Classics Club Spin #41, June 2025

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty books from my classics list. On Sunday, June 15th, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by August 24th, 2025.

This time I am changing my approach, because it is summer and I am determined to read all the books on my 20 Books of Summer List. Thus I am only including books of moderate length (no more than 250 pages). That only left 15 books, so I repeated the top five books in the list at the end of the list. Thus, some books are on the list twice.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
2. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
3. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)   
4. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
5. Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
6. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
7. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
8. Virginia Woolf – Flush (1933)
9. Anne Brontë – Agnes Grey (1847) 
10. Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958) 
11. Muriel Spark – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)
12. Dashiell Hammett – Red Harvest (1929)   
13. Christopher Isherwood – Goodbye to Berlin (1939)    
14. Robert Louis Stevenson – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
15. Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) 
16. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
17. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
18. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)   
19. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
20. Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

The three books I would most like to read for this spin are A Wrinkle in Time by L'Engle, The Talented Mr.Ripley by Highsmith, or Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene. However, any of the books on my list would be fine.  

Classics Club Spin #40, February 2025

 

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty books from my classics list that are still unread. On Sunday, February 16th, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by April 11th, 2025.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Edna Ferber – Show Boat (1926)
2. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
3. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
4. William Shakespeare – Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
5. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818) 
6. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
7. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
8. William Thackeray – Vanity Fair (1848)
9. Virginia Woolf – Flush (1933)
10. Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958)   
11. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
12. Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre (1847) 
13. Muriel Spark – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)
14. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)
15. Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451 (1953)  
16. Dashiell Hammett – Red Harvest (1929)
17. Christopher Isherwood – Goodbye to Berlin (1939)
18. Dorothy L. Sayers – The Nine Tailors (1934)
19. Robert Louis Stevenson – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
20. James Thurber – The 13 Clocks (1950)

The first 15 books on this list were on my last Spin list. But I have swapped out some books on the last list for others from my Classics list, so the last 5 books are new ones.

The two books I would most like to be selected from my list are A Wrinkle in Time by L'Engle or Cannery Row by Steinbeck. Although I am sure that The Talented Mr. Ripley by Highsmith will be too tense for me, I would like to finally read that one. However, any books on my list would be fine.  

We Have Always Lived in the Castle: Shirley Jackson

 

This is the first paragraph of We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It establishes the narrator and tells us a good bit about her. 

“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead.”

I think this type of book is best experienced when you know little about it, and I enjoyed going into it that way. Although I might have read it sooner if I had read more reviews. Thus my description and comments will be brief. 

As this short novel starts, Mary Katherine (also known as Merricat) lives with her older sister, Constance, and her Uncle Julian in a very large but run down house. The reader learns shortly that everyone else in the family died from poisoning when eating a meal. For several years after the poisoning, Merricat was the only one who left the house. She would walk to the nearby village twice a week to do the shopping and get books from the library. Constance never left the house, and Uncle Julian was confined to a wheel chair.

 

My goal in reading this book was to read a Gothic novel, since I don't go for that genre much, and to read more by Shirley Jackson. Up to now I have only read a few of her short stories.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. This story was not nearly as scary or tense as I expected it to be. There was a sense of foreboding and waiting for something horrible to happen. 

I liked Merricat's narration, and the depiction of their lives before and after the rest of the family died. I liked the way the ending was handled. The beauty of the story was in the way Jackson very slowly reveals small bits of the plot.

 -----------------------------

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2006 (orig. pub. 1962).
Length:    146 pages
Format:    Trade Paperback
Setting:    Vermont, US
Genre:     Gothic, Classic
Source:    I purchased this book in 2017.

Classics Club Spin #39, October 2024

 

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty books from my classics list. On Sunday, October 20, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by December 18, 2024.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Edna Ferber – Show Boat
2. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
3. Shirley Jackson – We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)
4. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
5. William Shakespeare – Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
6. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818)
7. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
8. William Thackeray – Vanity Fair (1848)
9. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
10. Virginia Woolf – Flush (1933)
11. Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958)
12. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
13. Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre (1847) 
14. Anne Brontë – Agnes Grey (1847)
15. Albert Camus – The Stranger (1942)
16. Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
17. John Meade Falkner – The Nebuly Coat (1903)
18. Muriel Spark – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)
19. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)
20. Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

This list is almost the same as last month. I replaced my last spin book, which I completed, with The Nebuly Coat. I am currently reading The Wind in the Willows, so I replaced that one with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

I will be happy with any book from the list. The two books I would most like to be selected are A Wrinkle in Time by L'Engle and Cannery Row by Steinbeck. There are some that I expect to be challenging reads, such as Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare or Vanity Fair by Thackeray or The Talented Mr.Ripley by Highsmith. 

My Ántonia: Willa Cather

 

This is the first book I have read by Willa Cather and I now understand why other readers are so effusive in their praise for the book. The book was published in 1918 and begins in the 1890s, at a period when immigrant families were settling on homesteads on the prairies.

The story focuses primarily on Ántonia Shimerda, the daughter of Bohemian immigrant parents who have settled on a farm on the Nebraska prairies. The Shimerda family doesn't have much money and suffer from inadequate shelter and food the first year they are at the farm. The nearest family is the Burdens. Jim Burden arrived in Nebraska on the same train as Ántonia and her family. His parents had both died in the previous year, and his cousins sent him to live with his grandparents. The house the Burdens live in is a wooden frame house, with a basement, and a floor and a half built above the basement. The Shimerda's home is basically a cave in the earth, but they hope to eventually build a house to take its place. The Burdens are the Shimerda's closest neighbors and they try to help the Bohemian family as much as possible.

There are so many interesting aspects to this book that I could never cover them all. The descriptions of backbreaking work on a farm; the difficulties of the immigrants, most of which cannot speak much English; life on the prairies and in the small towns. Ántonia is a girl full of life; she and Jim have adventures while still on the farm, and develop a lifelong friendship. He would like their relationship to be more than that.

The story is narrated by Jim Burden starting when he is about ten and meets Ántonia and her family. He likes Ántonia immediately and volunteers to teach her to read. Both Ántonia and Jim have to do work on their farms, but Ántonia must contribute much more just to help her family survive. As she grows older she takes on more and more of the heavy farm work, trying to compete with her older brother Ambrosch. 

A few years later the Burdens move to Black Hawk, buying a house and renting their farm. Jim's grandparents want him to go to school. Mrs. Burden worries about Ántonia laboring on the farm, and finds her a place to work as a housekeeper with one of their neighbors. This brings positive changes into Antonia's life. 

The book is divided into five sections. Book I is "The Shimerdas"; Book II is "The Hired Girls"; Book III is "Lena Lingard"; Book IV is "The Pioneer Woman's Story"; and Book V is "Cuzak's Boys". After the first longer section dealing with the years that the Shimerdas and the Burdens are neighbors out on the prairie, the following sections are vignettes that follow portions of Jim's and Ántonia's lives after adulthood.

In "The Hired Girls", various of the immigrant farm girls are hired by families in Black Hawk, the nearby town, and learn new skills and make their own way in the world. 

Book III follows the career of Lena Lingard, a Norwegian immigrant who has learned dressmaking skills and has set up a shop in Black Hawk. She is a liberated woman who is not interested in marriage or a family, and plays a big part in Jim's development. This was one of my favorite parts of the book and Lena is a wonderful character. 

"The Pioneer Woman's Story" is very brief and brings Jim and the reader up to date on Antonia's life at that point. I was not prepared for how emotionally I would react to the last section, "Cuzak's Boys", when Jim sees Ántonia for the first time in many years.

As I noted above, there are many things I loved about this book. This was set in an area and a time that I have little experience or knowledge about. But the best parts were how well all of the characters are described and developed throughout the book; and the beauty of the writing and the descriptions of nature.

My Result for the Classics Club Spin #38

 

The  result of the Classics Club Spin was announced today, and the number was 17, so I will be reading My Ántonia by Willa Cather sometime in August.

This is the summary from my edition:

Ántonia Shimerda is the daughter of Bohemian immigrants struggling with the oceanic loneliness of life on the Nebraska prairie. Through the eyes of Jim Burden, her tutor and disappointed admirer, we follow Ántonia from farm to town as she survives hardships both natural and human, from hardscrabble poverty to a failed romance–and not only survives, but triumphs.

I am looking forward to reading this book. It will be the first one I have read by Willa Cather, and I have heard many good things about her writing.

Classics Club Spin #38, July 2024

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I have chosen twenty books from my classics list. On Sunday, 21st July, 2024, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on this Spin List by Sunday, 22nd September, 2024.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Edna Ferber – Show Boat (1926)
2. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
3. Shirley Jackson – We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)
4. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
5. William Shakespeare – Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
6. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818)
7. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
8. William Thackeray – Vanity Fair (1848)
9. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
10. Virginia Woolf – Flush (1933)
11. Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958)
12. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
13. Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre (1847) 
14. Anne Brontë – Agnes Grey (1847)
15. Albert Camus – The Stranger (1942)
16. Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
17. Willa Cather – My Ántonia (1918)
18. Kenneth Grahame – The Wind in the Willows (1908)
19. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)
20. Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

This is almost exactly the same list as I used last time, so no surprises here. Are there any of these you especially liked... or disliked?

The Warden: Anthony Trollope

 

I was excited when The Warden by Anthony Trollope was selected for my Classics Club Spin result. I had read nothing by Trollope and I was eager to try his writing. It took me a while to get used to the style but in the end it was a big success for me. 

This description of The Warden is from Goodreads:

The Warden centers on Mr. Harding, a clergyman of great personal integrity who is nevertheless in possession of an income from a charity far in excess of the sum devoted to the purposes of the foundation. On discovering this, young John Bold turns his reforming zeal to exposing what he regards as an abuse of privilege, despite the fact that he is in love with Mr. Harding's daughter Eleanor. It was a highly topical novel (a case regarding the misapplication of church funds was the scandalous subject of contemporary debate), but like other great Victorian novelists, Trollope uses the specific case to explore and illuminate the universal complexities of human motivation and social morality.

I had gotten the impression that Trollope's writing was humorous but I failed to see the humor in this story at first. It seemed that all would end very sadly. How could the Warden, Mr. Harding, end up happy or contented when, even if legal proceedings excused him from guilt, he still felt like he had done wrong, although unknowingly, and certainly could not  continue to take the money that was not rightfully his?

As the story continued, it lightened up and I became immersed in it and did enjoy the humor of the situation. I loved the friendship between the Bishop and the Warden. I loathed the Archbishop (the Bishop's son) but enjoyed his relationship with his wife (Mr. Harding's oldest daughter). And I was happy with the ending.

I was at a disadvantage when reading this story, not truly being familiar with or understanding the positions and rankings in the Church of England. And even when I found explanations applicable to the time in which the book was written, they offered many options for how a position could be interpreted and acquired. I am sure I missed a lot of the satire, based on what I read in the notes at the end of this book. But I was able to get the basic themes and ideas.

I have left out so much about this story and how it was written. But the main takeaway is that it was a good read overall and I will be following up by reading more of Trollope's books. I have a copy of Barchester Towers, the second book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire, and I hope to read it before the end of 2024. It is almost 500 pages long, though, and The Warden was under 300 pages. 

-----------------------------

Publisher:   Oxford University Press, 1998 (orig. pub. 1855)
Length:      284 pages
Format:      Trade paperback

Series:       Chronicles of Barsetshire #1
Setting:      UK
Genre:        Literary fiction
Source:      I purchased my copy at the Planned Parenthood book sale in 2022.

Classics Club Spin #37, April 2024

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty books from my classics list. On Sunday, 21st April, 2024, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by Sunday, 2nd June, 2024.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
2. Shirley Jackson – We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)
3. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
4. William Shakespeare – Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
5. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818)
6. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
7. William Thackeray – Vanity Fair (1848)
8. Anthony Trollope – The Warden (1855)
9. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
10. Virginia Woolf – Flush (1933)
11. Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958)
12. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
13. Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre (1847) 
14. Anne Brontë – Agnes Grey (1847)
15. Albert Camus – The Stranger (1942)
16. Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
17. Willa Cather – My Ántonia (1918)
18. Kenneth Grahame – The Wind in the Willows (1908)
19. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)
20. Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

This is the same list as I used last time, except for one change to eliminate the book that I read for the last spin, and add Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Are there any of these you especially like... or dislike?

My top choice would be The Wind in the Willows.

Classics Club Spin #36, January 2024

 

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty books from my classics list. On Sunday, 21st January, 2024, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by Sunday, 3rd March, 2024.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
2. Shirley Jackson – We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)
3. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
4. William Shakespeare – Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
5. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818)
6. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
7. William Thackeray – Vanity Fair (1848)
8. Anthony Trollope – The Warden (1855)
9. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
10. Virginia Woolf – Flush (1933)
11. Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958)
12. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
13. Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre (1847) 
14. Anne Brontë – Agnes Grey (1847)
15. Albert Camus – The Stranger (1942)
16. Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
17. Willa Cather – My Ántonia (1918)
18. Kenneth Grahame – The Wind in the Willows (1908)
19. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)
20. Graham Greene – The Quiet American (1955)

This list is not that different than the last one. I substituted three books for ones that I had already read or needed a copy for. 

Are there any of these you recommend? 

The Postman Always Rings Twice: James M. Cain

This was the book that came up for me in the latest Classics Club Spin. The book is a classic noir mystery and very brief, only 120 pages long. James M. Cain is a well known author of noir fiction; this was his first novel.

Summary:

An attractive young woman with an older husband she is sick of meets a young handsome tramp. Cora and Nick Papadakis own and operate a small diner in rural California, not far from Los Angeles. Frank Chambers, the drifter, has just arrived in the area and does some odd jobs for Nick. Frank wants Cora to leave her husband behind and drift around the country with him. But Cora wants a more stable life with money and a place to live, and thus they begin plotting to kill her husband. 

My thoughts:

• This book was a challenging read for me. The story is very dark and gritty and those elements went beyond the point that I could enjoy the story, especially the first 90 pages. I would have given up on the book except that it was on my classic list, and it was very short. Almost any book that short deserves to be read all the way through, although I am sure that there are exceptions.
• The story is told in first person narrative by Frank Chambers. Normally I like that point of view, but with this book it brought me closer to the distasteful story, so did not work well for me.
• Almost all of the characters were unlikeable, and I could not care about them. However, the development of the characters was very good. The lawyer, Mr. Katz, was a very interesting character.
• I acknowledge that the author was a very talented writer and kept the reader involved in the story. The pacing was good. He accomplished what he was aiming for, and many readers have enjoyed the book since it was published. 
• I was glad I finished the book. The last 30 pages was the best part and pulled the book together without going for an unrealistic "happy" ending. I recommend reading this book if you are interested in trying the classics in the noir genre. 

I did question why the book was titled "The Postman Always Rings Twice"? I could remember no reference to a postman, but thought I had just missed it. Later I read that the title did not refer to anything in the book. I have read several explanations for why Cain used that title, although I don't know how valid they are. 

I read and enjoyed two other books by this author: Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   Vintage, 1989 (orig. pub. 1934)
Length:       120 pages
Format:       Trade paperback
Setting:       USA; Southern California
Genre:        Noir mystery
Source:       On my TBR since 2015.

I Capture the Castle: Dodie Smith

 

I read this book because it is on my Classics List, and also because I have heard so much about it over the years and was curious. And then in September it was the starting book for Six Degrees of Separation, so it seemed like a portent. It was time to give it a try. The book was published in 1948; the author wrote the book during World War II when she was living in the US and homesick for England.

Rose, Cassandra, and Thomas Mortmain live with their father in a decrepit old house that is attached to an equally decrepit castle. The setting is the English countryside in the 1930s. Their mother died after they moved into the castle, and a few years later their father married a younger woman, Topaz, who had worked as a model for artists.

The children's father is a famous author, even more well-known and admired in the US than in England. Yet he has written only one book, cannot get started on a new book, and makes no effort to try to make money in any other way. The family has sold off everything of value they have, and have no money, not even money for food. 

Another young man, Stephen, lives with them. He was an orphan and they took him in. Now he is old enough to work at some odd jobs in the village, and he is willing to give the money to the family to buy food. Possibly he does this because he feel indebted to them for their past kindness; possibly it is because he is in love with Cassandra, who does not return his affection, or even realize how he feels at first.

Rose is 20, and beginning to think of marriage as a way to escape poverty. Shortly after the story begins, a new family moves into nearby Scoatney Hall. Simon Cotton has inherited the estate; he and his brother have both been raised in the US, and are very eligible bachelors. The family is mostly excited by this turn of events.

In some ways, this is a very good story, I like the writing style, it is witty and it entertains. The story is told in first person via Cassandra's journal. She is 17 and introspective and trying to figure out who she is, and what she wants out of life. 

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the story because I could not get past the father's behavior. He is negligent and antisocial and does not encourage the family to get involved in events in the village. Cassandra loves him and worries about him, but he just hides out in his study. I did not grow to care about any of the characters except for Cassandra and Thomas. Thomas does go to school and has friends, so he is not too badly affected by the problems the family has, although a growing boy does need food.

I stayed with this book because I hoped it would improve or that the ending would make up for my reaction to the earlier sections. I have read so many favorable reviews of the book. There were things I liked: the many literary references; the contrasts between American customs and British customs; the humor. I liked Miss Marcy, the village librarian and school mistress. I don't regret reading this book, but overall, it was a disappointment. 

 -----------------------------

Publisher: Wednesday Books, 2017 (orig. pub. 1948).
Length:    390 pages
Format:    Hardcover
Setting:    UK, English countryside and London
Genre:     Fiction, Classic
Source:    I purchased this book.

Classics Club Spin #35, October 2023

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty books from my classics list. On Sunday, 15th October, 2023, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by Sunday, 3rd December, 2023.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Anne Bronte – Agnes Grey (1847)
2. James Cain – The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
3. Albert Camus – The Stranger (1942)
4. Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
5. Willa Cather – My Ántonia (1918)
6. Kenneth Grahame – The Wind in the Willows (1908)
7. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)
8. Graham Greene – The Quiet American (1955)
9. Dashiell Hammett – Red Harvest (1929)
10. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
11. Shirley Jackson – We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)
12. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
13. William Shakespeare – Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
14. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818)
15. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
16. Bram Stoker – Dracula (1897)
17. William Thackeray – Vanity Fair (1848)
18. Anthony Trollope – The Warden (1855)
19. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
20. Virginia Woolf – Flush (1933)

I have been thinking about how to speed up my reading for my Classics List recently. Classics Club members aim to complete their list within five years and for me that would be in November 2023. I am not even close to finishing the list. One of my problems is that my list has 70 books when only 50 are required – but I haven't even finished 50 so far. However, I am still enjoying most of the classics I read, and even the ones I don't like so much are worthwhile reads.

I did decide to make more changes to my list this time. I usually list the same books every time and only change one or two books. This time I am including more books that I am not in a hurry to read (for various reasons) and books that I don't currently have a copy of. I don't know why I think that will help. 

I do have some favorites on this list. Are there any of these you recommend?

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: Carson McCullers

When I first started reading this book, all I knew was that it was Carson McCullers' first book, that it was published in 1940 when she was 23, and that it was set in the Southern United States. I honestly think that it is best to go into this book with little knowledge, thus with no preconceptions. (So if you haven't read the book and plan to, you might want to skip this review.) But I did want to record my thoughts on the book. This is my book for the last Classic Club Spin and is also the fifth book I read for 20 Books of Summer.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a novel set in a small town in Georgia during the Depression. It focuses on people who were very poor, having a hard time making ends meet, sometimes even without enough food for proper nourishment. The main characters are misfits or loners; people who don't fit in.

As the story starts, there are two deaf mutes in the town, John Singer and Spiros Antonapoulos. They are fast friends, and live together. After some time, Antonapoulos starts behaving irrationally and his cousin commits him to an asylum. Singer moves into a room in a boarding house. Whenever he can get away from his job, he takes a train to visit Antonapoulos at the asylum and takes food to him.

The boarding house that Singer lives in is run by the Kelly family. Mick Kelly is the fourth child of six in the Kelly family, 13 years old when the story begins. Her family is very poor and that only worsens throughout the book. She begins to visit Singer in his room. When she listens to his radio, she discovers that she loves music and wants to create it; she has neither the free time nor the money to learn how to do this. 

Biff Brannon is the owner of a small café. Singer eats dinner there every evening, the same dinner every night. Mick Kelly sometimes drops by to buy a small treat. As a business owner, Biff does not exactly fit the model of a misfit or loner, yet he also seeks out Singer as the one person he can talk to.

Jake Blount is a mechanic for a carnival, an alcoholic, a Marxist, and a trouble maker. One night Singer takes him home after he gets drunk at Biff's café, and Jake decides he is a friend. 

Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland is a Black physician who is estranged from his family. He wants to lead his people out of ignorance and improve their conditions, but he cannot even communicate with his own family. He also strikes up a relationship with Singer after he treats him courteously, the first white man to do so. 

John Singer is at the center of the story. We know little about him beyond his love for Antonapoulos. Yet one by one Mick, Biff, Jake, and Dr. Copeland come to him for support, even though Singer does not know what they want from him. They latch on to him as a savior or mentor.  They visit him in his boarding house room, and talk to him about their lives, their hopes, and their problems, and he just listens and nods.

This is just an  overview of the characters in the book. There is so much more to the story: other interesting characters and how they all interact; the interior lives of the main characters; the state of this part of the world at the time.

After I finished this book, I wasn't sure what I thought of it. It was a sad book, uncomfortable at times, but I was glad I had read the book. It is beautifully written and I was never bored. I liked reading about the unusual characters. The book and the characters stayed in my head long after I finished reading it.

The setting was intriguing because I was raised in Alabama. I don't remember that Georgia was specifically mentioned as the setting in the book, but I assume that there are pointers in the book to that. At first I thought the story might be set in Mississippi, because there is a Sardis Lake in Mississippi that I have been to; and there is mention of someone going to Biloxi, a coastal city in Mississippi. But there is also a Sardis Lake in Georgia. Regardless, this depiction of a small town in the southern US in the years before the US entered World War II was of great interest to me.

 -----------------------------

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 2000 (orig. publ. 1940)
Length:    359 pages
Format:    Trade paperback
Setting:    Georgia, USA, small town
Genre:     Fiction
Source:    Purchased at the Planned Parenthood Book Sale, 2019.

The Optimist's Daughter: Eudora Welty

I read The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty for a Classics Club Spin and I am a bit late reviewing it. The book is very short, 180 pages in the edition I read. It was published in 1972 and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1973. Welty was a well-known author of Southern fiction but she only wrote five novels, between 1946 and 1972.

Laurel McKelva Hand goes to New Orleans with her father, Judge McKelva, and his second wife, Fay, to visit the Judge's eye doctor. The judge is in his early seventies and the retina in one eye has slipped.  As a result of surgery, he is required to lie in bed for weeks and not move his head. As he lies there his condition degenerates. When he dies, Laurel returns to her hometown for the funeral.

This book was divided into four sections. The first section describes Judge McKelva's illness and death in a hospital in New Orleans, and the support that is provided by Laurel, his daughter, and Fay, his second wife, who is younger than Laurel. Fay is shallow and self-centered; she doesn't even attempt to hide her irritation because her first visit to New Orleans with the Judge has to be spent sitting in a hospital, when she could be going to Mardi Gras activities. 

The second section recounts the return to Laurel's hometown: meetings with her old friends; the visitation at the house; the funeral. Fay's family comes to support her, but she is furious when they show up. She had told Laurel that she had no family; maybe she was ashamed of them, or thought she had risen above them.

Probably the best thing about this book is the depiction of the visitation in the home, with dishes brought in from neighbors, and remembrances of the judge, although I found it painful rather than humorous. 

Fay inherits the Judge's estate, and she will now own the family home that Laurel grew up in. Fay returns to her hometown in Texas for a few days and Laurel agrees to be out of her former home before Fay returns.  Even though Laurel tries, they can find no common ground between them. Fay knows that Laurel looks down on her and resents her relationship with the Judge. 

In the third section, Laurel goes through the house, looking for mementos, things that belonged to her mother. She looks backs on trips she took to visit her mother's family in West Virginia. The fourth section is very brief. It focuses on her memories of losing her husband during World War II, not very long after they were married. 

My Thoughts:

In this review I have covered more of the plot than I usually do, and that is partially because I cannot really explain what I don't like about the book. For me, it did not have depth and it did not seem to go anywhere in the first two-thirds of the book. I had too many unanswered questions, and I did not want to fill in the blanks. 

The last sections were the best part of the book. I preferred Laurel's memories of her past and her attempts to come to terms with the loss of her parents and her husband to the first two sections. Others have had the opposite reaction to the book. They enjoyed the contentious relationship between Laurel and Fay, but found Laurel's musings over her past and coming to terms with her loss less interesting. 

The Optimist's Daughter was first published as a long story in The New Yorker in March 1969. Later it was revised and published in book form. Possibly that was why the book seemed to have a split personality, funny at times, sad at times, but not doing either very well. I haven't read the first version.

Many readers have loved this book. Many reviewers include their own experiences with losing their parents and other family members in their reviews. I think it is a book well worth reading, especially since it is a brief read. Some of the writing is beautiful. I just did not care for the book as a whole.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   Vintage International, 1990 (orig. pub. 1972)
Length:       180 pages
Format:       Trade paperback
Setting:       USA; New Orleans; Mount Salus, Mississippi
Genre:        Fiction
Source:      On my TBR since May 2019.

Classics Club Spin #34, June 2023

 

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty books from my classics list. On Sunday, 18th June, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by Sunday, 6th August 2023.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Show Boat (1926) by Edna Ferber [299 pages]
2. Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury
3. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) by James Cain
4. My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
5. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) by Roald Dahl
6. Goodbye to Berlin (1939) by Christopher Isherwood
7. The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame 
8. The Quiet American (1958) by Graham Greene   [180 pages]
9. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) by Patricia Highsmith
10. Flush (1933) by Virginia Woolf
11. We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) by Shirley Jackson
12. A Wrinkle in Time (1962) by Madeleine L'Engle
13. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) by Carson McCullers
14. Cannery Row (1945) by John Steinbeck 
15. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson
16. Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker    [420 pages]
17. The 13 Clocks (1950) by James Thurber
18. The Warden (1855) by Anthony Trollope
19. Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe   [209 pages]
20. The Nebuly Coat (1903) by John Meade Falkner

This list has no surprises, it is identical to my last list with one addition to replace the one I read last time. I am hoping for a shorter book since I am reading from my 20 Books of Summer list now. 

Are there any of these you recommend?

Classics Club Spin #33: My List

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty books from my classics list. On Sunday 19th March, 2023, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by Sunday the 30th April, 2023.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Show Boat (1926) by Edna Ferber [299 pages]
2. Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury
3. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) by James Cain
4. My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
5. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) by Roald Dahl
6. Goodbye to Berlin (1939) by Christopher Isherwood
7. The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame 
8. The Quiet American (1958) by Graham Greene   [180 pages]
9. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) by Patricia Highsmith
10. We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) by Shirley Jackson
11. A Wrinkle in Time (1962) by Madeleine L'Engle
12. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) by Carson McCullers
13. Cannery Row (1945) by John Steinbeck 
14. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson
15. Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker    [420 pages]
16. The 13 Clocks (1950) by James Thurber
17. The Warden (1855) by Anthony Trollope
18. The Optimist's Daughter (1972) by Eudora Welty   [180 pages]
19. Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe   [209 pages]
20. The Nebuly Coat (1903) by John Meade Falkner

Anna Karenina: Leo Tolstoy

I found it difficult to write more than a superficial review of this book without revealing some of the plot. If you have not read this book, and don't want to know much about the plot, I would pass on this review until you have read it. I knew little of the overall plot before I started reading the book, but I did know the ending. That did not spoil the book for me, but I would have preferred to go into the book with no knowledge of the story at all.

These are the major characters:

Anna Karenina, née Princess Oblonsky, is the wife of Alexei Karenin, who is 20 years older than she is. She is the sister of Prince Stepan (Stiva) Arkadyevich Oblonsky.

Princess Ekaterina (Kitty) Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya is the sister of Princess Darya (Dolly) Alexandrovna Oblonskaya, married to Prince Stepan.

Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, a cavalry officer.

Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin, a wealthy landowner. 

The story centers around Kitty and Levin and Anna. 

Anna is not happy in her life as the wife of a Petersburg government official but she does enjoy the social life and the things she can afford as the wife of a wealthy man. They have a young son that she adores.

Anna visits Moscow at her brother Stiva's request. His wife Dolly has discovered that he has a mistress, and is threatening to leave him. They have five children, and he wants her to stay married to him. Anna's goal is to talk Dolly into staying.

While in Moscow, Anna goes to a ball that Kitty and Count Vronsky also attend. Kitty is very young, and she expects Vronsky to propose marriage at the ball. However, Vronsky dances with Anna and they are very attracted to each other. When Vronsky does not propose, Kitty is humiliated. Vronsky and Anna get involved and soon are having an affair. 

Levin is a family friend of Stiva and Dolly, a wealthy landowner, and in love with Kitty. He had proposed to Kitty earlier, but was rejected. His life is more simple than the other characters who are involved in society in Moscow or Petersburg. He must spend time running his farm, and he takes his responsibilities there seriously.

Obviously there is much more to the story and the tale unfolds in over 800 pages.

My thoughts:

When I finally decided to read Anna Karenina, I had had my copy at least 12 years. It was time to make a decision to read or not read. I was put off by the length and my opinion that it would be a depressing book, but it was on my Classics List. The book was not as difficult a read as I expected, but at least half of the story was depressing. And it took me four months to read it.

I had difficulty reading this book mainly because of Anna's plight. She brings her problems upon herself, but she is in the unfair position of not being able to divorce her husband and still have some rights to her son. She, like other women at the time, had very little control over her life. 

On the other hand, I enjoyed reading about Levin, his trials and tribulations, and his propensity for evaluating his life and that of others. He was a good man and a hard worker. I liked that he and Kitty do find their way to each other and enjoy their life together. Levin is surprised to find that marriage is not always idyllic, but together they learn how to deal with their differences. There are portions of Levin's story that are drawn out and overly long, but those parts also reveal a lot about life in Russia in the 1800s.

Anna Karenina is good book, deserving of the designation as a classic, and I am glad I read it. I learned a lot about life in Russia when it was written.  My edition had footnotes and explanations; for instance, there was a note explaining the laws that governed divorce and the rights of women at the time. I liked the Levin / Kitty plot but I had to mostly force my way through Anna's story. 

At times I had problems with the Russian names. Some of them were very similar (both Vronsky and Anna's husband are often referred to as Alexei, which was very confusing) and the same person was referred to at various time by their real name or nicknames.  

-----------------------------

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2004 (orig. pub. 1878)
Length:  838 pages
Format: Trade paperback
Setting:  Russia
Genre:   Fiction, Classic
Source:  On my shelves for many years.
Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

Classics Club Spin: The Sign of Four

The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was the result of the most recent Classics Club Spin for me. I have read primarily mystery novels since my teenage years.  I especially like vintage mysteries, from the 1920's through the 1960's. But until recently I was not inclined to read the Sherlock Holmes series by Arthur Conan Doyle, or even  books by other authors based on those characters. 

As the book opens, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are together in their flat. I was surprised by the first paragraph.

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction.

Sherlock is taking cocaine, and Watson admonishes him for doing this. Sherlock says that when he does not have a case, he needs the stimulation of cocaine or morphine. 

Very shortly after this, Mary Morstan comes to Sherlock Holmes with a problem she needs help with. Her father, an officer in an Indian regiment, disappeared when he returned to London on leave. A few years after her father's disappearance, she began receiving a pearl every year on her birthday. Now she has received a letter asking her to meet an unknown man. She is allowed to bring along two friends if she does not want to come alone. Sherlock decides to take the case.

So, what did I think of the book?

The story seems to be a combination of puzzle mystery and an exotic adventure. I enjoyed reading a Sherlock Holmes story and seeing the tropes used in many of his adventures that I have seen in movies or TV series. Sherlock dresses up in a disguise so well done that even Watson does not recognize him. The Baker Street Irregulars are used to help him gather information. And meeting, if only briefly, his landlady, Mrs. Hudson.

I like that Dr. Watson narrates the stories, and I like the relationship between Watson and Sherlock. 

I especially enjoyed meeting Dr. Watson's love interest, Mary Morstan. I  enjoyed how Doyle developed that relationship. The way that they fall in love in just a short time felt very realistic to me and added to my picture of Watson. And Sherlock's reaction to Watson's attraction to Mary was very entertaining.

I had some negative reactions. 

I wasn't bored. Some parts of the  story are interesting and exciting, but other parts drag. More than one reviewer noted that the story was not very substantial and seemed more like short story with extra padding. I felt that way too. Maybe that is why some Sherlock Holmes fans prefer the short stories.

The long story told towards the end told by Jonathan Small, one of the villains, was one of the parts that seemed to go on and on, and could have been reduced in length if it was necessary at all. I have never liked that way of telling a story and in this case it just served as more padding. 

The edition I read had footnotes, which I often find more distracting than helpful. Most of them did not seem useful to me; verifying that street names and locations were or were not genuine, for example. But a few were interesting or useful, since the story was first published in 1890.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   Broadview Press, 2001 (orig. pub. 1890)
Length:      160 pages
Format:      Trade Paperback
Series:       Sherlock Holmes #2
Setting:      UK
Genre:       Mystery
Source:     Purchased at the Planned Parenthood Book Sale, 2014.

Classics Club Spin #32: Tracy's List

 

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty books from my classics list. There are not many changes from the last list.

On Sunday 11th December, 2022, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by Sunday the 29th January, 2023.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Show Boat (1926) by Edna Ferber [299 pages]
2. Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury
3. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) by James Cain
4. My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
5. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) by Roald Dahl
6. The Sign of Four (1890) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  [160 pages]
7. The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame 
8. The Quiet American (1958) by Graham Greene   [180 pages]
9. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) by Patricia Highsmith
10. Goodbye to Berlin (1939) by Christopher Isherwood
11. We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) by Shirley Jackson
12. A Wrinkle in Time (1962) by Madeleine L'Engle
13. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) by Carson McCullers
14. Cannery Row (1945) by John Steinbeck 
15. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson
16. Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker    [420 pages]
17. The 13 Clocks (1950) by James Thurber
18. The Warden (1855) by Anthony Trollope
19. The Optimist's Daughter (1972) by Eudora Welty   [180 pages]
20. Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe   [209 pages]

I have a few favorites on this list but really, any book here will be fine.