Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

November is almost upon us! What reading is everyone gearing up for in the second to last month of 2020?

I'll be participating in the Nonfiction November event with works derived from my 21st century lag selection. If anyone's looking to participate, the themes for this year are:

Time
Movement
Buzz
Discovery

I'm much more keen on finally getting to a bunch of nonfiction that has been on my shelves for too long than on the themes, but they may come in handy later in the month when I'm looking for some fulfillment.

Nonfiction November
The Ghost Map - Steven Johnson (completed 11/8/20)
The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein (GR) (completed 11/10/20)
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 3: 1939-1944 - Anaïs Nin (completed 11/11/20)
Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin (completed 11/16/20)
The Bucolic Plague - Josh Kilmer-Purcell (completed 11/19/20)
Hitler's Philosophers - Yvonne Sherratt (completed 11/21/20)
Unbowed - Wangari Maathai (completed 11/23/20)
Heart Berries - Terese Marie Mailhot (completed 11/28/20)
The Poisoner's Handbook - Deborah Blum (completed 11/30/20)
Catherine the Great - Robert K. Massie (Currently Reading)
Infidel - Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Currently Reading)

Yearly Commitments
River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh (Currently Reading)

Aubrey wrote: "November is almost upon us! What reading is everyone gearing up for in the second to last month of 2020?

I'll be participating in the Nonfiction November event with works derived from my 21st cent..."

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World is major work about modernization of cities. It should be on some top list of 100 about cities. Enjoy :)

My November Reading Plans include:

Read
1. Solomon and the Ant: And Other Jewish Folktales by Sheldon Oberman
2. At Bertram's Hotel by Agatha Christie
3. The Belle's Strategem by Hannah Cowley
4. Eighteenth-Century Women Dramatists edited by Melinda Finberg
5. Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
6. The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
7. The Would-Be President: An American Farce by John Dishwasher
8. Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave, And Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley
9. Women Heroes of World War I: 16 Remarkable Resisters, Soldiers, Spies, and Medics by Kathryn J. Atwood
10. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
11. Route 66 Still Kicks: Driving America's Main Street by Rick Antonson
12. Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack by Lynley Dodd
13. Incarnations of Burned Children by David Foster Wallace
14.Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild
15. On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A'Lelia Perry Bundles
16. Hamlet by.William Shakespeare
17 King Henry IV, Part 1 by William Shakespeare

Reading
1. The Pickwick Papers audiobook by Charles Dickens
2. Nemesis by Agatha Christie (old&new)
3. A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Planning
1. The Castle of Wolfenbach: A German Story by Eliza Parsons (old&new)
2. Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World by Rita Golden Gelman
3. Medicine Women: The Story of Early-American Women Doctors by Cathy Luchetti
4. The Hello Girls: America's First Women Soldiers by Elizabeth Cobbs
First Ladies of the Republic: Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison, and the Creation of an Iconic American Role by Jeanne E. Abrams

Currently reading:
The Caine Mutiny (pulitzer challenge)
Rage of Angels (birthyear challenge)
Wives and Daughters (old&new)

To read:
The Queen of the Tearling (audio, Q-title)
For barnets bedste
Spejlmanden
Platero og jeg (nobel laureate challenge)
Gode naboer
Zinkdrengene (audio, Z-title)
Sekten der genopstod
På date med en morder
No Offense
The Executioner's Song (pulitzer challenge)
Blodets bånd (audio)
Flowering Nettle (nobel laureate challenge)
Mors Rival (nobel laureate challenge)
The Invasion of the Tearling (audio)
de ti fingre
Reverie (big library read)
The Spike (birthyear challenge)
History Is All You Left Me
Som natten kender stjernerne
House Made of Dawn (pulitzer challenge)
Educated (audio)
The Lake of Learning
Kvartsgeode
With the Fire on High
The Road (pulitzer challenge)
Murder at Mistletoe Manor
Six Merry Little Murders - started
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (serial reader) - started
Xala (X-title) - started
The Winter's Tale - started

For November I hope to read: And Then There Were None-Agatha Christie, Miracles on Maple Hill-Virginia Sorensen, Little Women-Louisa May Alcott, The Return of the Soldier-Rebecca West, 84 Charing Cross Road-Helene Hanff, Northanger Abbey-Jane Austen, The Magician's Nephew-C.S. Lewis, and It's Not About the Burqa-Mariam Khan :)

Janice wrote: "For November I hope to read: And Then There Were None-Agatha Christie, Miracles on Maple Hill-Virginia Sorensen, Little Women-Louisa May Alcott, The Return of the Soldier-Rebecca West, 84 Charing C..."

I LOVE! Miracles on Maple Hill. It is so sweet. I am also a big fan of Narnia.

This is the time of year to work on Challenges. The only Challenge I have finished is the Short Stories. I am very close to finishing the 12 Group Reads Challenge. I want to finish Bingo, but need a little more for that. Also, many of the books I read this year have been rereads, so I only want to read new things until the end of the year to make a little more progress on the shelf. (The Outsiders excluded.)

So for the Challenges:

1. Complete Meditations by Marcus Aurelius Group Reads ✔ finished 11/2/2020

2. Read Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck Bingo

3. Read A Murder of Quality by John le Carré Bingo

4. We are reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton again at school, so I should finish this in November.

If I complete all these, then there will only be two more to read for Bingo.

My nonfiction choices may change during the month but for now my plans are:

Nonfiction
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
Siberian Education: Growing Up in a Criminal Underworld by Nicolai Lilin
Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding by Steven K. Green
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

Fiction
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (group read)
The Thanksgiving Visitor by Truman Capote (group bookshelf)
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare currently reading (group read)

RJ'S NOVEMBER READS

Will finish:


Hawaiian Nation : Man, Gods, and Nature by Michael Kioni Dudley and Keoni K. Agard


Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey


Books of Blood, Volume Two by Clive Barker


Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen

Will be reading but won't finish:


Trumps of Doom by Roger Zelazny


A Call for Hawaiian Sovereignty by Michael Kioni Dudley and Keoni K. Agard


The Way West by A.B. Guthrie Jr.


Blackout by Connie Willis


Books of Blood: Volume Three by Clive Barker


Every Dead Thing by John Connolly


The Fall of the House of Usher: and other tales
by Edgar Allan Poe


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

Nonfiction November:

Mary of Guise by Rosalind K. Marshall - currently reading
The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich

Books that have been on the TBR for way too long:
The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
The Spoilt City by Olivia Manning - book 2 of the Balkan Trilogy

Deep and serious sounds good, Jyoti, and I was just looking at my copy of Sons and Lovers and thinking I need to get to it soon. Enjoy!

Here's my 🍂November🍂 hopes:
Continue with:
Selected Poems
China Men
Start:
Castle Rackrent
Lamb in His Bosom
Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
Possibilities:
The Left Hand of Darkness
Out of Darkness, Shining Light

My reading hopes for november ( I haven't been able to read very much lately and this could still be the case for some time ):
Read
-Want dit is mijn lichaam by Renate Dorrestein finished reading 5 november
-The Nose by Nikolai Gogol read 9 november
To finish
-A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft
-O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
To read
-The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Kathleen wrote: "Deep and serious sounds good, Jyoti, and I was just looking at my copy of Sons and Lovers and thinking I need to get to it soon. Enjoy!

Here's my 🍂November🍂 hopes:



I read The Left Hand of Darkness this year and enjoyed it very much so that seems like a good option :-)

Irphen wrote: "...I read The Left Hand of Darkness this year and enjoyed it very much so that seems like a good option :-)"

Thanks Irphen--I'm looking forward to that one!

Kathleen wrote: "Irphen wrote: "...I read The Left Hand of Darkness this year and enjoyed it very much so that seems like a good option :-)"

Thanks Irphen--I'm looking forward to that one!"

Kathleen if you read The Left Hand of Darkness next year, I will read with you.

Cynda wrote: "Kathleen wrote: "Irphen wrote: "...I read The Left Hand of Darkness this year and enjoyed it very much so that seems like a good option :-)"

Thanks Irphen--I'm looking forward to that one!"

Kathl..."

Thank you, Cynda! I really want to try to read it this year for one of my challenges, but finishing my challenges is going to be a stretch, so we'll see. :-) If this is one I don't get to, I'd love to read this with you next year.

Lynn wrote: "Janice wrote: "For November I hope to read: And Then There Were None-Agatha Christie, Miracles on Maple Hill-Virginia Sorensen, Little Women-Louisa May Alcott, The Return of the Soldier-Rebecca Wes..."

So far I'm finding Miracles on Maple Hill good, but not my favourite :) You should join the group Children's Classics which is a subgroup in the Classics Group. This month we are reading Miracles on Maple Hill as part of the Modern Children's Classics and The Magician's Nephew and then The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe in December. These 2 books are for the Children's Classics :)

Janice wrote: "Lynn wrote: "Janice wrote: "For November I hope to read: And Then There Were None-Agatha Christie, Miracles on Maple Hill-Virginia Sorensen, Little Women-Louisa May Alcott, The Return of the Soldie..."

Janice, can you tell me which Children's Classics group that is? I belong to another Children's book group, but they are not too active. I'm interested! :)

Janice wrote: "Lynn wrote: "Janice wrote: "For November I hope to read: And Then There Were None-Agatha Christie, Miracles on Maple Hill-Virginia Sorensen, Little Women-Louisa May Alcott, The Return of the Soldie..."

Thank you for the invitation. Maybe sometime in the future.

Halfway through the month and I'm on track with four books finished. I'm taking a small break from Nonfiction November by having one of my current reads be the next volume in a fiction series that I progress in on a yearly basis, which will probably prove a good thing when considering how much real life in my area is starting to boil over (again). I'm enjoying how nicely my post 2020 challenges reading plans are freshening up my shelves, but I will admit, the day when this group announces its 2021 challenge parameters is one I'm very much looking forward to.

The month is almost done, and it's been a really good reading month for me. I've managed to finish most of my challenges, so for next month I thing I'll be reading a lot of cozy christmas mysteries, before 2021 comes around and it's time for a new set of challenges

One month and two days' worth of reading left this year. If I keep to only necessary excursions out my front door, I may be able to read almost all I promised myself and others. . . . as a wise friend said a while back, the goal is not to finish reading as it is to keep reading. 💗

This stack is what I ended up reading for this year's Nonfiction November. I'm still working on the three on top, as well as the fiction by Ghosh mentioned in my planning post.

This is what I read in November.

1. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius - Bingo
2. The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster
3. "The Garden Party" by Katherine Mansfield
4. On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain
5. "The Pied Piper of Hamlin" by Robert Browning
6. Camille by Alexandre Dumas fils - Bingo
7. The Royal Children of England: Illustrated Edition: A look at important historic figures in English history by Edith Nesbit - Century Challenge
8. Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Bingo
9. The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft - Century Challenge
10. The Man Without A Country by Edward Everett Hale


I really enjoyed the Lovecraft novella. It is a continuation of "The Mountains of Madness" and "The Call of Cthulhu". The Royal Children book was just a random thing that came up as an audio book two days ago on Youtube. It was just a coincidence that it fit in the Century Challenge. It is a children's book.

Sonnets from the Portuguese was a reread for me, and I really loved it. Overall, it was a good month.