Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

A classic from the 20th century ...

I think it's time for a reread of Rebecca.

Here are some ideas!

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

I am torn between 1984 by George Orwell or To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

They are both good reads, I'd personally read to kill a mockingbird before 1984, I preferred it.

I have always wanted to read 1984 but, I have heard some mix reviews on it. I love To kill a mockingbird and plan on reading Go Set a Watchman so I think I shall stick with Harper Lee!

If you haven't read 1984 it's not bad, I just like tkam better lol 1984 was a bucket list read for me, and I did like it, just didn't live it. It's no more difficult or long than tkam

hmm I think I am going to stick with To kill a mocking bird and keep 1984 on my list of books to read! Thank you though!

I'm going for more of a children's classic with this one. The Witches by Roald Dahl, which I can't remember ever reading as a kid although I liked many of his other books.

1984 is my all time favorite book.

I'm going with 100 Years of Solitude for this one.

There are just so many to choose from.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Alchemist
The Hobbit
The Handmaid's Tale
In Cold Blood
Lolita
The Catcher in the Rye
Slaughterhouse-Five

On my to read list is actually quite a few classics from the 20th century, so this was pretty easy. I'm choosing To Kill a Mockingbird.

I'm curious whether Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar fits this prompt. A few people have shelved it under Classics. What do you think?

I just finished reading Martin Eden by Jack London for this prompt.

I'm not sure what I'm going to read for this, because there are SO MANY great books to choose from!! I've been trying to read several classics each year, so I would probably read one or more of these books even without this challenge, but checking off a challenge prompt makes it even more fulfilling! (A few of these could be used for other prompts, also, such as Oprah, sci-fi, mystery, etc)

(For those who loved 1984, I loved that too, but I loved Brave New World even more, so if anyone hasn't read that, I recommend it!! Also, I really did NOT like TKAM, so if you loved that, you probably should not take book recs from me!)

This is the list of ideas I've put together for myself (using my own definition of "classic"):
I Capture the Castle (Smith),
My Ántonia (Cather),
The Good Earth (Buck),
The Iron Heel (London),
The Lathe of Heaven (LeGuin),
Valley of the Dolls (Susann),
The Good Soldier (Ford),
Invisible Man (Ellison),
The Long Goodbye (Chandler),
The Talented Mr. Ripley (Highsmith),
A Town Like Alice (Shute),
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (McCullers),
Three Lives (Stein),
Fight Club (Palahniuk),
American Psycho (Ellis),
Rebecca (DuMaurier),
Lolita (Nabakov),
The Age of Innocence Wharton),
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Dick),
The Golden Compass (Pullman),
The Big Sleep (Chandler),
The Call of the Wild (London),
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Jackson),
Sons and Lovers (Lawrence),
Solaris (Lem)

Just finished reading The Witches for this prompt. What a weird book!

I wanted to read Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, but I don't know if its enough of a classic. Any opinions?

I've had my first DNF for the year!! When I was young, I NEVER failed to finish books, it just would haunt me too much. But now I've made my peace with it - I'm challenging myself to read books I might not enjoy, and so a few DNFs will be a natural result.

I tried to read Ralph Ellison's for this prompt. I could tell as soon as I started that this was not something I like, so I committed myself to read 100 pages (it's just over 500 pages, so that's about 20% of the book). I made it to maybe 120 pages, and I skimmed through the rest to see if anything better would grab me. Nope.

So now I'm reading Patricia Highsmith's . It feels very modern, not at all like a classic!

So many ideas, so little time! I don't want to read a book I've already read, though, which goes a long way into pruning the choices. To spice things up, I might very well elect to read an essay instead of a novel. Bachelard's Water and Dreams, perhaps, or something by Freud, or Wittgenstein's Tractatus...

Other possibilities: poetry (The Wasteland, Pound's Pisan Cantos, Ginsberg's Howl...), theater (Dürenmatt's Visit from the Old Lady, Beckett's Waiting for Godot, etc.)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_ce...

I found this list really helpful when I was trying to decide on this category.

The Dairy of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.

Do you all think The Outsiders would count?

Amy wrote: "Do you all think The Outsiders would count?" yes.

I am going to try and read

Do you think Dead Poets Society would count? It is definitely 20th century but as for classic... It is a book that comes to my mind when I think about great literature from the 20th century?

Fellowship of the Ring LOTR.

I read The Secret History. I hope this fits the category.

The Remains of the Day

If you are a fan of Downton Abbey, you should read this book!

I'm going with The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien which I've been chipping away at for quite some time now. Planning on finishing the story once and for all this month!

Would Interview with a Vampire fulfill this prompt?

I read Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier. I get why it is a classic. The narrator was so blah and annoyed me throughout.

A great selection. I read Rebecca recently and love it, though I understand what you mean about the narrator Christi. I think that was kind of the point though - she was this girl who was a bit blah, hence why she struggled so much to hold her own vs. the memory of Rebecca.

For this prompt I read The Handmaid's Tale. I really didn't like it! I can see why it is a classic and it was certainly bold for the time that it was written, but I couldn't connect to the narrator at all. Perhaps because I'm quite into feminism etc., the world that Atwood created didn't shock me at all, I could absolutely see that happening (which is sad in itself), so without the shock factor it's just a bit...meh.

Martha wrote: "... For this prompt I read The Handmaid's Tale. I really didn't like it! I can see why it is a classic and it was certainly bold for the time that it was written, but I couldn't connect to the narrator at all. ..."

I felt the same way about that book! I'm glad I read it, because it's a classic. It was an interesting idea, but I didn't enjoy it, I didn't care for the writing style, and I couldn't connect with any of the characters. And it didn't make sense that SO much had changed, even down to physical layout of the village, in just three years.

I read The Scarlet Pimpernel for this category. I had picked it up for the "A Book 100 Years Older Than You" prompt, but I'm not quite that young ;) (I read Mansfield Park instead)

I read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Mostly because of all the references to it in Mr. Robot.

I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck. Love it. Sorry to say that it took me this many years and a book challenge to finally read this classic.