Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion
"Junk Drawer"
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August reading plans
August list - 1.
2. Northanger Abbey
3.
4.
5.
6. Les Misérables this will be continued till December
August plans: Transmetropolitan (currently on volume 5)
The Portrait of a Lady
A Clash of Kings
Cloud Atlas
The Three-Body Problem
Pink - I'll be interested to hear what you think of The Wall - I read Lanchester's The Debt to Pleasure and thought it was superb
My August list:Currently Reading
Anne of Avonlea (serial-reader)
Planned
Paris - started
Når de døde vågner (audio) - started
Sabriel
Daz's August Dozen
carried over from last year(!):
1) Remembering Babylon Malouf, David 1993
group read (quarterly):
2) Midnight's Children Rushdie, Salman 1981 (middle third)
other group reads:
3) A Tree Grows In Brooklyn Smith, Betty 1943 (also Old & New Challenge!)
4) On The Road Kerouac, Jack 1955
personal challenge quarterly-long-read:
5) Ulysses Joyce, James 1922 (middle third)
4x main challenge:
6) Towards the End of the Morning Frayn, Michael 1967
7) My Name Is Red Pamuk, Orhan 1998
8) Utopia More, Thomas 1516
9) The Waves Woolf, Virginia 1931
last remaining book that I had slated for 2016(!!):
10) Henderson the Rain King Bellow, Saul 1958
non-challenge "PKD OCD":
11) Martian Time-Slip Dick, Philip K. 1964
family-imposed homework:
12) Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire Rowling, J. K. 2000
I plan to primarily read women in translation as part of WIT month. My planned books are:Flights
The Bear Whispers to Me
Of Love and Shadows
The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria
The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy
And non-translated books:
Ariel
The Mill on the Floss
I was just looking at my list this morning, thinking "Oops. I did it again."Currently reading books to finish:
The Eye of the Story: Selected Essays and Reviews
The Great Railway Bazaar
Midnight's Children
Books I wanted to read in July but haven't started yet:
Eva Moves the Furniture
Planned for August:
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Pale Fire
The Happy Prince
Laura
Adam Bede
The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories
Calypso
Mod
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Laurie wrote: "I plan to primarily read women in translation as part of WIT month. My planned books are:Flights
The Bear Whispers to Me
Of Love and Shadows
book:The..."
I forgot about that! Hm. Might need to revise my plans a tad.
Anyway, with some revisions, for August I plan on focusing on cleaning out some of my first in a series books (I've accumulated quite a few of them), and women in translation (with possibly some amount of focus on the more lowly rated). I've put a handful out for each category to give myself some ideas, but anyone can click on the category title and skim through the possibilities.
First in a Series
Garden Spells - Sarah Addison Allen (Currently Reading)
Maps - Nuruddin Farah (Currently Reading)
Women in Translation
Journey into the Whirlwind - Evgenia Ginzburg (Currently Reading)
The Vegetarian - Han Kang (Currently Reading)
As always, everything is subject to change.
Leftover from Last Month
September 1001 Plans
(view spoiler)
My reading plans for August:1. Gone with the wind - Mitchell - currently reading
2. Hard Times - Dickens - currently reading
3. The Happy Prince (group read) - finished reading
That's it for now, as I have fallen down on my reading the past few months. Good luck, folks x
Just the one stated above finished as I was distracted by 'Greetings From Bury Park' by Sarfarz Manzoor (an excellent read)
1. The Bell Jar (currently reading)2. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Re-Read/Group read)
3. Pale Fire (Group Read)
4. The Cantos
5. The Woman Warrior
6. Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks
I'm going to pretend that I did not see the comment about WIT month. I have to keep to my plans for the next few months or I won't finish my Old/New and George Eliot challenges.Left over from August
Group Reads
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Pale Fire
Other reading
Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death
The Silence of the Girls
A Pomegranate and the Maiden
I'm so excited for all the books I'm reading in August. I'm not planning on finishing all of them. I just want to make some progress.The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (currently reading, 15%)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (currently reading, 9%)
The Blinding Knife (currently reading, 25%)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Pale Fire
The Happy Prince and Other Tales (currently reading, 46%)
I plan to read in August:Pale Fire (This I will definitely read as it was my nomination)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (I wasn't going to but I came across a nice copy in a thrift shop)
Midnight's Children (I started it but have been paying more attention to other books)
To finish up:
The Big Sleep (I keep getting sidetracked but I should finish it soon)
If there is time:
Full Dark, No Stars
In Cold Blood
Oh, and Fee The Lightbring series is really good. I still need ro read the latest one though.
I actually didn't do too bad with my reading plans last month. For August, I will be reading There There and then starting Lolita and Midnight's Children. I may or may not finish both of those before the end of the month, since August is looking to be extremely busy.
August plan:Must reads:
Laura - group read
The Hours - local library group read
How Green Was My Valley - buddy read
WIT month:
The Waiting Years
The Wife (#2) - Sigrid Undset
Audio:
Tinkers - Pulitzer
A Room of One's Own
Long read:
The Complete Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant
Enjoy How Green Was My Valley! I loved that one!! :)
Marilyn wrote: "August plan:Must reads:
Laura - group read
The Hours - local library group read
How Green Was My Valley - buddy read
WIT month:
[book:The Waiting Years|17..."
'The Waiting Years' is great, and I'm glad to see that you're still going with 'Kristin Lavransdatter', Marilyn.
I'll just try to finish a couple of books:Irish Fairy & Folktales by W.B. Yeats
Anthologie de la litterature francaise
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
AUGUST READING PLANMy plan is to complete my Around the Year in 52 books reading challenge and then start in on my final classics BINGO selections. The first 2 books on my list were carry overs from the July plan.
1. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World 4 Stars
2. Milkman 4.5 Stars
3. The Wife Between Us 2 Stars
4. The Rosie Result 3 Stars
5. I Capture the Castle 3.75 Stars
6. Frog 4 Stars
7. Ghostwritten 4.25 Stars
8. Rabbit, Run 4.5 Stars
9. The Finishing School 4 Stars
10. A Confederacy of Dunces (2nd Reading) 4.5 Stars
11. Gulliver's Travels 3.75 Stars
12. Leaden Wings 3 Stars
13. The Children Act 3.5 stars
14. Bonjour tristesse 4 Stars
15. Oscar and Lucinda 4.5 Stars
16. The Mayor of Casterbridge 4.75 Stars
17. The Age of Innocence 4.25 Stars
18. The Return of the Native 4.5 Stars
19. The Colorado Kid 3.5 Stars
20. Agnes Grey 3.75 Stars
21. Vernon God Little 4.5 Stars
22. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? 3.75 Stars
23. The Group 3.5 Stars
24. The Autumn of the Patriarch 3 Stars
25. The Buried Giant 4 Stars
26. Kidnapped 4 Stars
27. Less 3.75 Stars
I've cleared out the rest of last month's books, so now it's time to really start on my August reads *rubs hands in anticipation*.
Aubrey wrote: "I've cleared out the rest of last month's books, so now it's time to really start on my August reads *rubs hands in anticipation*."All you need now is an evil laugh and we'd have the same reaction to our August book plans.
Tammy wrote: "Aubrey wrote: "I've cleared out the rest of last month's books, so now it's time to really start on my August reads *rubs hands in anticipation*."All you need now is an evil laugh and we'd have th..."
Ha ha, I suppose there's enough people who view the promotion of women in translation (or any 'politicized' reading choices, for that matter) diabolical enough to merit such.
August is going great:The Spectre of Alexander Wolf by Gaito Gazdanov
The Queen's Necklace by Antal Szerb
Heaven's Breath: A Natural History of the Wind by Lyall Watson
Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin
Innocence; or, Murder on Steep Street by Heda Margolius Kovály
Ivory Pearl by Jean-Patrick Manchette
Czesław Miłosz's Legends of Modernity: Essays and Letters from Occupied Poland, 1942-1943
The Spectacle of Skill: Selected Writings of Robert Hughes
Letters to Véra by Vladimir Nabokov
Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann
Casanova's Return to Venice by Arthur Schnitzler
Gathering Evidence: A Memoir & My Prizes by Thomas Bernhard (my favorite misanthrope who hates politics, albeit Austrian, even more than I do)
Poetry:
Hammer is the Prayer: Selected Poems by Christian Wiman
Samuel Menashe: New and Selected Poems
Surrender to Night: Collected Poems of Georg Trakl
Vasko Popa: Selected Poems, tr. Charles Simic
The latter three I'm actually re-reading because they were so amazing. The Popa collection actually makes me want to learn Serbo-Croatian, it's so good.
And continuing with the mammoth:
Main Currents of Marxism by Leszek Kołakowski
What a titanic achievement of the intellect this book is. You have to actively engage with every sentence he writes, and yet he writes so well that the experience is not only painless but even fun, which is rather astonishing for such a treatise on politics and the history of ideas.
But it's so dense that it will take me weeks to finish. I can't wait for the third section.
I thought the Milosz book was very good, but a good portion of that admiration comes from the fact that he was writing it during the occupation of Warsaw. I have Main Currents on my shelves--I just haven't dipped into it yet, though your comments are tempting me.
The ones I know for sure are
and a translation of Helen by Euripides and Electra by Sophocles.And forgot to mention I'm still reading the The letters of Vincent van Gogh, almost reached 1884
Bryan "goes on a bit too long" wrote: "I thought the Milosz book was very good, but a good portion of that admiration comes from the fact that he was writing it during the occupation of Warsaw. I have Main Currents on my shelves--I just haven't dipped into it yet, though your comments are tempting me."
I'll read anything by Czesław Miłosz. Anything. But still, for me, The Captive Mind will always be his masterpiece.
I'm considering re-reading it alongside Main Currents, because both Miłosz and Kołakowski were believers at one time, and not only managed to free themselves from their own intellectual chains (to Polish Communism), but to escape with their lives to write about it.
The Captive Mind...yes--don't take the Murti-Bing pills!
Bryan "goes on a bit too long" wrote: "The Captive Mind...yes--don't take the Murti-Bing pills!"But since we're talking about our fundamentally flawed species...
In one way or another, or in their own way, everybody has or will swallow the pill of Murti-Bing (in whatever form they need it to be for them). The only question is whether they have the guts and the understanding to realize it, admit it, and escape it.
I consider my life, metaphorically, to be a day-to-day struggle against the pill of Murti-Bing.
half-way through month and of my 12
finished 4
3 in progress
week's holiday coming up :oD
so v.confident of bringing all chickens home to roost!
Daz's August Dozen (full details in Message#6 above)
1) Remembering Babylon
3) A Tree Grows In Brooklyn - In Progress...
4) On The Road - In Progress...
5a) A Glastonbury Romance (first 160 pages) - In Progress...
6) Towards the End of Morning
7) My Name Is Red
9) The Waves
10) Henderson The Rain King
Mod
I have read
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
A short story at school Raymond's Run by Toni Cade Bambara
The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
I had stopped reading entirely for over a week. I mean one night we actually watched "Charlie's Angels" reruns, so I knew something was wrong. I am avoiding A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I know I will finish it, but I need to go slowly on sad books. I turned to totally frivolous fantasy about John Carter.
Five down, five to seven more to go, four of which are in progress. Overall progress can be seen in message 11. I've been swapping out a lot of works for others, especially in my Women in Translation category, but my interests have always been fickle, and I'm just glad I've managed to stick to the categories I chose for this month, barring the remnants from July.I'm starting to think about what themes I want to set for September. They'll have to allow for my finally finishing my 2019 Quest for Women (one of the books finally returns to the library then, and I serendipitously stumbled across a copy of the other), so decisions, decisions. All the remaining works are nonfiction, so I could do that, but I've done that one so recently that I'll need at least one more to spice it up.
I read the Mars books years ago, Lynn. They're a good break from serious reading, for sure!
Mod
They are really fun!!
Five down and at least five to go for me! I'm hopeful :)
Darren wrote: "half-way through month and of my 12
finished 4
3 in progress
week's holiday coming up :oD
so v.confident of bringing all chickens home to roost!
Daz's August Dozen
(full details in Message#6 ..."
D, I'm interested in what you think of Henderson the Rain King. I've heard good things, but would like to hear a few more opinions before I actually commit to it :)
Oh dear, oh dear! I keep adding books to my August plan. The list is starting to get out of control. I still have high hopes of completing the task, but the five additions to the list are certainly going to make my endeavor trickier!
Tammy wrote: "Oh dear, oh dear! I keep adding books to my August plan. The list is starting to get out of control. I still have high hopes of completing the task, but the five additions to the list are certainly..."That is an ambitious list, Tammy! I see that The Group is on your list. I'm interested in that one. I'll be watching for your review. I think it will be good!
Terris, I'm a good bit into Oscar and Lucinda and it is proving to be an enjoyable but truly long, meandering read. It might take me off my game a bit. If I get to The Group this month I'll eat my hat! I am looking forward to it, though, and I'll be sure to add my rating when I finish it.
Terris wrote: "D, I'm interested in what you think of Henderson the Rain King. I've heard good things, but would like to hear a few more opinions before I actually commit to it :)"HTRK may just slip into early September, but I am determined to finally read something by Saul Bellow!
Darren wrote: "HTRK may just slip into early September, but I am determined to finally read something by Saul Bellow! "Oh, Saul Bellow...
To quote what the low-life petty hustler mastermind, Einhorn (a relatively minor character), says to Augie March:
"I'm not a lowlife when I think, and really think," he said. "In the end you can't save your soul and life by thought. But if you think, the least of the consolation prizes is the world."
The best compliment that I can pay to Bellow is that there is almost always something at least as good as that on every page. A modern master. Herzog and Mr. Sammler's Planet are masterpieces as well.
Mod
Count me in too!It is about time.
Me too! I’ve never read Bellow and really need to!
so would anybody be interested in a Buddy Read of Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King in September?
If I didn't have Auggie on my plate already, I'd definitely be willing to give it a go.
Tammy wrote: "If I didn't have Auggie on my plate already, I'd definitely be willing to give it a go."Augie is my favorite. Some say Herzog is the masterpiece, but nah. For me it will always be Augie.
I’d love to read it! But I’m trying to keep up with my challenges as it’s getting closer to the end of the year (and I have some long ones left on my plate!). Any chance you’d want to try it to start the new year?
Tammy wrote: "Terris, I'm a good bit into Oscar and Lucinda and it is proving to be an enjoyable but truly long, meandering read. It might take me off my game a bit. If I get to The Group this month I'll eat my ..."I have Oscar and Lucinda coming up in a couple of months. I was supposed to read it last year and didn't get to it. So I rolled it over and now I was thinking of replacing it with something else instead of reading it this year! But I can't find anything else I want to read for the Foreign Awards category. So I think I'll just do it. I'll watch for your review ;)
Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)
Books mentioned in this topic
Vernon God Little (other topics)Milkman (other topics)
Oscar and Lucinda (other topics)
The Mayor of Casterbridge (other topics)
A Confederacy of Dunces (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Anne Perry (other topics)Sebastian Barry (other topics)
Thomas Harriot (other topics)
Paulo Coelho (other topics)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (other topics)
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I'll be reading
1. The Iliad4 stars2. Midnight's Children currently reading
3. The Longest Journey postponed to September
4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd3 stars5. The Wall1 star6. Freshwater currently reading
7. Lost Children Archive Postponed to September
8. An American Marriage
9. The Happy Prince2 stars10. Thus Spoke Zarathustra2 stars11. On the Road currently reading
12. Paradise Lost