson – We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)4. Classic in Translation.
Mikhail Bulgarov – The Master and Margarita (1967)5. Classic by a Person of Color.
Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958)6. A Genre Classic. Any classic novel that falls into a genre category -- fantasy, science fiction, Western, romance, crime, horror, etc.
Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None (1939)7. Classic with a Person's Name in the Title. First name, last name or both.
Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre (1847)8. Classic with a Place in the Title. Any classic with the proper name of a place (real or fictional) - a country, region, city, town, village, street, building, etc.
Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)9. Classic with Nature in the Title. A classic with any element of nature in the title (not including animals).
Kenneth Grahame – The Wind in the Willows (1908)10. Classic About a Family. This classic should have multiple members of the same family as principal characters, either from the same generation or multiple different generations. Updated: Family members in the title are also acceptable.
Elizabeth Gaskell – Wives and Daughters (1863)11. Abandoned Classic. Choose a classic that you started and just never got around to finishing, whether you didn't like it at or just didn't get around to it. Now is the time to give it another try.
I think this category may doom me to not completing all twelve categories (although I probably won't anyway). I cannot remember a classic that I have abandoned. I have only read classics in my younger years (too long ago to remember definitively) and in the last few years. There are many classics I have rejected (too scary or just not my thing or too long), but none I have started and not finished.12. Classic Adaptation. Any classic that's been adapted as a movie or TV series.
So many possibilities on my list. Maybe: Bram Stoker – Dracula (1897)
16 comments:
I hope you get number 9. Absolutely adore Wind in the Willows. Have fun with this, Tracy.
Oh, I hope you'll enjoy the reading, Tracy. I really liked the Christie, the Jackson, the Conan Doyle, and the Achebe. And, of course, there's the Bronte. I think you have some good reading ahead of you.
Cath, I put Wind on the Willows on the list because I got an annotated edition in late 2019, and I plan to read it this year. I have already started on it. It may take a while.
Margot, I am looking forward to all of those you mentioned. I have only read the first book by Arthur Conan Doyle and I really need to read more of his books and stories.
You participate in so many challenges, it seems they fill your year. Where is room for the "I feel like reading that right now"?
For number 12, you could read Tolkein's The Hobbit, if you haven't already read it.
So far, Rick, I have not had any problem with reading books I want to read right now (including ones that don't fit a challenge, except sometimes they do come from my TBR piles). In January at least 1/3 of my books were spur of the moment reads. It helps that I have more time to read and more choice in the time of day I can read now.
I have read The Hobbit, but someday I may reread it. Probably not this year though.
I just received my copy of one of the Thorndyke collections of short stories, offered by the publisher through the Kickstarter (that I learned about from you). I picked the one that contained the remaining half of the Thorndyke Short Stories. So I will start reading some of those stories soon.
Lots of fine books in that list, Tracy. I plan to read more Classics this year, though, as I have said before, I doubt I can do justice to reviews. In fact, I find it positively daunting.
I agree, Prashant, reviewing classics is sometimes very difficult. Daunting is a great word to describe it.
I got my Thorndyke books yesterday too, or 2 of them, I expect the third to come today.
I thought I would start slow, Rick, with just the book of short stories, since I am new to Thorndyke. I hope you review some of the novels.
I am far from a classics reader when I realize I have read only the Holmes book on your list. I find myself drawn to new books or filling in series I have started rather than the classics.
Bill, I have always enjoyed older mystery fiction, and usually read only a few favorite contemporary authors. The last two or three years I have been reading different types of fiction, both old and new. Another thing I like is historical fiction and fiction set outside of the US, although I still mainly stay with mysteries in those areas too.
Good luck Tracy, there's a couple there I'd read myself
Thanks, Col. I do have some classic crime fiction on there that I should have read years ago.
Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorites. I just re-read it last year!
Amy, I may have read Jane Eyre when I was much younger, if so I remember nothing so I will enjoy it either way.
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