Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

It's April! What are you all planning to read? It's Poetry Month in the US, and I'll be slipping in some Ovid and Sexton for that. Otherwise, it's more challenge reading for me.

Quest for Women
Pilgrimage, Volume 4: Oberland, Dawn's Left Hand, Clear Horizon, Dimple Hill, March Moonlight - Dorothy M. Richardson (completed 4/22/21)
Precious Bane - Mary Webb (Currently Reading)

People of Color Old & New
The Tiger's Daughter - Bharati Mukherjee (completed 4/6/21)
The Obscene Bird of Night - José Donoso (completed 4/7/21)
Flowers in the Mirror - Li Ruzhen (completed 4/18/21)
62: A Model Kit - Julio Cortázar (completed 4/29/21)
The Sea of Fertility - Yukio Mishima (Currently Reading)
The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings - Octavio Paz

Bingo
All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque (completed 4/1/21)
Metamorphoses - Ovid (completed 4/19/21)
The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst (Currently Reading)
Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Reading Women Challenges (exterior to group)
He Who Searches - Luisa Valenzuela (completed 4/14/21)
Love Poems - Anne Sexton (completed 4/27/21)
The Pickup - Nadine Gordimer

Post 2021 Challenge Reading
The Gilda Stories - Jewelle L. Gómez (completed 4/24/21)
Pomegranate Soup - Marsha Mehran (Currently Reading)
An Untamed State - Roxane Gay

A bit of light reading for me this month:
1. King Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2
2. London Belongs to Me

My plans for April include:

Challenges:
- Gooseberries - Anton Chekhov (Short Story) 2/4/21
- The Stranger - Albert Camus (Old/New Classics) 16/04/21

Other:
- Tentacle - Rita Indiana 8/4/21
- Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 14/04/21
- Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel 27/04/21

Enjoy Ovid, Aubrey--Metamorphoses is an old favorite I need to re-read.

My April plans also include some celebration of National Poetry month:
Finish The Tradition
Work on How Does a Poem Mean?
Consider: some Grace Paley, Rimbaud, and Lucille Clifton and maybe even Neruda’s Memoirs

Also, Continue with:
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things
The Cross (KL #3)

Group Reads:
Sons and Lovers
The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo

I'm excited for a good month of reading!

April plans

1. finish The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich

2. I already read this book today - a novella by The Scarlet Plague by Jack London. Wow I haven't had time to write a review yet, but 5 stars from me. It does have an overall rating in the high 3 star area. It was published in "The London Magazine" in 1912. It is about a plague that decimates humanity in the year 2012 I think it was. The story of the plague is being told by a grandfather to his grandchildren some 60 years later. Excellent.

3. I am still reading Science fiction short stories, so more of those TBD.

4. Gooseberries by Anton Chekhov

5. Babette’s Feast by Isak Dinesen

6. perhaps Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

7. perhaps Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

I love to check out different plans to see how can I enrich my own plans. Plans and lists are always good sources of inspiration.

As for my plan, I will be reading The 39 Steps by John Buchan and Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev.

Cheers, Kathleen. I recently bought a shiningly imposing edition to accompany my rather battered looking original, so I'm hoping that, between the two of them, the translations and contextualizing notes present the piece as best as it can be to someone who can't read the original.

Challenges

Classics Bingo
1 Dracula by Bram Stoker (I4)
2 The Lais of Marie de France by Marie de France (O4)
3 The Heidi Chronicles: Uncommon Women and Others & Isn't It Romantic by Wendy Wasserstein (N4)
4 Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief by Maurice Leblanc (02)

Classics Virginia Woolf
5 The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
6 The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life by Virginia Woolf
7 Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London by Lauren Elkin

Nonfiction Texas
8 Dr. Arthur Spohn: Surgeon, Inventor, and Texas Medical Pioneer
9 A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico by Amy S. Greenberg
10 Chief Bowles And The Texas Cherokees by Mary Whatley Clarke
11 Nesting Birds of a Tropical Frontier: The Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas by Timothy Brush
12 Texas--A Roadside View by Lady Bird Johnson

Nonfiction Women
13 Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II by Liza Mundy
14 Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History by Keith O'Brien

This is my tentative wish list for April, not necessarily in this order, and I may not get this many done:

1. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev, currently reading, Group Read, and I will use for Bingo, O5 Book from the Group’s 2021 Bookshelf.
2. Walking with Ghosts by Gabriel Byrne, currently listening, not for anything in particular.
3. Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, for Bingo, O1 Classic of Africa.
4. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, for my Century Challenge, 1914.
5. Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier, for my Century Challenge, 1941.
6. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, Group Read.
7. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, for Sisters Book Club.
8. Babette’s Feast by Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen, Group Read.

(Wild Card: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. This could be pushed until next month.)

I keep trying to push myself to read more each month. I read 6 for February and 7 last month. So I put 8 on the list for April. This is ambitious.

April is poetry month. Anyone plan to read some?

I have a long list for April and I know that I won't be able to read them all, but will have fun trying. :)

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim for the Classics Community Buddy Read

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren for the Children's Classics Community Buddy Read

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte for the Catching Up on Classics group and the An Introvert's World of Books

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev for the Catching Up on Classics group

Gooseberries by Anton Chekhov for the Catching Up on Classics group

* finishing Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston for the Catching Up on Classics for March

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath for the Everyone Has Read This But Me group

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid for the Everyone Has Read This But Me group

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker for The Reading for Pleasure Book Club

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith for the An Introvert's World of Books

A Room With a View by E.M. Forster for the An Introvert's World of Books

Katy wrote: "April is poetry month. Anyone plan to read some?"

Kathleen's got a nice looking bevy of works, and I have my Ovid. This year's bingo doesn't have an explicitly laid out category for poetry this time around, so that may have impacted things.

Katy wrote: "April is poetry month. Anyone plan to read some?"

Yes, I've just started The Faerie Queene, Book One, andvwill probably read some more.

My April reading plans

Currently reading:
Last Night in Twisted River
Middlesex
The Faerie Queene, Book One

To read:
Atlas Shrugged (audio)
The Vanishing Half (audio)
Lykkens datter
Det kolde guld
De usynlige
Thick: And Other Essays
Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story
Aurora Leigh (serial reader) - started
Despair
Opening Night
Dansen Med Regitze (audio)
Iliaden (audio)
Parable of the Sower
84, Charing Cross Road
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot - started

Julie wrote: "Katy wrote: "April is poetry month. Anyone plan to read some?"

Yes, I've just started The Faerie Queene, Book One, andvwill probably read some more."

Faerie Queene's one of my yearly long read possibilities. Don't know which year it's going to end up taking center stage in, but it'll be there when I need it.

Reading
1 Dracula by Bram Stoker
2 The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy

Read
1 The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
2 Dr. Arthur Spohn: Surgeon, Inventor, and Texas Medical Pioneer by Jane Clements Monday
3 Chief Bowles And The Texas Cherokees
4 Texas--A Roadside View by Lady Bird Johnson by Mary Whatley Clarke
5 Women Heroes of World War II: 32 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue
6 Crayons Rock! by James Dean and Kimberly Dean
7 Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
8 Prietita and the Ghost Woman/Prietita y la llorona by Gloria E. Anzaldúa
9 One Special Summer Jacqueline Bouvier and her sister Lee Bouvier
10 The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television
11 My Letter to the World and Other Poemsby Emily Dickinson
12 The G Ring: How the IUD Escaped the Nazis by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow

I'm currently reading the first Otherland book by Tad Williams and Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees.
After that I plan to pick up Qualityland and Qualityland 2.0 as audiobooks (book one will be a reread). Also for my bookclub I'll read Flatland. So a lot of ---land titles (even Lud-in-the-Mist's German title ends with "Land").

Matt wrote: "Sam wrote: "I'm currently reading the first Otherland book by Tad Williams and Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees.
After that I plan to pick up Qualityland and Qualityland 2.0 as audiobooks (book one..."

Matt, all I can say for now is it starts off just as slow as The Dragonbone Chair. Williams takes his sweet time to set up a gazillion ideas and characters. Much time is spent in simulated worlds, which can be fun (like a particularly hilarious cliché fantasy chapter), but also a bit aimless and meandering. So I'd say don't go into it expecting action, until now there has been more focus on concepts and atmosphere. But then again, I'm only 14 % into book one, so it all might change :)

Due to reasons of necessity, I'll be starting my post challenge reading for this year a tad early, and I've modded my planning post accordingly. As if I didn't have enough reading categories already! But being able to balance out older works with more recent material will probably be good for my stamina in the long run.

BOOKS I WILL FINISH IN APRIL:

1.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept by Paulo Coelho

2.
Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham

3.
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

4.
The Best American Mystery Stories 2019 edited by Jonathan Lethem and Otto Penzler

5.
The Kings of Cool by Don Winslow

6.
Knight of Shadows by Roger Zelazny - #4 in the Second Chronicles of Amber

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

7.
The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

8.
The Conquering Sword of Conan by Robert E. Howard

9.
All Clear by Connie Willis

10.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

11.
Old Venus edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

12.
D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen E. Ambrose

13.
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey

Halfway through the month, and I'm chugging along with four books done so far. I officially switched from full challenge reading to infusing some more contemporary pursuits into my diet, and that's lightened the load a tad. Chances are good that I'll finish a few of the longer ones that I've had going for a while all in the next week or so, including my 2100+ page megalodon, and that'll open things up even more. Of course, I already have my longer reads for the next couple of months all planned out (the Decameron group read in June is looking especially promising), but I'll be slipping in some much shorter reads while April is still upon us.

I managed to finish up my April reads last night with Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. This was a 5 star read for me. An eerily familiar but far more devastating pandemic, Shakespeare, actors, musicians, a post-apocalyptic world..... it was not at all depressing and, in a tribute to the resilience of the human race, even managed to finish on a note of hope.

I've started A Passage to India from my May reading plans, and will also start Jazz by Toni Morrison.

Liesl wrote: "I managed to finish up my April reads last night with Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. This was a 5 star read for me. An eerily familiar but far more devast..."

Nice job everyone. We're almost at the end of the month. I am still working on Challenges. Liesl congratulations on your 5 star read.

Janice wrote: "I have a long list for April and I know that I won't be able to read them all, but will have fun trying. :)

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim for the Classics Community Buddy Read

Pippi ..."

So far I have completed The Enchanted April, Pippi Longstocking, Gooseberries, and Their Eyes Were Watching God. I am over halfway through Jane Eyre so will be carrying it over to May.

This year has been all about short stories for me. Here's the list of short stories/novella read in April:

1. "The Scarlet Plague" by Jack London (1912) 5 stars - loved!
2. "Inconstant Moon" by Larry Niven (1977) 5 stars!
3. "A Little Journey" by Ray Bradbury (1951)
4. "2BR02B" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1968)
5. "Mimsy Were the Borogroves" by Henry Kuttner (1943)
6. "Bears Discover Fire" by Terry Bisson (1990) 5 stars!
7. "The Dunwich Horror" by H. P. Lovecraft (1929)
8. "Time and Again" by H. Piper Beam
9. "A Martian Odyssey and Valley of Dreams" by Stanley Weinbaum (1934)
10. "Huddling Place" by Clifford Simak (1944)
11. About Love: Three Stories by Anton Chekhov (1898) "Gooseberries"
12. "That Spot" by Jack London (1908)
13. "Kaleidoscope" by Ray Bradbury (1949)
14. "He Walked Around the Horses" (Paratime) by H. Beam Piper (1948)
15. "Police Operation" (Paratime) by H. Beam Piper (1948)
16. "Last Enemy" (Paratime) by H. Beam Piper (1950)
17. "Temple Trouble" (Paratime) by H. Beam Piper (1951)
- H. Beam Piper is a new author for me. I really love him. I am on the fifth short story by him in his Paratime series.

I read the "Little Trilogy" Three Short Stories by Anton Chekhov which included the group read "Gooseberries" - About Love: Three Stories

This was called "juvenile fiction" Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein ( 1957) I loved this, 5 stars. It was a book I couldn't put down and finished in one day.

I am still reading The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich

and I am struggling along with The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories by Sarah Orne Jewett. It is not a favorite...maybe I will like it more toward the end?

Having finished my last book for the month today, I am left with the unexpectedly high count of ten books completed throughout the course of April. This was the month that I finished my long read for 2021, finally read at least one work that has been hanging around my TBR for more than a decade, made quite a bit of progress on all my challenges, and even got into some post challenge reading. May will be month that I dive into a long awaited tetralogy and fit in whatever else I can around that, but I've got a day or so of reading before that.

I finished:
1. Fathers and Sons
2. Walking with Ghosts
3. Cry the Beloved Country
4. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
5. Babette’s Feast

Dandelion Wine will be a DNF, sorry to say.

I am currently reading The Complete Stories of Truman Capote, about halfway through, but doubt I will finish by the end of the month. It’s Spring, and the outdoors is calling me into the garden.