Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Darren's 2018 Old And New Challenge - "Clearing The Shelves" - COMPLETED!!

6 Group Bookshelf:
3 Old School:
The Odyssey Homer -800 Finished. *****
Persuasion Austen, Jane 1818 Finished. ***
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Bronte, Anne 1848 Finished. **
3 New School:
1984 Orwell, George 1949 Finished. ***
To Kill a Mockingbird Lee, Harper 1960 Finished. ***
Perfume Suskind, Patrick 1985 Finished. ***

6 Wildcard - My Bookshelf:
3 Old School:
Evelina Burney, Fanny 1778 Finished. ****
The Monk Lewis, Matthew Gregory 1796 Finished. **
Oblomov Goncharov, Ivan 1859 DNF
3 New School:
The Glass Bead Game Hesse, Hermann 1943 Finished. **
Portnoy's Complaint Roth, Philip 1969 Finished. ****
A Prayer for Owen Meany Irving, John 1989 DNF

2 Reserves:
Group Shelf: North and South Gaskell, Elizabeth 1854 Finished. ***
My Shelf: The Big Nowhere Ellroy, James 1988 Finished. ***

Great list! I'll be looking to see what you think of Perfume:; it's been on and off by TBR for awhile.

Nice list!
I liked Perfume. It's been awhile since I read it.
The Odyssey is wonderful. I suggest doing a few translation comparisons on-line to see which version speaks to you. They can be very different.
I also enjoyed The Monk. A real fun story.
A Prayer For Owen Meany is one of my favorite books.

Darren -- Great list! I loved Perfume (read it twice!); A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of my all-time favorites (!); and I just picked up The Glass Bead Game at my library's book sale for a quarter! So I hope it's good!
Enjoy your challenge! :)

I've been hooked on Roth this year. I think American Pastoral has been my favorite of his, but Portnoy's Complaint is a righteous good time. I assigned Owen Meany for a book club and the ladies did not love cool John. I still think it is a wonderful book and it is one of the few that I have read more than one time.

This is a great list. I have a hunch that you will love Owen Meany, not just the book but the boy. He is a unique and interesting character. Good luck with your challenge.

Excellent and varied list as always, Darren. I wonder what you'll think of Nineteen Eighty-Four?

I enjoyed Perfume too, and I have a different Roth book on my list. Good to hear that others like him.

Good luck with your challenge, Darren!

I've read 8 of the 14 books you've chosen, and I have several others on my TBR list. Have fun reading these.

Kathleen wrote: "Excellent and varied list as always, Darren. I wonder what you'll think of Nineteen Eighty-Four?"

this year I've read (and loved) Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451, so looking forward to completing the "Big Three" dystopias...

I just finished The Monk last week. It was a suped up version of anything gothic I'd read to that point. And I really enjoyed The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. And Perfume. Great list!

A for the big three of dystopias... i hadn't ever heard that. I would have thought A Clockwork Orange would ge in there. Sheesh. And i can think of yet more.....

Enjoy your reads. I've read half of what is on your list and enjoyed them all!

Quite a few of my favourites: Persuasion, North and South, to kill a mockingbird... Perfume and Owen are brilliant too. Hope you enjoy them all

I have just started The Monk, as it came up in another group. The LibriVox recording of this one is good. They have an unabridged edition, not the "expurgated" second edition or later abridged ones, and all 16 hours are done by the same guy. If your edition doesn't contain a 1906 editor's preface telling the reader that The Monk was a mediocre plagiarism by a mediocre man, I highly recommend at least going to LibriVox for that bit. It's hilarious. It also gives a nice overview of Gothic literature.

Leni wrote: "I have just started The Monk, as it came up in another group. The LibriVox recording of this one is good. They have an unabridged edition, not the "expurgated" second edition or later abridged ones..."

I use LibriVox a lot and have found some pretty good readers! Happy listening on The Monk!

I think the gutenberg version of The Monk will be OK - it seems to have all the words/phrases that wikipedia says were "expurgated"

I did finish Perfume: The Story of a Murderer on 18th Jan.

it seems to be a bit of a weird title in that my review doesn't show up against all editions, so I reproduce it here:

"Odd, odd, odd! Highly unusual main character/plot; well-written; nicely paced though episodic. Short, so didn't outstay its welcome. (view spoiler)[killing of the girls didn't bother me as it wasn't dwelt on and came over like standard vampire theme (hide spoiler)] I can understand some people giving this 4 or 5 stars, but I just never really felt sufficiently "engaged", so rounding down to 3."

I nominated The Monk for a different Group read for February but it didn't win :o(
but I'm going to read it anyway!

only just started The Monk, but going to prioritise it so it doesn't slip too far into March
March itself will be Persuasion, which I successfully got picked in the G1000 group :oD

Darren wrote: "only just started The Monk, but going to prioritise it so it doesn't slip too far into March
March itself will be Persuasion, which I successfully got picked in the G1000 g..."

Is that the Guardian 1000 book list that you have a shelf for? There is a group dedicated to reading the list?

yep, the Guardian Newspaper 1000 Novels group:
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
it is shamefully underpopulated though :o(
so I try to join in as much as I can on there
as it's the main list I'm working from...

I think you will love Persuasion. I found it much better, more evolved than Pride and Prejudice. All the best!

finished The Monk
not overly impressed (2 stars)
if you want more detail of me sticking the boot in, here's my review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

on the plus side, I am now back on track with this challenge (yaaay!)
I will be starting Persuasion soon, and April will be Herman Hesse's The Glass Bead Game...

I hadn't heard of The Glass Bead, but now I am intrigued. Looking forward to your review.

finished Persuasion - pleasant enough, but nothing more than I was expecting - I really enjoyed Pride & Prejudice, but have been underwhelmed by both Emma and Persuasion, so will probably leave it 2-3 years before trying Sense & Sensibility...

meanwhile I am looking forward to starting The Glass Bead Game early in April

plus it looks like North and South might be about to win May's Revisit poll, so that would be good incentive for me to bag one of my reserves... :oD

oh, and in other news, I just became a Moderator for the Guardian Newspaper 1000 Novels Group, but will try not to plug it tooo much! ;o)

Darren...that is super cool. What do you do as a moderator?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on The Glass Bead Game. I plan on reading more Hesse this year. I thoroughly enjoyed Siddhartha. Now I'm trying to decide between Glass Bead and Steppenwolf.

Darren wrote: "finished Persuasion - pleasant enough, but nothing more than I was expecting - I really enjoyed Pride & Prejudice, but have been underwhelmed by both Emma and Persuasion, so will probably leave it ..."

Congrats on the moderator position. I've checked out the Guardian 1000 list and I like it better than the better known 1001 list. It seems to have a lot more fun-to-read books that aren't there just to seem impressive.

Congrats Darren! Its a huge list to be honest

Congrats on being promoted to moderator, Darren! I checked out the list also, and have to agree with Laurie that it sounds like a more interesting, and fun to read list than some of the others. I'll have to check out the group!

Thanks guys!
I like the list so much, just wanted to help keep the group going, as it has quite a low level of activity
so I'm now setting up nomination threads, creating polls, updating bookshelves, creating discussion threads etc - it's good fun actually!


...Eric Ambler's The Mask of Dimitrios
and Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice for April btw ;o)

Darren wrote: "Thanks guys!
I like the list so much, just wanted to help keep the group going, as it has quite a low level of activity
so I'm now setting up nomination threads, creating polls, updating bookshelv..."

The Mask of Dimitrios sounds interesting. I haven't heard of that one. I just joined your group because I like the look of the list. Now I'll have to make another bookshelf! Glad you're having fun doing "moderator things" :)

For what it's worth, Sense and Sensibility is my second favourite Jane Austen, after P&P. But then, I find it really amazing that all the seemingly silly conversations they have about romantic attachments in S&S was highlighting and challenging actual social discourse from Austen's time. Once I realised that, it went from "this is a pleasant book with some funny notions" to "Damn, girl! U radical!" (Ok, yes I'm a total geek, and yes I should never attempt cool young people slang. But anyhow.)

The book to stay clear of is Mansfield Park. It is painfully dull, as are the characters. It's still social criticism with that book, but I just can't bring myself to care. Mansfield Park isn't on the Guardian list, is it? You might convert me to that list yet! lol

I enjoyed Mansfield Park but, yeah, it's definitely not the most fun to read.

There's no reason to rush on Austen.

A shame about Austen, I'd agree with holding back in Mansfield Park if you didn't like the others. Although, maybe that could be the one for you?! I'm sure you're in no rush to find out.

Congrats on the mod job. I've joined and left that group and other similar ones over the years, but they've never really had enough activity. Hopefully you can get a few more members and participation. I'll hop on over and take a peek at what you've got going on :)

That is exciting, Darren, to be bringing new life to a worthy group--congrats!

But, really? About Mansfield Park? That's my next and last Austen. I was looking forward to it. :-( But you never know, like you said, Pink. Emma surprised me, so maybe this will too.

started The Glass Bead Game last night and omg! first 50 pages lay out the most extraordinary (yet plausible) imagined future for mankind that I've ever come across - the book now shifts to the biography (fictional obvs) of one particular character against that background...

Haven't heard of it before, but adding it to my list now :)

Belated congrats on becoming Moderator. Hope it is going well :0)

Mansfield Park is very different to what you would expect a Jane Austen novel to be. As Leni said, Austen uses it to mirror all the nastiness in her society while playing with our expectations, all this wrapped up in a fairy tale that isn’t. It is brilliant - just don’t expect the usual :0)

finished Glass Bead Game for April
less than impressed, 2 Stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Not much luck so far this year with 2x2-star and 2x3-star reads
hopefully things will improve with my remaining choices...

speaking of which, May is To Kill A Mockingbird
plus I may read North and South with the group, as it is one of my reserves...

It doesn't seem like a good year so far, but I think you've got some great books left. Surely one of them has got to beat 3 stars!

it's partly a reflection on how good I am at predicting whether I'll like a book i.e. there's a good reason why I've been putting off reading these...

if I had to lay money, I'd say best bet for 4or5Star is going to be The Odyssey in July...
(Odyssey is a different case, as what I'd been putting off was doing the research on which translation to choose!)

I'd have thought The Odyssey and maybe 1984 have the best chance, but that one could go either way. I loved Evelina, North and South and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, on a similar level to how I enjoyed Persuasion. So going by that they'll line up nicely as 3 star reads for you, but I'll cross my fingers for more :)

By the way, which translation of The Odyssey have you gone for? I think I read Fagles, but I'd narrowed it to a shortlist of about 3. I'm reading The Iliad next month and looking forward to it.

Fagles yes - I looked at a few and that one came over to me like I would "get on" with it best
Odyssey is the only one that I'm really keen to get started asap...

I hope you enjoy it, I read it a couple of summers ago and have fond memories of sitting in the garden, while reading about Odysseus. I was pleased with Fagles translation and glad I went with that one.

Mockingbird - 3 Stars... meh...

I am also reading North and South though, which may (whisper it cautiously) be shaping up as 4 Stars... :oO

oh and June is Oblomov...

I've been thinking about Mockingbird, Darren. It was one of my favorite books...when I was in 8th grade. I kind of don't want to re-read it for fear of it not living up to the enjoyment it gave me as a kid. So I leave it at 5 stars and probably won't go back and touch it again.

I loved North and South! (If we're talking Gaskell, that is. I haven't read the American civil war one of the same name.) Unfortunately the ending was rushed. Worth being aware of. Not Gaskell's fault. It was serialised in a magazine Dickens was editing, and he, clearly being a total hypocrite, told her it was long enough and to wrap it up - pronto.

re Mockingbird - considered as a children's book I'd give it 4 or 5 Stars, but how it won the Pulitzer and became such a widely acclaimed classic is beyond me...

so North and South... 3 Stars - doh! so close! 3.5 but rounded down due to rushed ending plus it did start to wear thin having somebody drop dead to move the plot on

still, it's a reserve in the bag as a nice bit of insurance... ;o)

Leni wrote: "I loved North and South! (If we're talking Gaskell, that is. I haven't read the American civil war one of the same name.) Unfortunately the ending was rushed. Worth being aware of. Not Gaskell's fa..."

Leni, what a great tidbit! Makes you wonder where else she was going with the story - (view spoiler)[ it's such a slow burn romance and then BAM (hide spoiler)]

Oblomov was a DNF - read 300 pages and no idea what Goncharov was trying to do - just seemed badly written more than anything else :o(

anyhoo the good news is that I can now start The Odyssey :oD


in other news, Portnoy's Complaint is going to be a Buddy Read in September,
and since I initially had it down for August I have swapped in 1984 for next month...

well The Odyssey was 5 Stars :oD

will start Nineteen Eighty-Four quite soon, so now back on track with this challenge...