2022 What Classics are you reading?

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2022 What Classics are you reading?

1Tess_W
tammikuu 4, 2022, 8:48 am

I completed Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I find most philosophy books a slog, but I did like this one. There are many profound phrases contained within and lots of food for fodder. I read the Hays translation.

2L.Bloom
tammikuu 9, 2022, 5:46 pm

The Mandelbaum translation of The Divine Comedy

3Tess_W
tammikuu 16, 2022, 10:17 pm

Finished Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Sickeningly sweet! 146 pages 3- stars

4SyllicSpell
tammikuu 17, 2022, 4:13 pm

I've started reading The Unfortunate Traveller by Thomas Nashe; a grisly Elizabethan picaresque that seems to have been largely forgotten.

5rocketjk
tammikuu 30, 2022, 3:29 pm

I finished Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet, which I found to be a profoundly rewarding reading experience. The narrator, "Jean Genet," a habitué of French prisons, tells this tale from inside a prison cell, telling us that he is doing so and also telling us that he is spinning his tales and creating his characters out of his imagination. These characters, most predominantly Divine, Darling and Our Lady of the Flowers, are members of a Paris shadow world of homosexual grifters, thieves, prostitutes and pimps. The membrane of the narrative is porous, however, for though most often we read about these figures in the third person, frequently we get the idea that Divine is Genet (or Genet is Divine). The narrator's imagination takes us back and forth in time, as we get, especially, Divine's origin story and see the ways in which his (her) sense of difference and isolation as a child push him (her) to the fringes of society as time goes on. We see how the characters simultaneously depend upon and prey upon each other. And sometimes this shadow world collapses entirely and we land back with "Genet" in his jail cell, back to the source of this whirlpool of storytelling. All of this comes to us through what I found to be a powerful lens of poetic language and surrealist imaginings. And it all works because, as fractured as it is, as often distasteful as the characters' actions make them, Genet renders them entirely human, people we end up feeling for despite their crimes and betrayals. At heart, what they desperately need out of life is what we need.

6kac522
Muokkaaja: helmikuu 2, 2022, 6:13 pm

Duplicate post!

7kac522
Muokkaaja: tammikuu 30, 2022, 4:31 pm

My Classics this month:

--Meditations, Marcus Aurelius (2nd c. CE)--surprisingly relevant and accessible; I toggled between the Hammond and Hays translations.
--Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance, Sholem Aleichem (1888), translated by Hannah Berman from the Yiddish; a shtetl tale of love by the author of Tevye the Dairyman (better known as the basis for Fiddler on the Roof).
--Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson (1886); wonderful adventure tale, mixed with lots of history of Scotland and Scots dialect. My Modern Library Classics edition is particularly good, with extended notes, glossary and gazetteer. Probably would make a great audiobook, too.
--Miss Mole, E. H. Young (1930); very funny modern classic, about a lady's companion with a tendency to stretch the truth.

8Tess_W
tammikuu 31, 2022, 3:43 am

I completed G.A. Hinty's The Cat of Bubastes which is a children's classic; although 90% of today's children or YA for that matter, would be unable to read it. It's a 19th century novel set in Egypt and deals with the accidental killing of a cat, a crime punishable by death.

9lyzard
helmikuu 2, 2022, 4:24 pm

I'm trying to remember to log my classics this year!

For January I read Tom Cringle's Log by Michael Scott, from 1833, considered the first work in a new genre, "nautical fiction". It was put together from a log series of semi-fictional essays and was overlong and too travelogue-y, but very interesting in parts including a visit to post-revolution Haiti.

I also read Eaton Stannard Barrett's The Heroine, from 1813, a satirical work about a young novel-reader who decides she wants to be more like the heroines of her favourite novels (though really about girls' inadequate education).

10MissWatson
helmikuu 3, 2022, 5:16 am

>9 lyzard: I remember Tess reading this some time ago, too, and I am intrigued. Some day I'll squeeze it in.

And I have also just finished Jezebel's Daughter which I enjoyed very much.

11nx74defiant
helmikuu 6, 2022, 4:39 pm

I listened to Tales from the Arabian nights : Stories of Adventure, Magic, Love, and

Framed as Scheherazade tells her tales. Sometimes she tells of other people telling the tale. So a story within a story.
There are interludes between the story where author discusses the historical background of items, thoughts, traditions brought up in the stories.

12MissWatson
helmikuu 17, 2022, 4:02 am

I have finished L'argent where Aristide Saccard and his bank go down in a spectacular crash. It's not my first Zola, but the first where I found the casual sexual violence so openly stated. That came as a bit of a shock.

13Cecrow
Muokkaaja: helmikuu 20, 2022, 4:01 pm

Auto da Fe is such a quirky read, I don't blame anyone who gives up on it. As an allegory I appreciated it.

14MissWatson
helmikuu 21, 2022, 2:50 am

I'm currently enjoying Bel-Ami, more than I thought I would.

15thorold
helmikuu 21, 2022, 12:34 pm

>13 Cecrow: Yes. I think it took me a couple of years to get right through it, but I thought it was worth it afterwards.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve finished David Copperfield (for the second or maybe third time), Lady Audley’s secret (huge fun!) and The gilded age, a book I’d never heard of before but really enjoyed, despite all its obvious flaws.

16Cecrow
Muokkaaja: helmikuu 23, 2022, 12:12 pm

I've been putting off Lady Audley, maybe I'll move her up a few spots - thanks. Gilded Age sounds like a good companion for Martin Chuzzlewit.

17Eumnestes
helmikuu 28, 2022, 5:11 pm

I've been a Library Thing member for a few years, but only now learned about the existence of this group. It looks excellent, and this thread suggests that people are reading some really wonderful things.

I'm currently reading Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. I've never read it from cover to cover before, only the Preface and the chapter on the master-slave dialectic. The translation is by A.V. Miller, which I'm reading in a very pretty Easton Press edition. Very dense, which makes me grateful for the various outlines and analyses I've found online. But despite the formidable terminology, Hegel conveys a lively sense of how being conscious is an adventure.

18kac522
Muokkaaja: helmikuu 28, 2022, 9:17 pm

My February classics:

A Lost Lady by Willa Cather (1923)
Linda Tressel by Anthony Trollope (1868)
Burmese Days by George Orwell (1934)

19mnleona
maaliskuu 2, 2022, 11:59 am

Dracula by Bram Stoker. I am liking it but a slower read because of the details.

20Eumnestes
maaliskuu 3, 2022, 8:17 am

>19 mnleona: Yes, that is a novel that is surprisingly detail packed, given the nature of Dracula films and other adaptations. And I found that the speeches by Van Helsing could be a little bit precious. But still a very ghoulish story.

21rocketjk
maaliskuu 27, 2022, 1:58 pm

I finished Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility last night. The story's a little static, but I did very much enjoy Austen's sly wit and turn of phrase enough to be very glad I finally got to this novel.

22LBShoreBook
maaliskuu 28, 2022, 10:56 am

Currently reading Melville's Mardi. Enjoying it immensely despite the mixed reviews.

23madpoet
maaliskuu 28, 2022, 9:11 pm

I'm currently reading some Central European classics. I'm reading Lalka by Boleslaw Prus, a Polish classic, and I recently finished The Good Soldier Svejk, a Czech comedy about the First World War.

24LBShoreBook
maaliskuu 28, 2022, 9:33 pm

>23 madpoet: How did you like the Good Soldier Svejk? I recently purchased as I work my way through WWI literature.

25rocketjk
maaliskuu 29, 2022, 2:11 am

>23 madpoet: & >24 LBShoreBook: I loved The Good Soldier Svejk when I read it quite a few years ago.

26kac522
huhtikuu 29, 2022, 4:47 pm

I read the following classics in March and April:
19th century:
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins (1868) (re-read)
The Perpetual Curate, Margaret Oliphant (1864)
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens (1850) (re-read)
Emma, Jane Austen (1816) (re-read)
Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy (1872) (re-read)

Modern classics:
Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie (1937)
Rumour of Heaven, Beatrix Lehmann (1934)
My Husband Simon, Mollie Panter-Downes (1931)
A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf (1929)
The Natural, Bernard Malamud (1952)
Jenny Wren, E. H. Young (1931)
The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim (1922) (re-read)

27L.Bloom
huhtikuu 30, 2022, 11:39 am

Richard III and yes it absolutely lives up to 400 years of hype. My first time through Shakespeare, I enjoyed the Henry VI plays but this one is astonishingly good.

28Cecrow
Muokkaaja: huhtikuu 30, 2022, 6:53 pm

I'm wading through The Guermantes Way, which doesn't have the grip that the second volume had on me but is refreshingly more dialogue-oriented so far.

>26 kac522:, nice! And so many good titles there, you must be on the literary equivalent of a sugar high after that. I think it would take me half a year to finish that list, at least.

29kac522
huhtikuu 30, 2022, 8:56 pm

>28 Cecrow: It's pretty much my normal reading...I don't read much after 1960 ;)

30Cecrow
huhtikuu 30, 2022, 10:18 pm

>29 kac522:, me either (and that may go for several members of this group) but I couldn't do all that in two months, whew.

31kac522
huhtikuu 30, 2022, 11:01 pm

>30 Cecrow: One word: Retirement. Oh, and a couple (David Copperfield and Emma) were re-reads on audiobook.

32MissWatson
toukokuu 2, 2022, 5:01 am

I'm currently reading Le grand Meaulnes. I had no idea what this was about and wonder where it's going to end.

33nx74defiant
toukokuu 25, 2022, 4:20 pm

34Cecrow
toukokuu 25, 2022, 8:12 pm

>33 nx74defiant:, that's my next one!

35nx74defiant
kesäkuu 1, 2022, 10:22 pm

I listen to Christopher Marlowe's Tragedy of Edward the Second.

I've heard of Marlowe a lot in connection with Shakespeare, but I was not familiar with any of his plays.

36kac522
kesäkuu 1, 2022, 11:43 pm

My classics in May:

Prior to the 20th century:
Twelfth Night, Shakespeare, 1601
A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens, 1859 (re-read on audiobook, read by Simon Vance)
Dangerous Work: Diary of an Arctic Adventure, Arthur Conan Doyle, his original diary of an arctic whaling expedition in March - August, 1880; first published 2012
The Country of the Pointed Firs, Sarah Orne Jewett, 1896

Modern Classics:
Poor Caroline, Winifred Holtby, 1931
The Curate's Wife, E. H. Young, 1934

37kac522
kesäkuu 3, 2022, 1:27 am

For those interested in Trollope:

Liz (lyzard) is leading a group read of Anthony Trollope's Miss Mackenzie here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/342134

The group read will last the month of June. Liz usually leads us chapter by chapter, so there is time to comment and reflect as we go along.

Miss Mackenzie is one of Trollope's shorter novels and tells the story of a quiet middle-aged spinster who suddenly finds herself an heiress and the object of 3 suitors, all equally unsuitable. This very funny and sweet novel is a re-read for me.

All welcome!

38MissWatson
kesäkuu 9, 2022, 4:14 am

I have just finished Mary Barton and although I was a bit irritated with the intrusive author's voice, it was a rewarding read.

39Cecrow
kesäkuu 24, 2022, 1:28 pm

Reading Old Goriot by Balzac, which is fantastic good. Sorry I didn't discovery this one years ago.

40kac522
heinäkuu 1, 2022, 1:33 am

I re-read (and enjoyed all over again) 3 classics this month:

North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell (1855)
Miss Mackenzie, Anthony Trollope (1865)

and a modern classic mystery:
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie (1926)

41rocketjk
heinäkuu 5, 2022, 5:32 pm

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass

I've waited far too long to finally read this classic and powerful testimony of the evils of chattel slavery in America. Douglass tells in straightforward fashion his story of the frequency of whippings, the demeaning and demoralizing nature of living life enslaved and the daily pains and degradations endured by the enslaved men, women and children he knows as a youth. Enslaved from birth, Douglass, once he became old enough to understand the full ramifications of his situation, acquired and retained a determination to find freedom. His first step was to surreptitiously learn to read. As such, this is also a testament to the enduring possibilities of the human spirit. Anyone with a doubt as to the absolute evil of American slavery will be disabused of such doubts after reading these searing 126 pages.

42rocketjk
heinäkuu 13, 2022, 2:13 pm

I finished and greatly enjoyed my reread of the modern classic, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. I particularly enjoyed the book's second half, as the skillfully drawn themes of Morrison's narrative begin to emerge: the dangers of personal isolation, the holding of grudges and the assumption that there isn't more to be learned about the people around you; the prices paid of living a life in Diaspora; the power of mythology and legend; the slow-dripping, corrosive poison of hatred and revenge seeking; the redemptive powers of forgiveness and the liberating nature of learning one's own family history. All this is framed within the rewarding, perhaps somewhat larger-than-life, portrayal of African American culture, both in the rustbelt north, where Milkman's story begins, and in the isolated mountains of Virginia, where Milkman goes searching for treasure. I'm very glad to have reread this now.

43nx74defiant
heinäkuu 13, 2022, 7:36 pm

I've enjoyed re-reading Sense and Sensibility.

44Cecrow
heinäkuu 14, 2022, 9:58 am

>42 rocketjk:, that sounds fantastic, haven't read any Toni Morrison yet and you're increasing that angst.

>43 nx74defiant:, trying to get to that one this year (would be my first time)

I like the encouragement/anticipation that comes from learning what others have been reading!

45rocketjk
Muokkaaja: heinäkuu 15, 2022, 12:08 pm

>44 Cecrow: It is fantastic, and I'm glad you think it seems worth reading. From my perspective, though, rather than causing you angst, I prefer to think of it as: Lucky you to still have reading Song of Solomon for the first time ahead of you.

Coincidentally, I read Sense and Sensibility for the first time earlier this year and enjoyed it very much.

46nx74defiant
heinäkuu 20, 2022, 7:59 pm

Well I finished The Mysteries of Udolpho.

I can understand why it was popular in its own time. Especially among young ladies.
But as a modern reader it is a slog. It is too long, too slow. Were get poems and songs. There are a lot of description for the countryside.
Emily is a very passive heroine, she faints a lot and is just there so things can happen to her.

47Cecrow
Muokkaaja: elokuu 25, 2022, 9:39 am

>46 nx74defiant:, haven't read it but after A Sicilian Romance I decided Radcliffe was not for me either.

Next up I'm reading Siddartha, which Hesse presents as a fictional biography of the Buddha, I gather. (edit: whoops, turns out I was wrong about that.)

48kac522
Muokkaaja: elokuu 25, 2022, 10:50 am

Classics I read in July:

The Absentee, Maria Edgeworth (1812)

Modern classic:
The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)

Classic re-reads:
Lady Susan, Austen (publ. post. 1871) (audiobook)
Pride and Prejudice, Austen (1813)
Persuasion, Austen (1817)
The Mill on the Floss, Eliot (1860)
The Warden, Trollope (1855) (audiobook)

Classic humor:
Jeeves: Joy in the Morning, P. G. Wodehouse (1947)

49MissWatson
elokuu 25, 2022, 7:06 am

I have finished Histoire de la princesse de Montpensier and found it surprisingly accessible. In modern spelling, it's an easy read and an interesting look at French court life during the Huguenot Wars.

50Cecrow
elokuu 25, 2022, 9:40 am

About a third of the way through The Woman in White.

51kac522
elokuu 30, 2022, 2:29 pm

Classics I read in August:

Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope (1857), audiobook read by Simon Vance
Hester, Margaret Oliphant (1883)
The Caravaners, Elizabeth von Arnim (1909)
Father, Elizabeth von Arnim (1931)

and currently listening to: Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (1858)

52L.Bloom
elokuu 30, 2022, 4:26 pm

Don Quixote book 2.
What an absolute delight! The second time in my life I've laughed out loud from reading a book.

53Cecrow
elokuu 31, 2022, 7:33 am

>52 L.Bloom:, similar experience. Great, memorable read from hundreds of years ago.

54MissWatson
syyskuu 1, 2022, 3:21 am

I have finished Chronique du règne de Charles IX which was quite a pleasant surprise, despite the dark times of the religious wars in France.

55Eumnestes
syyskuu 2, 2022, 1:38 pm

Classics read in August include:

René Descartes, Selected Writings (tr. D.M. Clarke). Meditations, Discourse on Method, and letters. This time through I noticed how many of Descartes's thought experiments are modern-sounding. E.g., could you tell the difference between a real and an artificial nonhuman animal (Descartes thinks you could not); and could you tell the difference between a real and an artificial person (Descartes thinks that you could).

Ben Jonson, Volpone. Really interesting comic portraits of greed. Volpone covets more than he indulges in avarice; that is, he wants what other people around him have more than he enjoys having a lot himself.

William of Malmesbury, The Deeds of the English Kings (tr. R.A.B. Mynors). Currently reading it, just finished the account of Alfred the Great. William is a very good story teller, adding digressions that prevent the narrative from sounding like a list of kings and their family. Looking forward to the Norman invasion.

56kac522
syyskuu 30, 2022, 8:39 pm

In September, I finished two books by Anthony Trollope: Doctor Thorne (1858) and Lady Anna (1874).

I also read these modern classics:

The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life by Virginia Woolf (1932)
Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie (1938), which makes a timely passing reference to nations under dictators
The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty (1972), which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973

57nx74defiant
lokakuu 14, 2022, 9:17 pm

58kac522
lokakuu 31, 2022, 6:42 pm

My classics this month were all from or related to the Victorian era:

--Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens (1839); audiobook read by Simon Vance; a re-read for me
--Cousin Phillis and Other Tales, Elizabeth Gaskell (1865); short stories
--A Pair of Blue Eyes, Thomas Hardy (1873); re-read from 1989; part of my quest to read (or re-read) all of Hardy's novels; and
--The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy (1886); audiobook re-read narrated by Tony Britton
--Miss Marjoribanks, Margaret Oliphant (1866); from her Carlingford series
--The Vicar of Bullhampton, Anthony Trollope (1870); part of my quest to read all of Trollope's novels
--The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde (1895); a play; re-read from 2015

Nonfiction:
--Eminent Victorians: The Illustrated Edition, Lytton Strachey (orig published 1918; this edition 1988); classic biography of 4 prominent Victorians that changed the nature of biography

59LBShoreBook
Muokkaaja: marraskuu 23, 2022, 12:22 pm

Currently reading The Toilers of the Sea by Hugo; may then move to The Age of Innocence

60Cecrow
Muokkaaja: marraskuu 23, 2022, 1:18 pm

>59 LBShoreBook:, read Toilers many years ago, really liked it. Probably my favourite by Hugo, but YMMV.

61Betelgeuse
marraskuu 23, 2022, 2:16 pm

Reading Our Mutual Friend by Dickens.

62kac522
marraskuu 23, 2022, 5:02 pm

>61 Betelgeuse: One of my favorites! Love Jenny Wren and love to hate Bradley Headstone.

63Betelgeuse
marraskuu 23, 2022, 7:49 pm

>62 kac522: I am enjoying it so far, just completed "Book 1"

64terriks
marraskuu 24, 2022, 6:37 pm

I just discovered this group and joined. :) I like seeing the variety of titles, some familiar and some not.

My husband and I recently moved to an area with a colder climate, and I'm enjoying it! We had some snow flurries a few days ago. For no apparent reason, I found myself scanning my books for the Bronte* sisters: read Wuthering Heights for the first time in years. I forgot how violent some portions of this story are. 😳 But I enjoyed revisiting the wild, windy moors.

Next up is Jane Eyre.

As the temperatures drop outside, I'm reaching more for the 19th century. I want tea and a throw blanket with my books!

*Can't figure out how to get an umlaut in there from my phone.

65Cecrow
marraskuu 24, 2022, 9:38 pm

>64 terriks:, determined to stay on those moors, I see!

66Cecrow
marraskuu 29, 2022, 6:32 pm

Finished Sodom and Gomorrah, the least engaging volume of ISOLT so far, imo. Next up is Sense and Sensibility, which I'd say tops my list of classics I'm ashamed to say I've never read.

67kac522
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 3, 2022, 2:03 am

In November I read Easy to Kill by Agatha Christie (1938) and Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite by Anthony Trollope (1870).

I'm currently listening to Middlemarch by George Eliot (1872), read by Juliet Stevenson; this is my 4th reading of this classic. I'm also about half-way through Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857), translated by Lydia Davis. This is also a re-read from 1987, so most of it feels completely new to me!

68rocketjk
joulukuu 7, 2022, 2:16 pm

I finished Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet A. Jacobs, which I think can certainly be considered a classic autobiography. This is an extremely well written and harrowing autobiography of a woman who, born in 1813, grew up a slave in North Carolina. Due to a protective mother and a kind "mistress" who even taught her to read and write, Jacobs as a girl was not even aware that she was a slave. But her mother and mistress died in short order, and in her mistress in her will, "left" Jacobs to her 5-year-old niece. This put Jacobs in the power of the girl's father, who proceeded to sexually harass Jacobs relentlessly. Jacobs refused to submit, and due to highly unusual community status of Jacobs' grandmother (who had long since bought her own freedom), Jacob's tormenter a prominent doctor, had to refrain from force or physical punishment. However, the psychological torment he subjected Jacobs to was horrible enough and remains a constant theme throughout most of Jacob's narrative. In the meantime, a relationship with another white man brings Jacobs two children. And while the father reneges on his promise to free both Jacobs and their children, Jacob's fight to protect her young son and daughter, along with her determination to evade the clutches of her tormentor, create the dominant, determined themes of her story, leading her into desperate sacrifices and risks. Through all this, Jacobs provides a detailed, horrific picture of chattel slavery.

Jacobs' book, published after her eventual escape to the North, became an important document in the abolitionist fight against slavery. Although not the first slave testimony, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was the first widely distributed slave account written by a woman.

69nx74defiant
joulukuu 8, 2022, 11:15 pm

>67 kac522: I just finished Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie. Hopefully I will get to Easy to Kill soon.

70kac522
joulukuu 9, 2022, 1:20 am

>69 nx74defiant: Right now I'm reading Hercule Poirot's Christmas, to get me in that holiday mystery spirit!

71rocketjk
joulukuu 30, 2022, 3:25 pm

Just before the year's end I finished The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, C.L.R. James' classic history of the Haitian Revolution and biography of its brilliant and charismatic leader, Tousaint L'Overture. This is a fascinating, multi-dimensional history and biography of a chapter of history I knew very little about. The book was originally published in 1938. My copy was a second printing of the book's 1971 republishing with a new introduction and an appendix by the author.

72kac522
joulukuu 31, 2022, 3:35 pm

I read several classics in December:

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857); translated from the French by Lydia Davis; re-read from 1987
Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie (1938); Golden Age mystery
The Getting of Wisdom by H. H. Richardson (1910); Australian coming of age classic
Middlemarch by George Eliot (1872); audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson; my fourth re-read, first read in 1987
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843); audiobook read by Jim Dale; many times re-read that never gets old for me.

73Cecrow
tammikuu 1, 2023, 11:56 am

>72 kac522:, four trips through Middlemarch, that's impressive! I had no idea Poirot had a Christmas mystery, sounds great.

74kac522
Muokkaaja: tammikuu 1, 2023, 1:45 pm

>73 Cecrow: I was afraid I might be bored, but in fact I didn't want Middlemarch to end. Each time I read it I get new insights.

I also read a short piece by a literary critic that suggested that Middlemarch (1872) has many similarities to, and may have been influenced by The Doctor's Wife (1864) by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. AND, in turn, I have read that The Doctor's Wife was a sort of "response" to Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857), which I read earlier this month. So my next classic is going to be The Doctor's Wife, which I have never read. All three novels focus on a woman who is married to a doctor. So should be interesting, since I will have read all 3 within a couple of months.

75mnleona
Muokkaaja: tammikuu 13, 2023, 11:32 am

>72 kac522: I need the 1938 challenge for my birth year and this sounds like one I will like. Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie (1938); Golden Age mystery

76kac522
Muokkaaja: tammikuu 13, 2023, 12:21 pm

>75 mnleona: The last few years I've kept a list of books I've read by year published. I've read these books from 1938:

1938 Rebecca, Daphne DuMaurier
1938 Appointment with Death, Agatha Christie
1938 Easy To Kill, Agatha Christie
1938 Hercule Poirot's Christmas, Agatha Christie

Of these 3 Christie mysteries, I enjoyed Appointment with Death the most. It is also a Poirot mystery, is set in the Middle East and makes reference to 1938 current events.

77Cecrow
tammikuu 13, 2023, 1:35 pm

>76 kac522:, oof, she could really churn them out.

78kac522
Muokkaaja: tammikuu 13, 2023, 5:07 pm

>77 Cecrow: You bet. Could be the first one was actually written in 1937 and then published in 1938, but she then again she had 2 others published in 1937: Dumb Witness and Death on the Nile. I'm reading her mysteries in chronological order by publishing date and 1938 is the year I've just finished. Looks like 1939 only had And Then There Were None and a short story collection.

79raton-liseur
tammikuu 14, 2023, 4:49 am

If you want to participate in a Classics read along, please come and cast your vote before the end of this week end.
The voting thread is here.

And the nominees are:
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne