Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

A bit ahead of time, but I'll probably forget to set this up over the weekend!

What plans do you have for June?

Mine so far are -

Group reads-
Meditations 1 star
(Call for the Dead 2 stars
A Murder of Quality) 2 stars
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

Personal challenge-
The Good Solider
A Brief History of Seven Killings

Library books-
Number One Chinese Restaurant
The Nickel Boys
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous 2 stars

I have started some hefty classics which will keep me busy till August.

The Count of Mont Cristo ....2 group reads
No Name by Collins....buddy read
The Hunchback of Notredame....group read
Meditations By M Aurelius ....group reads
The Conqueror by Heyer.....my choice
The Red and the Black by Stendhal.....group read
Kristin Laveransdatter by Undset.....buddy read

All historical books.

I'll probably finish at least one of the current reads before the month actually hits, but this a good set up for now.

People of Color Old & New - COMPLETE
As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a Woman in Eleventh-Century Japan - Lady Sarashina (completed 6/3/20)
Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral - Gabriela Mistral (completed 6/8/20)

Reading Women Bingo
Diving Into the Wreck - Adrienne Rich (completed 6/1/20)
The Squire - Enid Bagnold (completed 6/15/20)
Wit - Margaret Edson

Quest for Women
Marcella - Mary Augusta Ward (completed 6/13/20)
The Years - Virginia Woolf
Company Parade - Storm Jameson (Currently Reading)

Classic Bingo
Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak (completed 6/9/20)
Hopscotch - Julio Cortázar (completed 6/26/20)
The Complete Stories and Poems - Edgar Allan Poe (Currently Reading)
El Dorado: Further Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Emmuska Orczy (completed 6/27/20)

Non-Challenge
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide - Carol Anderson (completed 6/16/20)
Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country - Louise Erdrich (completed 6/29/20)
Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science - Atul Gawande (Currently Reading)
The Opposite House - Helen Oyeyemi (Currently Reading)

I've ended up listing off the entirety of the remaining reads of some of these challenges, which is quite exciting to see.

My June plans:

Currently reading:
The Portrait of a Lady (serial-reader)
Disappeared (audio from audiobooksync)
The Thorn Birds (old&new challenge + group read)

To read
Rejsende (personal nobel laureate challenge)
Witches Abroad
Rob Roy (old&new challenge) - started
Sizzling Sixteen
Akademiet II - Drengen der forsvandt
Otte måneder
Nevernight (audio)
In Search Of Us (audio from audiobooksync)
Serpent & Dove (audio from audiobooksync) - started
Into White (audio from audiobooksync)
Easy Prey (audio from audiobooksync)
Like No Other (audio from audiobooksync)
The Brontë Plot (audio from audiobooksync)
Mark of the Raven (audio from audiobooksync)
The Music of What Happens(audio from audiobooksync)
Friheden
Det der ligger gemt i sneen
Dukken
Who Moved My Cheese? (audio)
Cinderella Liberator
Mysteriet i Genbrugsen
The Warsaw Protocol
The Creature in the Case
A Woman of No Importance
You Are Not Alone
Meditations (serial reader)
A Journal of the Plague Year
Hemmeligt begravet
Wow, No Thank You.
Fejltrin
Pigen under træet
Pinocchio (serial reader) - started
Jeg er stadig bange for Caspar Michael Petersen -started

June plans:
The Rise of Endymion
Oryx and Crake
Wolf & Parchment, Vol. 2: New Theory Spice & Wolf
Alaska
The Invisibles 1-4 (deluxe editions)
Dawn

I have a talent for stating my plans and then reading other books. Case in point, three of the books from May were not read and are carrying over to June.

Group reads:
Meditations
The Country of the Blind

Women's century challenge:
The Waiting Years

Classic bingo:
Villette

To get off my TBR:
Girl, Woman, Other
Beka Lamb

June plans:

Group reads
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Country of the Blind by H.G. Wells
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

Old & New Challenge
The Tall Woman by Wilma Dykeman

TBR
A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellory

Reading
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed ongoing - it is long and not a light read. But very good. 4-5 stars.
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
The Country of the Blind

Still meditating on if I should join Meditations. My local library just reopened for physical books, so I can actually get it (it does not exists in Danish as ebook, and it seems a bit silly to me to read it in English).
if not, maybe get an early start on East of Eden.

So far my bingo chart has been filling it self but some fields seems to not get hit. May need to do something about that.

10 for June:

"Bran-Tub":
Week22) Sister Carrie Dreiser, Theodore 1900
Week23) Norwegian Wood Murakami, Haruki 1987 (pre-chosen as also a group read!)
Week24) Our Man In Havana Greene, Graham 1958
Week25) Independent People Laxness, Halldor 1934
Week26) I Capture The Castle Smith, Dodie 1948
Old & New Challenge:
Victory Conrad, Joseph 1915
Re-Read:
Titus Groan Peake, Mervyn 1946
Group Reads:
Meditations Aurelius, Marcus 180
A High Wind In Jamaica Hughes, Richard 1928
"Author More":
Island Huxley, Aldous 1962

June reading plans:
- Tipping the Velvet ( Bingo ) finished reading 21 june
- The Country of the Blind ( Groupe read ) read 18 june
- Several Edgar Allan Poe short stories ( short story challenge ):
The Gold Bug read 22/23 june
Metzengerstein read 24 june
The Masque of the Red Death read 24 june
The Fall of the House of Usher read 23 june
-The steppe wolf currently reading

I've been reading so much lately, it's great!

Just started Doctor Zhivago. Then will also be reading The Thorn Birds and To the Lighthouse this month.

And then we'll go from there! May read another Agatha Christie or start East of Eden.

I get out a stack of books each month that I plan to read. As the month goes by, I do read some of them, but then the stack begins to grow as I add to it. Eventually about mid-month I have so many books in the stack that I return most of them and just start over. I guess I get my exercise stacking and returning and repeating. Someday I need to be brave enough to admit to what stack I start with and what actually gets read during the month.

I just made a list of possible books. As always, I know that I will make some changes:


1. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
2. The Postman by David Brin
3. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
4. Pavilion of Women: A Novel of Life in the Women's Quarters by Pearl S. Buck
5. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
6. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

HA! On June 3rd I already need to amend my list. Did I start any of the 6 books above ?....no. I started to read Picnic at Hanging Rock which I have been thinking about for over a year and it is on one or more of my challenge lists. It probably works for Bingo, too.

I relate to Katy's stacking ritual, and like Lynn's approach of a list of possibilities!

I'm having a bit of an existential crisis when it comes to reading. Am I not finishing some books/picking up others I planned to read because of a general lack of discipline I've acquired during this crazy time? If so, should I just get it together and read them? Or, should I leave all my unfinished books, discard my plans, and continue searching for the books that are calling to me right now?

I've always been a planner, and don't expect I'll be changing that basic part of my personality anytime soon. So I will ponder my crisis and be back with some kind of list, to hopefully start the month of June off right. :-)

Katy wrote: "I get out a stack of books each month that I plan to read. As the month goes by, I do read some of them, but then the stack begins to grow as I add to it. Eventually about mid-month I have so many ..."

Well this is what I really do each month!

Kathleen wrote: "I relate to Katy's stacking ritual, and like Lynn's approach of a list of possibilities!

I'm having a bit of an existential crisis when it comes to reading. Am I not finishing some books/picking u..."

While narrowing down to the final dregs of my challenge reads is making this planning a tad easier, my plans tend to coalesce towards a smaller portion of my TBR that results from certain combinations of shelves, rather than individual works. Example: once my challenges are over, I'll (mostly) be focusing on 21st century works that have been on my shelves the longest. It gives me the satisfaction of commitment while offering a certain amount of flexibility.

Then again, I have no issues with changing my plans to fit what I end up actually starting and I haven't left a book unfinished since 2010, so I'm a weird combination of sticking with it and otherwise.

Just a vague guideline at this point

1. Saint Joan
2. Under the Yoke
3. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
4. The Winds of War (if time permits)

I also have sort of a stacking habit going on here. Of course, some things in my stack have been there for a while. One volume is one of those "five-books-in-one". Why do they even publish those?

Here are the books which I may read for June:

1. American Dirt
2. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.
3. Their Eyes Were Watching God.
4. The Women of Copper Country (currently listening at a slow pace).
5. Love in a Cold Climate.

Currently-in-Progress:
The Dispossessed (Classics Bingo & Reading Women Bingo)
The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyŏng: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea (Classics Old & New, CB & RWB)

Read:
To the Lighthouse (group read & RWB)
The Country of the Blind (group read)
The Gaucho Martín Fierro (buddy read & CB)

Edit: I forgot to add, I’m going to try listening to some audio books this month. I thought poetry could potentially benefit from being listened to so I’m going to try the following:
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth

I self-analyzed my reading difficulties mentioned above, and came up with a plan to get over my issues! Going back to reading one book from a category at a time feels like the right thing for me. Here’s my June plan, with current reading for each and then possibilities for what to start when I’m done with that.

Stories/Poetry/Essays
Current - In a Glass Darkly, J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Upcoming -
The Country of the Blind, H.G. Wells
Dubliners, James Joyce

Non-Fiction
Current - The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism, George Bernard Shaw
Upcoming -
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life, Twyla Tharp
Time and the Art of Living, Robert Grudin
Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry

Novels
Upcoming -
The Ballad of the Sad Café, Carson McCullers
Paula, Isabel Allende
Jane and Prudence, Barbara Pym
Lamb in His Bosom, Caroline Miller

I'm feeling so much better now. :-)

I finished a massive amount of books in May (seven, which is a lot for me) so I'll only finish three in June:

BOOKS I'LL FINISH IN JUNE:


Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest by Stephen E. Ambrose


A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs


A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell

BOOKS I WON'T FINISH BUT WILL BE READING IN JUNE:


The Testaments by Margaret Atwood


Origin by Dan Brown


Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing


The Howling Man by Charles Beaumont


Perchance to Dream by Charles Beaumont


Death's Master by Tanith Lee


'Salem's Lot by Stephen King


East of Eden by John Steinbeck


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

My plans for June include:

Jagannath by Karin Tidbeck 05/06/2020
The Country of the Blind by H.G. Wells (Short Story Group Read) 08/06/2020
Everything Under by Daisy Johnson 14/06/2020
The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino (discarded due to a ordering oversight. Replaced by The Dry)
Dream Stuff by David Malouf 07/06/2020
The Dry by Jane Harper 16/06/2020
The Murders at Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe 18/06/2020 (added as an extra read)
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter (added as an extra read)

For this group I want to read Meditations and The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, for another David Copperfield.

Is the buddy read of Kristin Lavransdatter in this group? I´d be interested, but won´t possibly be able to join before July.

Here is the link to the Kristin Lavransdatter buddy read thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Michaela wrote: "For this group I want to read Meditations and The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, for another David Copperfield.

Is the buddy read of [book:Kristin Lavransdat..."

There is a current buddy read in the other classics group to read the books in June, July and August.

Matt wrote: "I love these monthly threads!

My plan for June is to read:
1. The Warning Voice by Xueqin Cao
2. The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays by ..."

Lonesome Dove and Oscar Wilde's plays are my all time favourites. You can't go wrong with them. Lonesome Dove seems mammoth but Lord, what a story!

Thanks Katy and Marilyn!

I made a change to the book I will read for my women's century challenge. I didn't realize it is Pride month until today. I already had Girl, Woman, Other that works and I can add another by one small switch.

Group reads:
Meditations
The Country of the Blind read

Women's century challenge:
The Well of Loneliness

Classic bingo:
Villette

To get off my TBR:
Girl, Woman, Other
Beka Lamb

Halfway through and I'm six books and one reading challenge done, which is quite speedy for me but makes sense when one considers that three of them were under 200 pages. I'll be finishing up another tomorrow, and then Poe will be keeping me company for some time while I ramble through the diminishing pile of my challenge reads, possibly finishing one or more of my remaining three challenges before June ends. Also before the month is through, I hope to scope out an indie bookstore that seems for all intents and purposes to be well equipped, in terms of both quality and constraint, for social distanced browsing, so here's hoping that goes well.

Laurie wrote: "I made a change to the book I will read for my women's century challenge. I didn't realize it is Pride month until today. I already had Girl, Woman, Other that works and I can add a..."

I've been wanting to read The Well of Loneliness as well but sadly enough couldn't find it anywhere in the bookshops here...

probably a bit behind schedule,
but have also been reading a 600 page doorstop that's not one of the named ten,
so should do better in latter half of month...

10 for June: (full details in Message#9 above)

1) Sister Carrie - DNF
1replacement) Coraline
2) Norwegian Wood - Finished - 4
3) Our Man In Havana - In Progress...
4) Independent People
5) ??? (chosen 24th June)
6) Victory
7) Titus Groan - In Progress...
8) Meditations - In Progress...
9) A High Wind In Jamaica - Finished - 2.5
10) Island

with less than a week to go
things are looking bad :o(
of the 10:
5 finished
4 in progress (will finish Titus Groan and maybe 1 other)
1 (Island) that am already planning on carrying over to July
this shameful neglect of my nominated titles was caused partly by the "doorstop intruder" and partly by a seasonal drop-off in my pages-per-day rate

10 for June: (full details in Message#9 above)

1) Sister Carrie - DNF
1replacement) Coraline - Finished - 3.5
2) Norwegian Wood - Finished - 4
3) Our Man In Havana - Finished - 4
4) Independent People (to half way) - In Progress...
5) I Capture The Castle
6) Victory - In Progress...
7) Titus Groan - In Progress...
8) Meditations - Finished - 3
9) A High Wind In Jamaica - Finished - 2.5
10) Island

final reckoning
7 complete
2 in progress
1 carrying over to July

10 for June: (full details in Message#9 above)

1) Sister Carrie - DNF
1replacement) Coraline - Finished - 3.5
2) Norwegian Wood - Finished - 4
3) Our Man In Havana - Finished - 4
4) Independent People (to half way) - In Progress...
5) I Capture The Castle - In Progress...
6) Victory - Finished - 4
7) Titus Groan - Finished - 4.5
8) Meditations - Finished - 3
9) A High Wind In Jamaica - Finished - 2.5
10) Island - Not Started - Carrying Over To July...

So what I plan and what I actually do is never the same. For June I only read 2 books, but I gave them both 5 stars, so it was a good month.

1. Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
2. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

I spent 3 weeks on To the Lighthouse, even rereading some sections, but that is ok.

Lynn wrote: "So what I plan and what I actually do is never the same. For June I only read 2 books, but I gave them both 5 stars, so it was a good month.

Agreed, some books are best read slowly and you’d do both yourself and the book a disservice to rush through (which isn’t to say those will be the same books for everyone of course).

I finished 3 books of 6, with one a half-hour audiobook:

1) The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin I didn’t progress in this because here we have yet another future society where women are seen as inferior. I’m sure the point will be at least in part to show that it is wrong but... I can’t explain why it’s just one thing too many when I read speculative fiction except that of course it angers me but of course that is part of the society to varying degrees in fiction dealing with this world so does it have to be where it doesn’t have to be as well???
So “it’s not you it’s me,” but I haven’t decided whether to press onward now or better to shelve for reading another time.

2) The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyŏng: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea Made progress; finished the second of the four memoirs. The book as a whole is quite fascinating, but the middle two segments are relatively tedious (and there are several generations of families and officials to keep track of, but thankfully genealogical trees and footnotes to help with that) as they were written to convince of the virtue and innocence of one party and the iniquity and deceit of the others.

3) To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf Finished, excellent!

4) So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo Finished and recommended! I felt it provided an essential framework for understanding issues and reevaluating one’s own perspectives and actions.

5) Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire Listened to audiobook read by author, twice, recommended!

6) The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo Listening to the audiobook read by the author and enjoying it!