Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

2020 is almost upon us and I'm sure that lots of you are ready to go with your reading plans for the new year (and decade!)

Post what you'll be reading here!

After hitting a massive reading slump towards the end of 2019, I think I'll make some plans here:

Firstly I have some books to carry over!
The Longest Journey by E.M. Forster
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

I will be reading The Age of Innocence for an IRL book club, so I will fit it into my classic bingo challenge for 2020. I also own A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, so I plan to read that with the group.

I've also hit a bit of a reading slump unfortunately. I'm currently reading David Copperfield (only about 150 pages in) but I've had to put it on hold since I have two books that need to be read in the next three weeks for my IRL bookclub: The Age of Innocence and Little Fires Everywhere.

I'd also like to read Beloved this month but I'm not sure if I'll get to it.

I've been hankering after starting 'Three Kingdoms' for a while now, so that's definitely the firmest part of my plan. The rest of my year will certainly devolve into whatever most conveniently presents itself, but I'm going to start with one book in each of my challenges (it's fortunate that I normally have four books going at once) and go from there.

People of Color Old & New
Three Kingdoms - Luo Guanzhong (Currently Reading V.2)
The River Ki - Sawako Ariyoshi (completed 1/21/20)
Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam - Omar Khayyám (Currently Reading)

Reading Women Bingo
The Etched City - K.J. Bishop (completed 1/10/20)
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories - Virginia Woolf (completed 1/16/20)
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere - Z.Z. Packer (Currently Reading)

Quest for Women
The Shutter of Snow - Emily Holmes Coleman (completed 1/6/20)

Classic Bingo
In the Time of the Butterflies - Julia Alvarez (completed 1/13/20)
The Complete Fairy Tales - Oscar Wilde (completed 1/15/20)
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - Victor Hugo (completed 1/27/20)
The North China Lover - Marguerite Duras (completed 1/28/20)

Kimberly wrote: "I've also hit a bit of a reading slump unfortunately. I'm currently reading David Copperfield (only about 150 pages in) but I've had to put it on hold since I have two books that need ..."

Are we in the same book club? Just kidding.

ok, so... my Personal Challenge for 2020 involves randomly picking one book of my "52 Few" each Wednesday, except two of them have already been chosen as group reads(!), but I'll still fill in weeks 1 and 4 as they arise:

10 for January:

Week 1 book: Cities Of Salt Munif, Abd al-Rahman 1988
Week 2 book: Stoner Williams, John 1965
Week 3 book: A Canticle For Leibowitz Miller Jr., Walter M. 1959
Week 4 book: ??? (chosen 22nd Jan)
2 more Group Reads:
The Inferno (Divine Comedy, The #1) Alighieri, Dante 1320
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Twain, Mark 1889
O&NC:
Malice Aforethought Iles, Francis (aka Anthony Berkeley) 1931
3 carried over from December:
Half Of A Yellow Sun Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Mood Indigo: L'Ecume Des Jours (aka Foam of the Daze; aka Froth On The Daydream) Vian, Boris 1947
Song Of Solomon Morrison, Toni 1977

F2F Book Club
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Group Reads
Stoner by John Williams
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Buddy Reads
The Call of the Wild
The Call of the Wild by Jack London

NonFiction
Vera by Stacy Schiff
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell

2 + 2 Old & New Classic Challenge
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Decade/Century Challenge
Anthem by Ayn Rand

Milena wrote: "Kimberly wrote: "I've also hit a bit of a reading slump unfortunately. I'm currently reading David Copperfield (only about 150 pages in) but I've had to put it on hold since I have two..."

Maybe! haha

I'm going to finish a whole bunch of books in January:


Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames


Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming


The Terror by Dan Simmons


Best Horror of the Year Volume 10 edited by Ellen Datlow


Fire Watch by Connie Willis


Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer


The Innocents Abroad: Or the New Pilgrim's Progress by Mark Twain


Mort by Terry Pratchett


A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane

I won't finish these:


World Without End by Ken Follett


Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling by Jeb Blount


The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2019 Edition edited by Rich Horton


A Little Yellow Dog by Walter Mosley


Apex by Ramez Naam


The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice


The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden


The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho

Let's make it a great 2020!

I’ll be finishing The Crab-Flower Club and The Saga of Gösta Berling. Besides starting on the next book in The Story of the Stone, The Warning Voice, I will read whichever of the books already on my shelves, selected for my East Asian Classics and Women Around the World last year, catches my interest. I like to direct my journey but allow some freedom and spontaneity in the path I take. :)

RJ wrote: "I'm going to finish a whole bunch of books in January:

Let's make it a great 2020!..."

Right on, Randy!

Hello, I am planning three books for January:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré which we plan on reading as a Buddy read, so check out that thread if you have not read it yet.

The New School winner Stoner by John Williams

and the Long Read (part 1 for January) Inferno by Dante Alighieri

I have already read the Revisit the Shelves bookWe Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson which is one of my favorites on our group bookshelf.

My plans are:
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Bingo challenge)
My Brilliant Career (Women's century challenge)
The Inheritance of Loss
The Cry of the Dove
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Bingo challenge)
The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy
And a couple of random short stories

My plan is:

The Fellowship of the Ring (finish - am 3/4 through)
The Moving Finger - Love Agatha!
A Suitable Boy (begin long read!) - Reading with a friend -- are we crazy?!
The Country Girls - GR Buddy Read
Benediction - GR Buddy Read
The Turn of the Key - Library Book Club read
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas - Just interested
My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Hope this is relaxing ;)

my Personal Challenge thread needs knocking into shape for the New Year, but I need to make my Week 1 Random Choice, so will use this thread to announce which it is going to be of these four long-read "Plurals":
Three Musketeers, The Dumas, Alexandre 1844
Great Expectations Dickens, Charles 1861
Cities Of Salt Munif, Abd al-Rahman 1988
Viceroys, The De Roberto, Federico 1894
so will consult on-line random-number generator...

...aaand the winner is... number 3
i.e Cities of Salt

Darren wrote: "my Personal Challenge thread needs knocking into shape for the New Year, but I need to make my Week 1 Random Choice, so will use this thread to announce which it is going to be of these four long-r..."

'Cities of Salt' is a magnificent work, Darren. I'm glad you're reading it.

I'm finishing up Lyrical Ballads for my B3 2020 Bingo, and planning on reading:
The Duel by Anton Chekhov
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov (I3 Bingo)
A New England Nun by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (N4 Bingo)

Will be reading more in my literature classes that begin this month, just waiting for the syllabi.

I love you people--so full of reading plans!

The resolution I will try hard to keep, starting today, is to not let myself be completely lured by the calendar or group/buddy reads or my many challenges and lists, but to first--before deciding which book will be next--think hard about what I feel like reading at the moment. I want to be willing to let all the rest go for a whim.

But I'll still plan a plenty! So here is my January list:
The Country Girls (buddy read/challenge)
The Cask of Amontillado (group read)
Gösta Berling's Saga (group read)
The Divine Comedy (group read)
There There (group read)

I have a lot to get to, but I saw Michele's Joseph Campbell Reading List Personal Challenge, and she was planning to read The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension. That's the one that's calling to me! Will I be able to delay the group reads and indulge my whim?

Christopher wrote: "Right on, Randy!"

You used to say "live and let live."

You know you did, you know you did, you know you did.

currently reading:
and

I'm also hoping to fit in

Happy New Year to my favorite GR group :)

New Year means new challenges to tackle and as per usual my reading plans are a reflection of those:

Currently reading:
Rainbow Valley (serial-reader)
The A.B.C. Murders (bingo challenge)
New Corpse In Town
A Pair of Blue Eyes (bingo challenge)

To read:
Skyggespillet
I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life
Angela's Ashes (audio, memoir, personal challenge, bingo challenge)
Humboldt's Gift (pulitzer/century challenge)
Don't Look Now and Other Stories (Old&New Classics Challenge)
Bæst
Dødfunden
Faldende masker
Vådeskud
Lincoln in the Bardo (audio)
Søvn
Spor i sneen
Ready Player One (Old & New Classics Challenge)
Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass (audio)
Kastaniens DNA
An Enemy of the People (audio, Bingo Challenge)
Kampen for Valianien (audio)
Samarbejde og konstruktiv forhandling (nonfiction)
Finger Lickin' Fifteen
Amerikaneren
Noughts & Crosses - started
No Judgments
The Fowl Twins
All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation (nonfiction)
Det forsvundne barn (Audio)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (audio)
Livets blod: En Ravnenes hvisken-fortælling(audio)
Odd and the Frost Giants (audio)
Poems of Giosue Carducci: Giosue Carducci and the Hellenic Reaction in Italy and Carducci and the Classic Realism
Rilla of Ingleside (serial reader) - started
Happy Fat: Taking Up Space in a World That Wants to Shrink You (non-fiction) - started
Tales and Fantasies
Dune (audio) - started

Another year, more books:
The Three Musketeers (currently reading)
The Complete Poetry and Prose (currently reading, year-long read)
Hopscotch
The Dark Forest
Rama Revealed
Superman: Secret Identity
Spice & Wolf, Vol. 18: Spring Log
Welcome to the N.H.K.
Preacher, Volume 1: Gone to Texas

Terris wrote: "My plan is:

The Fellowship of the Ring (finish - am 3/4 through)
The Moving Finger - Love Agatha!
A Suitable Boy (begin long read!) - Reading with a friend -- a..."

Hi Terris, Is this your first read of FOTR? Huge LOTR fan here.

Hello all and happy new year! I set up a reading challenge for myself every month which hits various categories (cheesy things such as 'green cover' or 'title starts with O'). I also want to read a Newbery winner (or more) a month (for my quest of reading all of the gold medal winners), another award winner and two book club books each month.

January (links listed for those already read):

Newbery: The Bronze Bow
Other award winner: The Sixth Extinction
Historical Fiction Book Club: Home for Erring and Outcast Girls
Classic Book Club: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

New Year: Rules of Civility
Blue cover: Winter Garden (currently reading)
Published in 2019: Spyrunner
Author's name starts with J: Where All the Light Tends to Go (by David Joy)

I will be rereading Utopia by Thomas More. I need to rewrite my review.

I will be reading with the group
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.

Happy New Year!

In January, I am aiming to read:

Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy (almost finished) 03/01/20
The Divine Comedy II: Purgatory - Dante Alighieri (Long Read, Old & New Classics) ( 2 cantos left)
The Cask of Amontillado - Edgar Allan Poe (Short Story) 04/01/20
Doppelgänger - Daša Drndić 14/01/20
Our Dead World - Liliana Colanzi 17/01/20

Kelly wrote: "Terris wrote: "My plan is:

The Fellowship of the Ring (finish - am 3/4 through)
The Moving Finger - Love Agatha!
A Suitable Boy (begin long read!) - Reading wit..."

Yes! I loved the movies, but I never thought I would read the books. But LOTR is on every list!! And I am very much a list person -- so I thought I'd give it a try and I'm loving it! It's one thing to see a movie and all the visuals, but it's totally different to read the actual words of the author! I love that! :)

half-way through January
and of my 10
4 finished
2 in progress
4 not started
so about half way! ;o)

10 for January: (full details in Message#7 above)

1) Cities Of Salt - In Progress...
2) Stoner
3) A Canticle For Leibowitz
4) ??? (chosen 22nd Jan)
5) The Inferno - Finished - 3.5
6) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Finished - 2.5
7) Malice Aforethought - In Progress...
8) Half Of A Yellow Sun - Finished - 4.5
9) Mood Indigo - Finished - 2.5
10) Song Of Solomon

Ooh, Darren. Song of Solomon still to come. You're going to like that one I think.

I'm a little off-plan, but happy with my month so far.

I did start with The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension, which is excellent but I will be reading it over a long period.

I finished two of my planned group reads: The Cask of Amontillado and There There, and joined a buddy read of the fantastic The Call of the Wild.

Two group reads are still in progress: Gösta Berling's Saga (took a while to get going, but liking it now) and The Divine Comedy (I am mired in the introduction of this one still, due to getting sidetracked).

And I decided to start my Irish excursion with Irish Folk Tales for my Old and New Challenge.

I still plan to read The Country Girls before the month is out, and am hoping that will be a quick one.

I've five books finished, which isn't bad for a halfway through the month point, but the page amount is rather atrocious. I won't really get my payoff until I finish all 2300+ pages of one of my works, so I'm just going to have to be patient with my reading pace.

I'm going to be reading The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing after hearing a wonderful abridgement on Radio 4.

In the wake of the last week of January, I have six finished, two that will be rapidly finished within the next few days (I technically finished one today, but it's not really 'done' in my book until I've uploaded my review), and that'll likely be it for the month. As expected, 'Three Kingdoms' is sucking up both my book and my page count, but I've finished the first volume and am taking a break with a different book before I start the second, so a volume a month wouldn't be too bad a schedule (depending on how my school workload turns out). The payoff when I finally finish during April/May should be brilliant, so I just gotta keep trudging until then.

Looking back, I've been unfortunately neglecting my poor Quest for Women challenge, so I'm going to especially focus on that the best I can during February. It helps that one of the works, Mary Barton is a group read for that month, which will also knock out the 2020 bingo category for me (my original incentive for nominating the work). I'm also thinking of starting Zofloya right off the bat, and the rest will fall as they may.

I give up on reading this month. I will have to catch up later. Between school teaching demands and an illness (food poisoning. I actually had to go to the hospital! It took almost two weeks to get past the antibiotics and feeling awful.) I have not been able to do much. Good news. I am back up and feeling better, but bad news, I have so much grading to do!! Plus our boy's basketball team is going to the state finals. My school actually hosted the regional tournament over the weekend. It's exciting, but time consuming supporting the bball team. Happy reading to everyone. See ya more next month.

4 days to go and nearly the full set for me!
determined to finish Song Of Solomon (but will be close!)
and Sentimental Education should be over half done (it is quite long!)

10 for January: (full details in Message#7 above)

1) Cities Of Salt (First Half) - Finished - 5 so far... ;o)
2) Stoner - DNF
3) A Canticle For Leibowitz - Finished - 2.5
4) Sentimental Education - In Progress...
5) The Inferno - Finished - 3.5
6) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Finished - 2.5
7) Malice Aforethought - Finished - 4.5
8) Half Of A Yellow Sun - Finished - 4.5
9) Mood Indigo - Finished - 2.5
10) Song Of Solomon - In Progress...

Lynn wrote: "I give up on reading this month. I will have to catch up later. Between school teaching demands and an illness (food poisoning. I actually had to go to the hospital! It took almost two weeks to get..."

How awful to have food poisoning!! I am so glad you are better. The grading will get done so give yourself time to fully recover. Best of luck to the basketball team. Going to state is quite an accomplishment.

Laurie wrote: "Lynn wrote: "I give up on reading this month. I will have to catch up later. Between school teaching demands and an illness (food poisoning. I actually had to go to the hospital! It took almost two..."

Thanks Laurie on the all the issues.