Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

I will attempt to do all of the Challenges as well as a corner to corner bingo cross. However, I will be making slight alterations as I am joining halfway through the year. These will be noted alongside each Challenge, likely at the top of the message with the relevant Challenge. There is also one alteration for Challenge number five that will be of particular interest to some. This Challenge will be referred to as the Millenium challenge, the reason for which will become clear once posted.

In addition to this group's Challenges, I am also working on reading ATW books for another group. For this reason, the classics on my list will be written by authors from a variety of countries. Although there will be some books from the US and UK, I hope to read books from other countries in places like Africa and Asia as well. Finally, as women tend to be underrepresented, especially in history and some countries, I hope to have a healthy dose of women writers as well.

Challenge #1: Old and New TBR Challenge | Instructions
*Note-Since I joined halfway through the year, I will be reading half the amount of books required by the challenge. In order to stick with the theme of the group, all six will be either be New School or Old School, as defined by the challenge instructions.

1899 and earlier/Old School
1. The Odyssey by Homer
2. The Popol Vuh by No Specific Author, translated back into verse by Michael Bazzett
3. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
1900-1999/New School
1. The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
2. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
3. Angel by Merle Collins
Alternate
1. The Holy Piby by Robert Athlyi Rogers

Challenge #2: The Year You Were Born & 100 Years Earlier | Instructions
*Note-Since I joined halfway through the year, I will be reading half the amount of books required by the Challenge (10/2=5). It is impossible to divide every aspect of the Challenge in half. However, I feel the general idea of the challenge is to read a certain number of books from the year you were born and a certain number from 100 years before that. I have always found it harder to read older books than newer books, and Challenge #3 will require me to read several from the year that I was born anyway. Therefore, since I can't divide the number of books I will be reading in half exactly, I will be reading three from 1897 and 2 from 1997.

Please note that although I originally listed six possible books for 1897 and four for 1997, I have decided not to limit myself to the number of books I will be listing. As the first post in the Challenge Buffet states, "every author and every book listed, becomes a resource for our members to learn about authors and books they haven’t heard of before" (Bob). Plus, it is my Challenge, and I believe that for this one, you are allowed to change your lists. Please realize, though, that the order in which I listed them does not necessarily correspond to the likeliness that I will read them or my interest in doing so. It is merely the order in which I added them to this list.

1897
1. Dracula by Bram Stoker
2. The Blood of the Vampire by Florence Marryat
3. The Woman Who Was Poor : A contemporary novel of the French 'Eighties by Léon Bloy
4. The Devil in a Domino by Chas L'Epine
5. The Beth Book by Sarah Grand
6. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
1997
1. Paradise by Toni Morrison
2. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
3. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
4. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
5. The Partner by John Grisham
6. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
7. The Royals by Kitty Kelley
8. The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger

Challenge #3 Your Birth Year Top 10 Best Sellers | Instructions
*Note-Since I joined halfway through the year, I will be reading roughly half the amount of books required by the Challenge. It is impossible to divide the Challenge exactly in half, but I realized that I might use at least one of the books in coordination with another challenge. Therefore, I will be reading three of the original five. Since I will be reading fewer books, I will also be listing fewer top bestsellers. That is twice as many as I plan to read to keep the ratio of choices to reads the same (5/10=3/6).

When making this list, I started with https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~immer/b...
However, since there were separate lists for nonfiction and fiction, I also checked https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers...
to determine roughly how the fiction and non-fiction books compared. I noticed that all the top five non-fiction books were within the top fifty best sellers on Amazon except for Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach. Breathnach's book was 2nd on the Publisher Weekly's list, but 66th on Amazon's.

I did find it interesting though that Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer was #2 on Amazon in 1997, but 7th for nonfiction books on Publisher Weekly. I found this even more intriguing after realizing that #6 on Publisher Weekly's list wasn't on Amazon's list at all. After checking the number of ratings for each book on Goodreads, I realized that Into Thin Air had far more ratings than Diana: Her True Story (382, 214 vs. 8, 742). The later was first published in 1992 while Into Thin Air was first published May 1st, 1997. I found it near impossible to believe a book with less than 10,000 ratings on Goodreads, and that was published more than 5 years earlier actually was the #7 Nonfiction bestseller in 1997.

After looking at some other lists on the web, I realized that there is a lot of controversy as to the truthfulness of Best Seller lists, especially for ones made by Publisher Weekly and the NYT. For this reason, I have combined the two lists with the reason given as to why each was included. As it is impossible to rank them based on how many copies each truly sold, I have decided to use bullet points rather than numbers.


Top 6 Best Sellers for 1997
▸ The Partner by John Grisham
In 1997 it was the #1 Best Selling Fiction book according to Publisher Weekly's and is #31 on Amazon's Best Sellers of 1997 list

▸ Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
In 1997 it was the 2nd Best Selling Fiction book according to Publisher Weekly and is #1 on Amazon's Best Sellers of 1997 list

▸ Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
In 1997 it was the #1 Best Selling nonfiction book according to Publisher Weekly and is #4 on Amazon's Best Sellers of 1997 list

▸Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
In 1997 it was the 3rd Best Selling nonfiction book according to Publisher Weekly and is #16 on Amazon's Best Sellers of 1997 list

▸The Royals by Kitty Kelley
In 1997 it was the 4th Best Selling nonfiction book according to Publisher Weekly and #33 on Amazon's Best Sellers of 1997 list

▸The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger
#3 on Amazon's Best Sellers of 1997 list, but not on Publisher Weekly's list. However, Publisher Weekly, it seems, has historically done a horrible job of representing the publisher W.W. Norton & Company.

Challenge #4 - Members Choice Classic/Genre Challenge | Instructions
*Note-Since I joined halfway through the year, I will be reading half the amount of books required by the Challenge. I started by eliminating the categories that are part of another Challenge in the buffet: 18th Century or older, 19th Century, 20th Century, and Current or Past Group Read. I then eliminated the category that was already heavily covered by my ATW challenge from another group: Diversity Classic. Finally, I eliminated the category: An Author not read before. I felt that this would be heavily incorporated through doing the A-Z author challenge. Therefore I will be reading books from the following categories: Science Fiction, Romance, Historical fiction, Nonfiction, Mystery/Crime, and Horror or Humor. In order to stick with the theme of the group as well as the percentage of classics that would have been read if I had started at the beginning of the year (≈33% or 4/12), at least 2 of these will be classics. At least according to the group definition.

Science Fiction Morning Star by Pierce Brown
Romance The Secret Between Us by Barbara Delinsky
Historical fiction The Odyssey by Homer
Nonfiction In the Eye of the Storm by Max Lucado
Mystery/Crime False Impression by Jeffrey Archer
Horror or Humor A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Challenge #5 -Millenium Challenge aka Decade/Century Challenge | Instructions
*Note-This will be the only challenge for which I will attempt to read all ten books, the number that was set initially. However, I have incorporated a twist. Instead of reading a book from ten consecutive decades or years, I will be reading a book originally written in ten consecutive centuries. I have already read several books from the 21st and 20th centuries. Therefore, I will be reading books from the 10th through the 19th century. Finally, please note that while some centuries have multiple books listed that I will only be reading one or two per century. I simply had a hard time deciding which book to read for some.

10th century:
11th century:
12th century:
13th century:
14th century:
15th century:
16th century:
17th century:
1. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
2. Perrault's Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault
3. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
18th century:
1. The Declaration of Independence & the Constituion of the United States
2. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
3. The Golden Days by Xueqin Cao
19th century:
1. Dracula by Bram Stoker
2. The Blood of the Vampire by Florence Marryat
3. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
4. The Devil in a Domino by Chas L'Epine

Challenge #6 - Short Story Challenge | Instructions
* Note-This is the only challenge that I decided to keep entirely the way it was initially intended for those starting at the beginning of the year. I do not doubt that I will have no issues completing this challenge. It is especially likely that I will be able to do so as I will likely end up reading at least a couple of short stories for my other challenges. Albeit, they will probably be anthologies, but I feel that short story anthologies are acceptable to count towards one of the short stories.

1. A Vintage Christmas: A Collection of Classic Stories and Poems (I will likely read this during the holiday season)
2. There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury
3. The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan: A Short Story by Agatha Christie
4. Ellis Island and Other Stories by Mark Helprin
5. The Twilight Zone: The Original Stories by Richard Matheson
6. The Answer by H. Beam Piper
7. Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm by Jacob Grimm
8. Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston
9. Snow White, Blood Red by Ellen Datlow
10. The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
11. One More Year by Sana Krasikov
12. Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
13. Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yōko Ogawa
14. The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
15a. The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction by Mingwei Song
15b. Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation by Ken Liu
16. Elsewhere, Home by Leila Aboulela
17. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
18. Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin
19. The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
20. Things that Fall from the Sky by Selja Ahava
21. Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat
22. Minutes of Glory: And Other Stories by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
23. Where Europe Begins by Yōko Tawada
24. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Challenge #7 - 2020 Group Reads Challenge | Instructions
*Note-As with the majority of challenges that I previously listed, I will again only be reading half of the amount as those who started at the beginning of the year. Since I am attempting to do all of the challenges as well as a double diagonal Bingo, and I started halfway through the year, I felt that cutting them in half was both fair and reasonable. I know I will have enough difficulties completing all of the challenges as it is. However, I've always felt that it is best to shoot for the stars so that at the very least, you land on the moon.

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Challenge #8 - A-Z Author Challenge | Instructions
*Note-For those who have not read the previous posts, I will be cutting the majority of the Challenges in half as I started halfway through the year. The Author challenge and the Title Challenge were both a bit harder to determine how to do this with or at least more so than Challenge #1: Old and New TBR Challenge. While I was told that I could pick half of the letters by which author I felt like reading at the time, I felt this was a bit unfair to those who started at the beginning of the year and are required to read an author or title for each letter. Therefore, I decided to select them by using a random letter generator: https://randomwordgenerator.com/lette...
While I had to rearrange the list so that they were in alphabetical order I did stick with the 13 letters that were generated.

A- Jeffrey Archer (False Impression)
C- Merle Collins (Angel)
F- Charles Frazier (Cold Mountain)
I- Washington Irving (Rip Van Winkle)
J- Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea)
L- Max Lucado (In the Eye of the Storm)
M- Florence Marryat (The Blood of the Vampire)
N- Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Refugees)
O- Yōko Ogawa (Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales)
P- Edgar Allen Poe (The Tell-Tale Heart)
S-Parvez Sharma (A Sinner in Mecca: A Gay Muslim's Hajj of Defiance)
T- Ma Thanegi (Gold Leaf and Terra-Cotta: Burmese Crafts Throughout History)
V- Various (A Vintage Christmas: A Collection of Classic Stories and Poems)

Challenge #9 - A-Z Title Challenge | Instructions
*Note-For those who have not read the previous posts, I will be cutting the majority of the Challenges in half as I started halfway through the year. The Author challenge and the Title Challenge were both a bit harder to determine how to do this with or at least more so than Challenge #1: Old and New TBR Challenge. I was told that I could pick half of the letters by the title I felt like reading at the time. However, I felt this was a bit unfair to those who started at the beginning of the year and are required to read an author or title for each letter. Therefore, I decided to select them by using a random letter generator: https://randomwordgenerator.com/lette...
While I had to rearrange the list so that they were in alphabetical order, I did stick with the 13 letters that were generated. I also decided to do a different generation fo the titles as I felt this would maintain the original difficulty of the challenge, but at the same time make things more interesting.

A- Angel (by Merle Collins)
C- A Clockwork Orange (by Anthony Burgess)
D- Dracula (by Bram Stoker)
E- Ellis Island and Other Stories (by Mark Helprin)
F- The Fortunes of Wangrin (by Amadou Hampâté Bâ)
I- In the Eye of the Storm (by Max Lucado)
J- The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan: A Short Story (by Agatha Christie)
K-
M- Morning Star (by Pierce Brown)
R- The Radetzky March (by Joseph Roth)
T- The Thing Around Your Neck (by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
U- Unaccustomed Earth (by Jhumpa Lahiri)
V- A Vintage Christmas: A Collection of Classic Stories and Poems (by Various)

Reserve