Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Although most of us read a variety of books, is there a group category that you find you have read more? Is there one group discussion you tend to follow each month?

Our categories are Old School, New School, Revisit the Shelf, Short Stories, and the Quarterly Long Read.

Also, if you have read many, many books in the Buddy Read threads, tell us about it. I know some of you have.

I will start off. When I joined the group I had in mind reading those "school assignment" books that I had never read. Many were on the Group Bookshelf, so I joined. Over time I have been surprised to find that the category I always read (or 9 times out of 10) is the short story category. I have mentioned before that I find the short stories to be of course classics if written by the classic authors, but also they are a great way to sample a new author and determine if I want to read him or her again.

LOL I read more short stories than books from the category I moderate shhhh!! I have already read many of the Revisit books, which is cool, but there are so many short stories I missed!

My favorite is the Revisit the Shelf category. I read a lot as a child and teenager but somehow didn’t read many of the books everyone else seems to have read. Looking back, I realize now that we were poor country folks and my parents did their best. Our home was full of those large books with a hundred fairy tales, or the Little Golden Books that were fairly inexpensive, or books we had to read for school. We did visit the library as often as we could, but it was about a 20 min drive from where we lived and we had to be careful to only choose books when we knew we could return them before we were fined late fees. I have really enjoyed finally reading some of the classic children’s books and Jane Austen books and others that I missed along the way.

Paula W wrote: "My favorite is the Revisit the Shelf category. I read a lot as a child and teenager but somehow didn’t read many of the books everyone else seems to have read. Looking back, I realize now that we w..."

Wow what a great answer. Practical constraints can really affect our reading. It's nice that you can now fill in those gaps.

Lynn wrote: "Paula W wrote: "My favorite is the Revisit the Shelf category. I read a lot as a child and teenager but somehow didn’t read many of the books everyone else seems to have read. Looking back, I reali..."

Yeah. I feel like it is so much easier today than when I was a child. Classics E-books are fairly inexpensive or free (those out of copyright), and can be accessed on any device from a kindle to a phone to an iPad to a computer. There are also used bookstores or thrift bookstores where one can find books at very reasonable prices. If all else fails, one can order from Amazon or a local bookstore and have it delivered to their front door. These things didn’t exist when I was a child. Or even when I was a young adult. One of my best friends has been a librarian for 25 yrs or so, and she yells from the rooftops to access books in any format that works for you (physical, e-books, audiobooks, library, bookstores, etc). “Just consume books, any way you can,” she says.

Paula W wrote: "Lynn wrote: "Paula W wrote: "My favorite is the Revisit the Shelf category. I read a lot as a child and teenager but somehow didn’t read many of the books everyone else seems to have read. Looking ..."

I remember our issue being availability. Our two reliable sources of books were the school and public library and Scholastic book orders in the classroom. We even had a Book Swap every so often at school where there would be a "leave one / take one" table.
Living in a small town, we went to the library rather often, but it had a very small selection. Sometimes we would have a bookstore in town, but then it would go out of business and another would try to start again a few years later. I did belong to a book of the month club for a few years as a young adult, which helped. I know some people hate Amazon, but for me it has opened up all the possibilities in the world.

As a child I spent a great deal of time in the local library. I walked there alone (which sadly wouldn't be an option for most kids today). It was small, but it kept me with something to read constantly. In the summer, the book mobile would come every two weeks to our grammar school parking lot and I would drag my sisters with me. Each child could have two books, so if I could get both of them to go, I could come away with six books, which would hold me for two weeks. This gave me access to books from the Carnegie Library downtown that wouldn't be available in the local library.

Back on topic, I find more and more that the monthly selections are books I have already read. When I joined, Old School was the category that most attracted me, but now I find myself reading more books post 1900 and discovering wonderful writers that I missed along the way. I keep wanting to work more re-reads into my schedule, since there are so many books that I read 30+ years ago and they are like new reads when I go back to them.

I enjoy New School most: Before joining the group this was were my classic reading was most lacking – and probably still is - and I learn a lot from the discussions.

I try hard to read the short story each month, unless it is an author I already know I don’t like (1 case), or I have already read it (rare). As Lynn said: “a great way to sample a new author“.

Revisit the Shelf: I already read a large portion of those books I am interested in from our shelf, for the simple reason that I have been in the group for many years.

Local library as a child: Yes, me also. I often went there alone after school in the 1980s. They had comic books, but not very many, so there were a line when they opened and we would rush in to get the good ones. With a max of 6 per person. Kids come alone to the library here to day too. But they probably come to play on the library’s computers.

I have the luxury of having access to Ereolen. (Including Libby/Overdrive with a lot extra). Specially Russian literature is very well represented both as ebook and audio. So for classical literature I rarely have to pay.

Sara wrote: "so many books that I read 30+ years ago and they are like new reads when I go back to them ..."

Yes, it is funny re-reading after that many years. Often a very large/all of the plot is forgotten, but there is that one little detail or line that I remembered all those years.

J_BlueFlower wrote: "Sara wrote: "so many books that I read 30+ years ago and they are like new reads when I go back to them ..."

Yes, it is funny re-reading after that many years. Often a very large/all of the plot i..."

So true.

I love the variety of our categories. I almost always want to read at least one of the choices.

Short Stories--I read these the most, because it's easier to fit them in. And there's almost always good discussion!
New School--this is the bulk of my reading, so I more often probably choose from this group.
Old School--I find I'm putting a lot of these off for now, but like to think in a future with more reading time, these will be the ones I focus on.
Revisit the Shelf--there are still many group reads I've missed. I probably read the fewest of these, but when one I want to read comes around, it's a bonus to see all of the old comments.

So I prefer all of them! :-)

I really enjoy all the categories, for different reasons, and I'm glad we have them all. If I had to pick just one as my favourite, I'd pick Old School. When I joined the group, I thought (like a dummy) that I had a pretty good idea of what the classics had to offer. I just love discovering all these old books that I've never heard of or not read. I like following the Old School nominations thread too, even if I'm not nominating, and I make a lot of discoveries there.

My least read categories are new school and the long read — I often have books for the latter, but never seem to have time for them, and the new school are often books I don’t have and am not interested in reading.

Most read are shorts, old school and revisit, depending on what I have or how easily I can lay hands on a book. For all three, I am more likely to participate if it’s a book I have but have not yet read, or it’s a book I’ve read but it’s been so long I don’t remember much about it.

I honestly cannot choose.

Revisit the Shelf helps me get caught up on all the great reads I missed the first time around.

New School is a great way to read through some of the classic books of the 20th Century.

Old School helps make sure we don't overlook those foundational reads from the 19th and earlier centuries.

Short Story/Novellas is a category I have started participating in more in the last year or so. A great way to find a new-to-me author is by reading some of their short works.

The Quarterly Read is the only one I have not yet participated in. I'm sure I will someday, but I read several books at once so sometimes the long reads take me more than 3 months to finish.

I’m mostly in for New School these days. I have read most of the Old School books I am interested in reading these days, but may occasionally drop in. Revisit usually doesn’t pull me in, and the Quartely reads don’t either right now (though that could change). Sometimes the short story/novella category will catch my attention, but often my picks don’t win.

So, going beyond your question, I really enjoy the Buddy Reads.

I find that I mostly join the 'Revisit the Shelf' group reads, without any intention on my part: they just seem to fall in best with my reading appetites for now. Also, as I haven't been in this group for very long, they mostly are fist time visits, not old acquaintances.

My interests in 'New School' are more dispersed over different languages and cultures, so this category is a bit too anglo-centric for my taste.

I'm not a great fan of short stories ... and when the Old School gets very Old, as it tends to do these days, I don't feel tempted.

And as for the long reads ... there's not much discussion there. With three months to read one book, I never know whether anybody is reading or has finished or is planning to read, and discussion seems to peter out pretty soon.

I enjoy the Quarterly Long Reads and the Old School because they encourage me to read books I'd put off otherwise.

"Long Reads" allows me opportunity to read culturally important books, sometimes books on my bucket list. Recently I reread Moby Dick. I hope to read Kes Miserables before too long.

"Old School Reads" I like because sometimes I get opportunity to read culturally important texts such as social and political essays and treatises among other things.

"New School Reads" allows me to catch-up or reread books I have on my 20th-century bucket list. It is good read books I and my contemporaries were reading when we were young to now return to find new significance.

"Short Story" allows me to get a little punch of story and sometimes lively discussion. I particularly look here for plays, modern and ancient.

Here I go one step further. I would like to have a monthly discussion of what we might like to have as an extra ever-changing thread. I will not list any suggestions here. I will wait the opportunity even if it never cones--to answer a monthly question.

I really like both new school and old school, but I have to give a slight edge to old school. I've read so much from the 20th century in my lifetime that older books are more of a novelty.

I am interested in the short stories and always have good intentions to read them and then somehow I rarely do. I do intend to catch up on many at some point. I like the long reads when I participate, but I have usually either read them already or I'm not interested. I never participate in the rereads for the same reason.