Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

My resolution for 2018 was: fewer challenges! Needless to say I failed miserably and signed up to way too many challenges and even created a few of my own. Shame on me! Well anyway, here I am, and I thought I'd create a thread to list my personal challenges (just the individual ones, not the ones I signed up to in my various groups).

Around the World

This is an ongoing challenge I started way back in 2013. I have read books by authors from 100 countries as yet, so I'm a little more than halfway there. I won't list all of the books I've read for this challenge, but you can find them on my around the world shelf. You will notice that the titles are in English, Italian, German and French, because those are the languages in which I read. I can provide further information in case anyone should be interested in a particular book or country.

Progress so far: 101/196

A Century of Books

Started some months ago, I'm trying to read a book for each of the past 100 years, and doing them in order. This makes things more complicated! That's why my progress is very slow. I have a dedicated shelf: a century of books.

Here's my list:

✔ 1917: The Walk by Robert Walser 2/5
✔ 1918: Between Nine and Nine by Leo Perutz 4/5
✔ 1919: In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka 5/5
✔ 1920: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton 3/5
✔ 1921: Memoirs of a Midget by Walter de la Mare 3/5
✔ 1922: The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim 4/5
✔ 1923: Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke 3/5
✔ 1924: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann 2.5/5
1925:
1926:
1927:
1928:
1929:
1930:
1931:
1932:
1933:
1934:
1935:
1936:
1937:
1938:
1939:
1940:
1941:
1942:
1943:
1944:
1945:
1946:
1947:
1948:
1949:
1950:
1951:
1952:
1953:
1954:
1955:
1956:
1957:
1958:
1959:
1960:
1961:
1962:
1963:
1964:
1965:
1966:
1967:
1968:
1969:
1970:
1971:
1972:
1973:
1974:
1975:
1976:
1977:
1978:
1979:
1980:
1981:
1982:
1983:
1984:
1985:
1986:
1987:
1988:
1989:
1990:
1991:
1992:
1993:
1994:
1995:
1996:
1997:
1998:
1999:
2000:
2001:
2002:
2003:
2004:
2005:
2006:
2007:
2008:
2009:
2010:
2011:
2012:
2013:
2014:
2015:
2016:
2017:

Progress so far: 8/100

Reading the Decades

This is a newly devised challenge, starting from now. I will read one book published in each decade, from 1800s to 2010s. This time I decided to jot down a tentative list, although I'm quite fickle so I'm pretty sure I will be changing most of the books.

1800-1809: Hymns to the Night by Novalis (1800)
✔ 1810-1819: Rob Roy by Walter Scott (1817) - read 15/06/2018 - 2.5/5
1820-1829: Master Flea by E.T.A. Hoffmann (1822)
1830-1839: The Nose by Nikolai Gogol(1836) OR The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen(1837) or The Steadfast Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen (1838)
✔ 1840-1849: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (1848) - read 29/04/2018 - 4/5
✔ 1850-1859: Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1855) - read 27/05/2018 - 2.5/5
✔ 1860-1869: He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (1869) - read 02/07/2018 - 3.5/5
1870-1879: The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice by Wilkie Collins (1879)
✔ 1880-1889: Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly (1887)
✔ 1890-1899: The Murder on Via Belpoggio by Italo Svevo (1890) - read 24/05/2018 - 3/5
✔ 1900-1909: Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family by Thomas Mann (1901) - read 21/03/2018 - 4/5
✔ 1910-1919: The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood (1910) - read 27/05/2018 - 4.5/5
✔ 1920-1929: The Magic Mountain byThomas Mann (1924) - read 04/06/2018 - 2.5/5
✔ 1930-1939: Mephisto by Klaus Mann (1936) - read 07/04/2018 - 3/5
1940-1949: The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch (1945)
✔ 1950-1959: Return To The Islands by Arthur Grimble (1957) - read 19/07/2018 - 3.5/5
✔ 1960-1969: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1962) - read 15/05/2018 - 3.5/5
✔ 1970-1979: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (1979) - read 12/05/2018 - 4.5/5
✔ 1980-1989: Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel (1989) - read 16/05/2018 - 4/5
✔ 1990-1999: The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan (1994) - read 24/03/2018 - 3.5/5
✔ 2000-2010: With Dance Shoes in Siberian Snows by Sandra Kalniete (2001) - read 30/03/2018 - 4.5/5
✔ 2010-2019: Saint Mazie by Jami Attenberg - read 09/04/2018 - 2.5/5

Progress so far: 17/22

Good luck with your challenges. I have the same problem trying to cut back, but then I get too excited!

Pink wrote: "Good luck with your challenges. I have the same problem trying to cut back, but then I get too excited!"

Thanks, Pink! Don't we all?...

I'm almost finished (well... less than 200 pages to go) with my first book for my new challenge, Reading the Decades - Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family. This was written in 1901 by a 26-year-old Thomas Mann and I'm reading it as a group read in another Goodreads group. If you think the author was just 26 when the book was published it's pretty impressive, and I'm enjoying both the story and, most of all, the writing style. It reads very well. However, I'm not enjoying the novel as much as I thought I would, but that's perhaps only because my expectations were so high - which is always a bad thing in my opinion, because only rarely does reality hold up to one's very high expectations.

I finished my book for Reading the Decades, 1900-1909: Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, published in 1901. It was better than I thought at first, but it's still true that I didn't fall in love with it. I also finished my book for 1990-1999, which was a short one: The Daydreamer, published in 1994. A cute book for kids, nothing outstanding but a nice read all the same. I'm now reading two books: one for 2000-2009, With Dance Shoes in Siberian Snows, published in 2001, which also works for my Around the World challenge (the author was born in Latvia), and for 1930-1939 Mephisto, published in 1936. Some good reads so far!