Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

France challenge:
1. Les Misérables
2. La Bâtarde
3. The Mysteries of Paris
4. Germinal
5. Pot Luck
6. Swann's Way to be read along with Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time dnf
7. A Harlot High and Low 3 stars
8. La Religieuse 4 stars
9. Nausea
10. The Thibaults
11. Eloa, or the Sister of the Angels
12. Mademoiselle de Maupin
13. The Counterfeiters
14. All Our Worldly Goods
15. The Vagabond 4 stars
16. The Spirit of the Laws
17. Cousin Bette
18. The Count of Monte Cristo
19. The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Spectacular Death of the Medieval Cathars
20. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
21. Nana
22. Against Nature
23. Jean-Christophe - I
24. Gargantua and Pantagruel
25. The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, Part One
26. La Débâcle
27. The Wild Ass's Skin
28. The Black Sheep
29. La Bête humaine
30. The Belly of Paris
31. Au Bonheur des dames
32. L'Œuvre
33. L'Argent 3 stars
34. The Conquest of Plassans 4 stars

German challenge:
1. Death in Rome
2. The Magic Mountain
3. Faust 4 stars
4. Mephisto
5. Die Dämonen
6. The Robbers
7. Rock Crystal 3 stars
8. The Sorrows of Young Werther
9. The Post-Office Girl 3 stars
10. The World of Yesterday 5 stars
11. Steppenwolf
12. The Man Without Qualities
13. The Golem
14. Between Nine and Nine
15. The Enchanted April 3 stars
16. The Lord Chandos Letter: And Other Writings
17. The Sleepwalkers
18. Austerlitz
19. The Swedish Cavalier 5 stars
20. Malina
21. The Radetzky March
22. The Family Carnovsky
23. The Black Obelisk 4 stars
24. The German Lesson
25. The Centre of My World
26. You Are Not Like Other Mothers
27. Fräulein Else 4 stars
28. The Nibelungenlied
29. The Seventh Cross
30. Abel and Cain
31. Tangible Belonging: Negotiating Germanness in Twentieth-Century Hungary
32. Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture
33. Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend 4 stars
34. Der Schimmelreiter
35. Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen 3 stars
36. Effi Briest 3 stars
37. By Night Under the Stone Bridge
38. Das Gemeindekind.
39. Homo Faber
40. Der Besuch der alten Dame

The historical challenge:
1. White Chrysanthemum
2. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo 2 stars
3. The Once and Future King
4. Jubilee
5. The Bell in the Lake
6. The Mask of Apollo
7. Niccolò Rising
8. The Agony and the Ecstasy dnf
9. The First Man in Rome
10. Death and the Dervish stars
11. Hamnet dnf
12. Equal of the Sun
13. Homegoing 3 stars
14. The Sand-Reckoner
15. Black Ships Before Troy
16. Shōgun
17. Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria
18. Great Maria
19. The Dukays
20. Silk 5 stars
21. All Our Yesterdays dnf
22. The Narrows
23. Fifth Business 2 stars
24. Golden Earrings 3 stars
25. Strange Fruit 3.5 stars
26. Call Your Daughter Home
27. The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights 4 stars
28. A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii
29. Malena
30. A Thousand Ships
31. The Silent Companions
32. The Black Dahlia
33. All That Glitters
34. Flower of Iowa 4 stars
35. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century 3 stars
36. The Mercies
37. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
38. Rumbullion
39. The Virgins of Venice 3 stars
40. The Second Mrs. Astor
41. Gilded Summers
42. The Land Breakers
43. The Porta Aurea
44. Kantika
45. Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece
46. Ragtime
47. Edith Holler

These are some wonderful plans, Ila. Are you reading in French and German? Either way, they sound like excellent choices. The only one of your historical fiction I've read is The Once and Future King, which is a favorite since I was young.

I look forward to following your progress!

Kathleen wrote: "These are some wonderful plans, Ila. Are you reading in French and German? Either way, they sound like excellent choices. The only one of your historical fiction I've read is [book:The Once and Fut..."


Thanks! I wish I could read French but I can't. My knowledge of German is quite rudimentary so mostly I'll be reading the English translations. But I will make an attempt to read Heine's Book of Songs in German.

Love your French- and German-Challenges. It’s very interesting to explicitly read books from one country. It surly gives you a great understanding of its literature and culture. (I’m German and live in a French speaking country, so I’m even more interested in your choices :-)

Poetry challenge:
1. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
2. The Princess A Medley and In Memoriam A. H. H.
3. Shakespeare's Sonnets
4. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair 1 star
5. Forbidden Pleasures: New Selected Poems
6. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
7. Eugene Onegin
8. Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
9. Fires 3 stars
10. The War Poems
11. Night Sky with Exit Wounds
12. Sadi's Bustan and Gulistan
13. Ghazals of Ghalib
14. Women Of The Fertile Crescent: An Anthology Of Modern Poetry 2 stars
15. Selected Poems and Fragments
16. Poems of Nazım Hikmet
17. Arabian Love Poems 4 stars
18. Poems of Schiller
19. Adonis: Selected Poems 2 stars
20. New Hampshire

Fee wrote: "Love your French- and German-Challenges. It’s very interesting to explicitly read books from one country. It surly gives you a great understanding of its literature and culture. (I’m German and liv..."

Thank you!

Ila, after our conversation about Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time I finally ordered it. I'm excited to use it for the final three volumes and look back at earlier allusions to paintings. I hope it enhances your enjoyment of Proust!

I also noticed you have Night Sky with Exit Wounds on your poetry list. I read On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous a few years ago and his poetry has been on my list to read ever since.

Ryan wrote: "Ila, after our conversation about Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time I finally ordered it. I'm excited to use it for the final three volumes and look b..."

That's great news Ryan. I am excited too. Its just that Proust is scheduled for next year when I think I'm ready for him.

I keep running into Ocean Vuong's poetry from time to time. If all goes well, I might read him.

Just finished with Port Chicago 50 for the Black History month. This should be required reading as an important and shocking milestone in the struggle for civil rights.

Finished with La Religieuse. Didn't hope to like it this much. A terrifying example of what's wrong with society and religion in particular.
My review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Intriguing review, Ila! Sounds like a little gem that your challenge has uncovered.

Finished The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo a while back. Majorly disappointing, 2 stars

Hi Ila. I see you're planning on reading Robert Frost. His poems seem to require time to resonate within for me to come to a keen appreciation. Some of my perennial favorites are Mending Wall and The Road Not Taken. Enjoy!

Cynda wrote: "Hi Ila. I see you're planning on reading Robert Frost. His poems seem to require time to resonate within for me to come to a keen appreciation. Some of my perennial favorites are Mending Wall and T..."

Thanks! I love those two poems too by the way. Frost is deceptively simple, I agree. Reflection is certainly necessary for many of his poems.

Finished Nizar Qabbani's Arabic love poems in November. Solid 4 stars. Many of them are exquisite and quite a few left me breathless in wonder. Arab poets really outdo themselves on the themes of love and longing. Eagerly looking forward to reading more of his work.

Ila wrote: "Finished Nizar Qabbani's Arabic love poems in November. Solid 4 stars. Many of them are exquisite and quite a few left me breathless in wonder. Arab poets really outdo themselves on the themes of l..."

Glad to hear about this, Ila. I will look for this one.

I've read a few of your poetry selections, and look forward to Shakespeare's Sonnets this year, but will enjoy seeing your thoughts on all of them as you go.

Kathleen wrote: "Ila wrote: "Finished Nizar Qabbani's Arabic love poems in November. Solid 4 stars. Many of them are exquisite and quite a few left me breathless in wonder. Arab poets really outdo themselves on the..."

Thanks Kathleen! Qabbani is a wonderful poet

Finished A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. Interesting read on the Black Death and the causes of the Hundred Years War. However I found it to be quite scattered and fought the urge to skim the last few chapters. I would recommend a smattering of knowledge of the Middle Ages before attempting this one.

I'm adding another section to my challenge.

Reading India, fiction and nonfiction

1. A Feast of Vultures: The Hidden Business of Democracy in India 4 stars
2. In Search of Heer 3 stars
3. Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi
4. The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian
5. Raag Darbari
6. The Anatomy of Hate 4 stars
7. Goa: A Daughter's Story
8. The Begum and the Dastan 3.5 stars
9. The Machine is Learning
10. Age of Frenzy
11. Burden Of Democracy
12. Recalling the Forgotten: Education and Moral Quest
13. The Bourbons and Begums of Bhopal: The Forgotten History
14. Jorasanko
15. Sexuality, Obscenity, and Community: Women, Muslims, and the Hindu Public in Colonial India 4.5 stars
16. NAME PLACE ANIMAL THING 3 stars
17. Words Matter: Writings against Silence
18. Strangers Of The Mist: Tales of War and Peace from India's Northeast
19. The Adivasi Will Not Dance
20. Gods And Ends
21. JNU Stories: The First 50 Years
22. Cobalt Blue
23. Prelude to a Riot 3.5 stars
24. The Mirror of Beauty
25. Beloved Delhi: A Mughal City and her Greatest Poets
26. AASMA-I-NOOR: The Cursed Jewel
27. Bibi's Room: Hyderabadi Women and Twentieth-Century Urdu Prose
28. Beloved Rongomala
29. Towers Of Silence
30. India's Undeclared Emergency: Constitutionalism and the Politics of Resistance

The great nonfiction challenge:

1. More Was Lost
2.Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood
3. Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de' Medici 4 stars
4. Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France
5. Women, Race & Class
6. Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America
7. Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape
8. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
9. The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem: From African Slave to Power-Broker 4 stars
10. Politics and the English Language
11. Islamic Fascism 4 stars
12. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty 4 stars
13. A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad
14. Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder and the Building of the German Empire
15. There's A War Going On But No One Can See It 4 stars
16. Children of Cain: Violence and the Violent in Latin America
17. Arguably: Selected Essays
18. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
19. The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America's Great Migration
20. Create Dangerously
21. The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women 2 stars
22. Right-Wing Women
23. Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women's History of the World
24. How to Suppress Women's Writing
25. Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation
26. On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane
27. Men Who Hate Women - From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All
28. The Assassin from Apricot City: Reportage from Turkey
29. Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back
30. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion 3 stars

Finished Silk a couple of days back. An underrated gem and the first favourite of this year.

The Anatomy of hate is a sobering read into the 2002 Gujarat pogrom and although harsh, is a must-read for every Indian.

Islamic fascism has a narrow focus on Egypt and Germany, probably because Hamed Abdel-Samad hails from Egypt. I have tremendous respect for him from his Box of Islam series and while the book needs to be better organized, it is still a brutal read.

Just finished Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims, and the Hindu Public in Colonial India.
4.5 stars.

This was a difficult and rather shocking read for me. Charu Gupta holds no qualms about dissecting long-cherished opinions and historical figures and analyzing them to the T.

Several times I had to take a deep breath before rereading about persons I had come to respect, in particular, Dayanand Saraswati and Madan Mohan Malaviya since the book blasted my esteem for them into smithereens. It was quite something to know how incredibly complex and at times sheerly bigoted the situation was. To learn that so many of these reformists only supported women's rights because the "danger of Muslims" was more important is galling.

Ever since I read Tawaifnama, I knew that many male women rights activists actively stigmatized and shamed courtesans and prostitutes in an attempt to portray "respectability". But Gupta highlights how wedding songs such as gaari and kajri (thanks to YouTube I have an idea about how they were sung), erotic literature, participating in fairs, and the very festival of Holi came under the scanner.

It is also quite frightening to read about how rumors about abductions and conversions by Muslim men were reported in the media and led to communal riots since the present-day situation is eerily similar. A hard-hitting book and a must-read for every Indian.

Finished with The World of Yesterday Definitely one of my favorites and I'm so glad it was Zweig.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Finished A Feast of Vultures: The Hidden Business of Democracy in India. One of my favorites that I've read this year. Frightening and numbing to see the level of corruption and lobbying in India, sponsored by middlemen aka industrialists aka politicians.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Finished The Conquest of Plassans. 4 stars. Definitely one of my favorites in the Rougon-Macquart cycle.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Hi Ila. Great lists! As a reader, I know well how these things grow. I am hoping to read Les Miserables by the end of 2024. When you become ready to read, let me know. I too will let you know.

A significant book read this year was Fraulein Else. 4 disturbing and interesting stars for this one.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...