2025 Reading Challenge discussion

The theme for May is the classics. I can't believe we are nominating for May already. I always intend to read more classics! The theme is completely open to interpretation: as long as you can tell us why you think it should fit the theme, it counts.

Please nominate only one book and ensure you either link the book or give the name of the author as well to avoid confusion. Please do not nominate books from a series, unless it is the first book in the series. You can second someone else's nomination, but that will count as your own. Nominations cannot have been chosen for a past group read (past buddy reads are fine).

This thread will be closed by March 22, and we will choose ten books for the poll. If there are more than ten books nominated, we will choose the ten most nominated. If there is still a tie to get into the top ten, we'll go back to the Goodreads average rating to see which is highest.

I would like to nominate Great Expectations. I will read it at some point this year for a challenge and it would be great to read with a group.

I nominate The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

I nominate The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath

I nominate Shirley by Charlotte Brontë.

Here is a link to our past group reads. We have read quite a few classics in the past. Please check our former group read list. Unfortunately we can not nominate books we have already read in the past.


https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

My nominations is The Picture of Dorian Gray

I have been meaning to read it for a few years now. I would like to be able to check this one off.

Second The Moonstone

I nominate Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Ilona, we have already read Jane Eyre as a group read. Sorry, we can't nominate books we have already read as a group. Feel free to post it in the Buddy Reads folder if you are wanting to read it with other members. There may be many people who want to read Jane Eyre with you.

I nominate Emma!

Oh, I am sorry Jodi. I thought it was just a buddy read and not a group read, my bad.

I second the Hobbit.

I'd like to nominate Emma by Alexander McCall Smith, which is a twist on the Jane Austen version.

This is the blurb on Goodreads:
Prepare to meet a young woman who thinks she knows everything

Fresh from university, Emma Woodhouse arrives home in Norfolk ready to embark on adult life with a splash. Not only has her sister, Isabella, been whisked away on a motorbike to London, but her astute governess, Miss Taylor is at a loose end watching as Mr. Woodhouse worries about his girls. Someone is needed to rule the roost and young Emma is more than happy to oblige.

At the helm of her own dinner parties, and often found either rearranging the furniture at the family home of Hartfield, or instructing her new protégée, Harriet Smith, Emma is in charge. You don’t have to be in London to go to parties, find amusement or make trouble.

Not if you’re Emma, the very big fish in the rather small pond.

But for someone who knows everything, Emma doesn’t know her own heart. And there is only one person who can play with Emma’s indestructible confidence, her friend and inscrutable neighbour George Knightly – this time has Emma finally met her match?

Ever alive to the social comedy of village life, beloved author Alexander McCall Smith’s Emma is the busybody we all know and love, and a true modern delight.

How about "The Scarlet Letter"?

I would like to nominate East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

I nominate Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.

I second Sense and Sensibility!

The Mayor of Casterbridge or Jane Eyre

I would also like to nominate The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien!

I nominate Pride and Prejudice byJane Austen.

I'd like to nominate The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

I'll second Great Expectations. I never finished it in high school so it would complete a different challenge for me in that respect - read a book you never read in high school but should have. :-)

I would like to nominate 1984 - I read it in junior high, and I would like to look at it again with an adult perspective.

I second The Picture of Dorian Gray

Jodi wrote: "Ilona, we have already read Jane Eyre as a group read. Sorry, we can't nominate books we have already read as a group. Feel free to post it in the Buddy Reads folder if you are wanting to read it w..."

Hi Jodi,
it looks like Jane Eyre was read as a buddy read, and not as a group read. Does that actually disqualify it from ever becoming a group read? (I think that sounds a little peculiar, and it'll make me more careful about suggesting buddy reads if I know it means making books ineligible for group reads!)

Thank you very much Karina for catching that error on my part! Ilona, your nomination for Jane Eyre is still in!


You absolutely can nominate former buddy reads, just not former group reads. I was looking on the wrong shelf.

oké yay :)

So many on here I want to read!

I just read Sense and Sensibility last month! And 1984 and Jane Eyre last year! Even though 3 of the other books mentioned are on my Challenge lists, I'm going to 3rd Great Expectations. I still have my copy from high school that has all of my notes in it! (I accidentally bought another copy of it because I thought I lost that copy... so now I have 2 copies of it)

(But I'm totally ok with Pride & Prejudice, Emma, or Picture of Dorian Gray because I have to read them this year - or Wuthering Heights or The Hobbit because they're also on my TBR list!)

Seems like regardless, I'll either be reading the chosen book or chiming in with comments. :)

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy.

There is a movie coming out soon, and I'd like to read the book beforehand.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is also on my TBR

I would like to jump on the bandwagon of nominations for Emma by Jane Austen.

Normally, I would vote for Pride and Prejudice but I have already read that book and would like to read a different classic by Austen.

Having never read Emma before, I would like to nominate Emma because I hear it mentioned almost as frequently as Pride and Prejudice, which many people consider a Jane Austen classic. I mean, come on - people have been reading Emma ever since it was published in 1815, and two hundred years later, it's still a highly recommended book. I, for one, would like to know what all the fuss is about.

Vote for Emma!

I wanna nominate The Wuthering Heights please :)

I would also like to nominate The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien

I nominate The Great Gatsby

Would anyone be interested in reading a non-Western classic? I nominate the Tao Te Ching.

I'll third Sense and Sensibility - I just read P & P, which I really loved. I read Emma last year - I had a hard time getting through! And I also read Persuasion last year (as my first Jane Austen) and I really loved that as well. So S & S is next on my list!

I nominate A tale of two cities by Charles Dickens.
The story is set during the French Revolution and shows the finer side of humans.

I nominate The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

I second The Bell Jar

There are so many great suggestions! I don't know how we will pick!

Kara, I have never heard of that book before. It says that it is the most translated book in the world besides The Bible. That must be a good book.

I was going to nominate some Shakespeare, but I'd rather second Kara's nomination!

I third Pride and Prejudice!

GREAT GATSBY!

My favorite book of all time <3 <3

 I would like to nominate Don Quixote. There are like 20 plus thick, dusted and old copies of this book in our library. It really looks unread, alone. Its a 900+ page book and it sure will be a challenge!

I second A Tale of Two Cities!

The Warden

Whilst I would really enjoy Great Expectations again (my favourite novel), I would like to nominate something new. The Warden was the first of the Barchester stories that Trollope published and is Comically tragic in a Dickens/Waugh sort of way and for some reason way under rated on good reads

I third A Tale of Two Cities.

I nominate Silas Marner by George Eliot

The Bell Jar or Anna Karenina