Mount TBR 2016 discussion

There are several of us who are interested in doing a buddy read for Don Quixote. Is anyone else interested?

I probably won't start for a week or so...

I'd like to start the week of March 13 and maybe break it into 4-6 parts. Its a long book and depending on the translation there are references that may need to be looked into in order to understand it better.

That start date is fine with me. Breaking it into parts sounds like a good idea - do you want to come up with a tentative schedule?

My paperback edition is this one: Don Quixote, 1964 Signet Classic translated by Walter Starkie. I also have a public domain Kindle edition translated by John Ormsby. I think that I will probably stick with the paperback but it is nice to have another option :)

I'd like to join.

RachelvlehcaR wrote: "I'd like to join."

Yay! The more the merrier :)

It's a big book. So, I'm curious to see the reading schedule.

I have added the book to the group bookshelf so it should show up on the home page now. Maybe some others will be inspired to join in!

Well there are 900 some odd pages and 126 chapters. If we want to finish in 6 weeks that would mean 21 chapters a week. 10 weeks to finish would mean ~13 chapters a week. 13 chapters ends up being around 100 pages on average. With my work schedule 10 weeks would be a little easier but I can still go either way.

Teresa, I am flexible on the schedule. If the 10 week schedule works best for you, then let's do that. I may read a bit ahead but can keep my comments to this schedule and use spoiler tags if necessary.

Let's keep the divisions by chapter rather than page numbers as the pagination will vary by edition & translation. So, the schedule will tenatively be:

the week of 13 March: Chap. 1-13
the week of 20 March: Chap. 14-26
the week of 27 March: Chap. 27-39
the week of 3 April: Chap. 40-52 (end of Part One)
the week of 10 April: Chap. 53-65 or Part Two, Chap. 1-13
the week of 17 April: Chap. 66-78 or Part Two, Chap. 14-26
the week of 24 April: Chap. 79-91 or Part Two, Chap. 27-39
the week of 1 May: Chap. 92-104 or Part Two, Chap. 40-52
the week of 8 May: Chap. 105-117 or Part Two, Chap. 53-65
the week of 15 May: Chap. 118-end or Part Two, Chap. 66-end

How does this look to everyone?

Looks good.

Joining my mom's buddy read!

Glad to have you join us Bethany!

i'm gonna join you to

I would like to join in! :)

Fab wrote: "I would like to join in! :)"

Bianca wrote: "i'm gonna join you to"

Oh good! I think that this is a book that is good for a buddy read as otherwise it might be a bit too intimidating - at least, that is how I feel. So having the structure and the support of others is reassuring :)

Leslie, I quite agree! I've started reading it I don't know how many times and never even got to a third of it, but reading along with others is very motivating and encouraging! I'm already marking my book with post its to indicate each weeks readings, I'm so excited! :) this is a great pick!

this book is been on my shelve for ages. it is a little intimidating to me but i do want to give it a go now!

I wanna join =)
I started reading it a long time ago and really like it, but never continued.

Glad to have you join us Gabriella! It sounds like several of you have started this before - this will be my first attempt.

Do we want to have any ground rules for posting - using spoiler tags, keeping to the allotted chapters, or anything like that?

I would like to suggest that people try to include in the message what chapter they are in or commenting on. That way I (we) can quickly see if it is a section I have gotten to yet.

I think spoiler tags are nice, so if someone is a little bit ahead and wanna comment, they can. And I'm usually awful in keeping a schedule, so.

This is great. This is a book I would never read on my own but have definitely wanted to. I need people to push me past the points where I would otherwise abandon the book and pick up something else.

Hi everyone, Leslie kindly asked if I'd like to join in, so here I am! I haven't attempted this book before, but have owned a copy for a number of years and keep meaning to read it. The above schedule looks great to me. I have a physical edition of the book translated by Motteux and a free kindle version by Ormsby, so I'll be reading one of these. I'm looking forward to starting and discussing with everyone.

Hey Pink, glad you found the thread OK!

Yes thank you, I forgot to ask, have you read this before?

Pink wrote: "Yes thank you, I forgot to ask, have you read this before?"

Not me -- I haven't even dipped into it a little bit! Of course, I know the basic common knowledge stuff from watching The Man of La Mancha.

Sure, join us Loren!

Leslie wrote: "Teresa, I am flexible on the schedule. If the 10 week schedule works best for you, then let's do that. I may read a bit ahead but can keep my comments to this schedule and use spoiler tags if neces..."

reading schedule looks good. I will start it tomorrow. :)

I really know nothing about the story, other than the names and very basic outline. I'm going to start today or tomorrow, I think I'll bookmark the pages I need to read for the 1st week's schedule, so I can keep on track.

Actually, I've just checked my book and can see that the chapters and sections are laid out slightly differently in my edition. This is what I have -

Part One
Book 1 - Chapters 1-8
Book 2 - Chapters 1-6
Book 3 - Chapters 1-13
Book 4 - Chapters 1-25

Part Two
Chapters 1-74 (That took some working out from the Roman Numerals LXXIV)

So if I add them all together I get 126 chapters, which seems to correspond with the reading schedule.

Pink wrote: "Actually, I've just checked my book and can see that the chapters and sections are laid out slightly differently in my edition. This is what I have -

Part One
Book 1 - Chapters 1-8
Book 2 - Chapt..."

Oh, I didn't even look at my book - I just went with Teresa's numbers. Glad that it seems to work out correctly! When I get a chance, I will add in the Book/Chapter info to the schedule.

{added later}
So my paperback & Kindle edition both have the Part One and Part Two but neither has the Book divisions in Part One but just 52 chapters. Actually, I found that my free Kindle edition from Amazon was only Part One so I have deleted that and got a full edition from Feedbooks (still translated by Ormsby but this one has all 126 chapters & as an added bonus, a functioning Table of Contents). In case anyone else finds that their ebook is just Part One, here is the link to the free Feedbooks edition:

http://www.feedbooks.com/book/183/don...

If anyone wants to read online, you can also get this at Wikisource:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Don_Qui...

So, I am skipping the Author's Prologue. If it turns out to important or interesting, please let me know!

So for this week, we are aiming to finish Chap. 1-13 (Part 1, Ch. I-XIII) - ends with the chap. subtitled "In which is concluded the story of the shepherdess Marcela, with other matters...". Going by Pink's description, that is Part One, Book 1 and almost all of Book 2 (I think it should cover 5 of the 6 chapters in Book 2).

Yes, I think that seems right, books 1 and 2 will be 14 chapters, so I'll probably read the extra one. I'm also skipping the prologue.

I have started & although my 1000+ page paperback is unwieldy, I have found it has good explanatory footnotes which my Kindle edition does not.

I have finished the first 5 chapters and was surprised by how rapidly the story got into the plot I was familiar with from the musical -- I had assumed that there would be at least a few chapters leading up to it!

Because Cervantes puts in a lot of references to and parodies of works I am not familiar with, I decided it might be good to look at SparkNotes. Here is the link in case anyone else wants to look at them:

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/donquix...

They break up their commentary & summaries into 5 chapter segments so you can look at them as you go without being too worried about spoilers.

Leslie wrote: "I have started & although my 1000+ page paperback is unwieldy, I have found it has good explanatory footnotes which my Kindle edition does not.

I have finished the first 5 chapters and was surpri..."

Speaking of footnotes, at least the kindle has some. When I got to the first of the poems before Chapter 1, I though there was something wrong with the display on my Kindle.

Bethany wrote: "I think I'm going to join in on this! Don Quixote is on 3 of my 4 reading challenges this year, & I'm hoping this will help inspire to knock this leviathan out! :)"

Welcome Bethany, glad to have you join us!

Teresa wrote: "Leslie wrote: "I have started & although my 1000+ page paperback is unwieldy, I have found it has good explanatory footnotes which my Kindle edition does not.

I have finished the first 5 chapters..."

Hahaha -- I skipped those poems too. I will look at them at some point but I wanted to get started with the "actual" story.

I'm skipping the prologue for now too. I'm happy to have an edition with plenty of explanations but at times it kind of disrupts the flow of the reading as they are very interesting but a bit lengthy. But if I skip them I fail to grasp the whole meaning of some sentences or feel I'm missing out on some of the backstory behind Cervantes' ironies and criticisms. I was wondering if anyone has had this issue and how you feel about it

Thanks for the link Leslie!

Hey Lucas. it sounds like this will work perfectly for you. Hope you'll have time to stop in and comment on the earlier sections as we go through them.

Fab, I agree, it is disruptive to stop and read a footnote. I tried reading a part all the way through and then went back to look at footnotes. Either way I found myself re-reading parts once I understood the context. I'm not sure which way works better for me. Neither is optimal.

I finished the part for this week. it did make me laugh but I like breaking the book up in bits like this because I dont think I would manage to do it in one go. (and Im reading a bunch of other stuff to..)

Teresa wrote: "Fab, I agree, it is disruptive to stop and read a footnote. I tried reading a part all the way through and then went back to look at footnotes. Either way I found myself re-reading parts once I und..."

I have been doing both - sometimes stopping and reading the footnotes as I go and other times, reading past them and then going back. I have decided that unless it is absolutely necessary to read it in order to understand the action, I prefer going back at a good stopping point and looking at them.

Chapter 6 had a large number of these footnotes in my edition, relating to the books that the curate and barber were going through. I ended deciding that I got the gist of the idea that these were parodies of books known in Spain in the early 1600s and knowing exactly which books or authors was not necessary for me (as I don't know any of them anyway!). That decision made the chapter much easier to deal with!

Lucas wrote: "Hey Leslie and Teresa!

This is great! So I must be honest that I began reading Don Quixote over the summer and I'm already Chapter XXXIII of Part One. I'll be really busy from March 17th till Apr..."

Sounds good Lucas!

I read the first three chapters today, actually I listened on librivox while in the bath and getting ready. One of the first things that struck me was how old Don Quixote is. For some reason I thought he was a young man, setting out on a quest, but it seems like he's having more of a mid life crisis in his fifties! He's certainly looking for adventure....and love!

Yes, a mid-life crisis describes it very well Pink! How is the LibriVox recording?

Lol, it hadn't occurred to me, but yes quite the midlife crisis there. But at least one full of adventure! I laughed at the part where it says that his "brain dried out" because of too much reading. I hope that doesn't happen to me!
I liked the part when he arrives at the inn (I'm reading the Spanish version so I hope this is the right translation) and uses such ridiculous flowery language which I did recognize from other old Spanish books and poems and just made me laugh. The wordplay in some parts is also very comical and I wonder how they did it to translate it to English and not lose the intended effect.

Leslie and Teresa, thank you for your input, these massive footnotes are killing me :) but in a good way. They're like a book on their own! I'll try to read on as much as I can and then go back and re-read with footnotes and see how that works. I loved the part about the sorting of the books and, Leslie, you're right that there are just so many it is enough to get the gist of the point Cervantes was trying to make. Still I'm taking notes on the ones that are being saved to read them later and see what the fuss is about ;)

You have to wonder how many footnotes Ready Player One will require in 400 years time to explain all of the pop culture references.