Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Hello. What do you plan on reading this month? Are you one of the disciplined few that really read what you plan? Are you looking for ideas from others? Please let us know. This is a great place to find your next book.

For me May is the "almost Summer" month. I usually hold off on any really long books until Summer break. I tend to start feeling like I haven't made enough progress on my Challenges yet. Perhaps I will read

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf a reread for me
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

and short stories for my 19th Century Short Story Challenge:

more from Thomas Hardy's Wessex Tales
more from my collection of L.M. Montgomery short stories
The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy

I have vaguely sketchy plans, which are liable to change. For now I'm leaning towards reading Means of Ascent, and go through a few middle grade books that are part of a BookTube reading challenge.

May is, among a great deal of other things, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and Jewish American Heritage Month. Hoping to get my challenge reading to cooperate with at least one of those.

Quest for Women
The Kindness of Strangers - Salka Viertel (completed 5/26/22)
Desert of the Heart - Jane Rule

People of Color Old & New
TBD

Bingo
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison (completed 5/2/22)
Richard III - William Shakespeare (completed 5/4/22)
Howl and Other Poems - Allen Ginsberg (completed 5/5/22)
Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre (completed 5/9/22)
Waiting for God - Simone Weil (completed 5/13/22)
The Waste Land and Other Poems - T.S. Eliot (completed 5/14/22)
The Sagas of Icelanders - Various (completed 5/19/22)
Tent of Miracles - Jorge Amado (completed 5/20/22)
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern - Stephen Greenblatt (completed 5/26/22)
The Ambassadors - Henry James (Currently Reading)
Personal History - Katharine Graham (Currently Reading)
To Live - Yu Hua (Currently Reading)
Babette's Feast and Other Anecdotes of Destiny - Karen Blixen (Currently Reading)
Mumbo Jumbo - Ishmael Reed
The Innocents Abroad - Mark Twain
The Promised Land - Mary Antin

Once again I'll list some possible books and maybe read half as I choose other books.

Century Challenge
The Street by Ann Petry

Classic Bingo
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs
Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston

Currently Reading
Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li
Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles
The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

Other reads
The Color of Love: A Story of a Mixed-Race Jewish Girl by Marra B. Gad
Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis
A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam

I have two reads for other groups and then it is Mystery May.

Other groups:
Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden
Patience & Sarah by Isabel Miller

Mystery May:
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
No Orchids for Miss Blandish (unabridged) by James Hadley Chase
A Chosen Sparrow by Vera Caspary
Live Flesh by Ruth Rendell
Dorcas Dene, Detective: The Complete Adventures by George Robert Sims
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

RJ's MAY 2022 READS

Will Finish in May
Vertigo by Boileau-Narcejac
The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories by Arthur Machen
Martians, Go Home by Fredric Brown
Reversible Errors by Scott Turow

Might Finish in May
Delusion's Master by Tanith Lee

Will Read But Won't Finish in May
This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson
With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene B. Sledge
The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice
Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
Green Tea and Other Weird Stories by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu
...and another group read book, voting still in process...

Continuing on in May with my various challenges and working my way chronologically through a list of 1800's British novels, now with a couple of French authors in the mix.

The Last Chronicle of Barset (carried over from April, 47% complete)

The Moonstone

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

The Fortune of the Rougons

Around the World in Eighty Days

After a sluggish reading month in April, I hope to get my mind and life settled down and finish these May books.

Ooo--some I'll be watching: Aubrey's Invisible Man, Laurie's The Street, RJ's Green Tea and Other Weird Stories ...

I've just started one totally impulse read: Never Let Me Go, and I'm going to let it take precedence over everything else. Otherwise my plans are

Continuing
Bleak House
Love Poems and Sonnets

Group Reads
The Kreutzer Sonata
The Rainbow
Black Narcissus

Then hopefully some more impulse reads!

Continuing
To the Lighthouse (Other Group Re-Read)
Dracula
As I Lay Dying (Other Group Re-Read)

Plans
Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp
Speak, Memory
Antony and Cleopatra

Lynn, I agree.this is the month where I start.worrying about my challenges. Still I have hope. . . .I am busier this month with tasks and fun, so I plan and hope for the best.

Read
1959 The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
1972 The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by David McCullough
1848 The Haunted Man And The Ghost's Bargain by Charles Dickens
1900 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
1868 The Romance of Certain Old Clothes by Henry James
1998 The Tale of the Unknown Island by José Saramago
1910 The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood

2010 The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire by Jack Weatherford
2020 A Short History of Russia: How the World's Largest Country Invented Itself, from the Pagans to Putin by Mark Galeotti
2017 Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

Reading
* The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

Planning
* Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief by Maurice Leblanc
* Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire
* All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation

I will finish:
. The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kay for Bingo square I-4 and a Buddy Read and for my Multi Year 20th Century Challenge.
. The Gospel Singer by Harry Crews for On the Southern Literary Trail and for my Multi Year 20th Century Challenge.

I will read:
. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward for On the Southern Literary Trail.
. Elkhorn Tavern by Douglas C. Jones for a Buddy Read and for my Multi Year 20th Century Challenge.
. Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles for Book Club.
. Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey for a Buddy Read, but no guarantees I will finish in May. Also for my Multi Year 20th Century Challenge.

This seems ambitious for me, considering this is May and my garden is calling to me!

Mostly it's TBD, but this is what I got so far:
The Space Opera Megapack: 20 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Tales
花物語 Hanamonogatari
Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 2 Volume 4
100 Bullets, Vol. 6: Six Feet Under the Gun
Wolves of the Calla
囮物語 Otorimonogatari

Terry wrote: "I will finish:
. The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kay for Bingo square I-4 and a Buddy Read and for my Multi Year 20th Century Challenge.
. The Gospel Singer by Harry Crews for On the Southern Literary Tr..."

I suggest listening to audio books as you garden! Works for me! ;)

I'd better spell out my reads, didn't know who to post here. Here are some of the middle grade reads I am going to try and complete for a Middle Grade May challenge:-

- Charlie Hernández and the League of Shadows
- Stef Soto, Taco Queen
- The Fairy-Tale Detectives
- The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise
- The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street
- Amira & Hamza: The War to Save the Worlds
- Winterhouse

These books are the choices of a YouTuber whom I follow. Although one of the books I got from a similarly styled 2nd BookTuber bit the dust, I'm chipper about the rest of the books and I think that some of these novels take a lot of talent to write. I have never read modern middle grade books so this will be a discovery of sorts. If I like this collection, I may need more recs, but for that to happen I need to ask around, or trust the algorithm of Goodreads to reveal hidden gems like what my chosen books can potentially be. Oh, it can all blow up in my face, but the synopsis of these books might bring a lot of quality to the reads and if each of them gets 3 stars, I would be gratified.

I struggled a bit with my April declarations, so I will include several "carryovers" among my
"Core 8" for May :
Life And Fate Grossman, Vassily 1960 (to 2/3rds way through)
Imajica Barker, Clive 1991
Book Of Ebenezer Le Page, The Edwards, G.B. 1981
Aerodrome, The Warner, Rex 1941
Radetzky March, The Roth, Joseph 1932
Patience And Sarah Miller, Isabel 1969 (Group Read)
Last And First Men Stapledon, Olaf 1930
Revelations of Divine Love Julian of Norwich 1395

Lynn wrote: "For me May is the "almost Summer" month. I usually hold off on any really long books until Summer break. I tend to start feeling like I haven't made enough progress on my Challenges yet. Perhaps I ..."

I plan on reading The Blue Castle this month as well. It's a reread for me. :)

Janice wrote: "Lynn wrote: "For me May is the "almost Summer" month. I usually hold off on any really long books until Summer break. I tend to start feeling like I haven't made enough progress on my Challenges ye..."

It’s really good! I think you’ll both enjoy it :)

ok, so I finished 7 of my 8 declared for May :

Life And Fate Grossman, Vassily - 4.5 Stars
Imajica Barker, Clive - 5
Book Of Ebenezer Le Page, The Edwards, G.B. - 4.5
Aerodrome, The Warner, Rex - 2.5
Radetzky March, The Roth, Joseph - 4
Patience And Sarah Miller, Isabel - 4.5
Last And First Men Stapledon, Olaf - still in progress...
Revelations of Divine Love Julian of Norwich - 2.5

five of them were highly recommendable, so a good month :oD

How May went for me -

The Last Chronicle of Barset ✅

The Moonstone ✅

The Mystery of Edwin Drood ✅

The Fortune of the Rougons ✅

Around the World in Eighty Days ✅

I finished my planned books early and started on my June list, so I also finished reading -

Under the Greenwood Tree ✅

A Doll's House ✅

Dead Man's Rock ✅

April was an unproductive month. I'm very happy I was able to read more in May.

So for the month of May:

I did begin Mrs. Dalloway. I read the first chapter just listening to the audiobook, then repeated that chapter reading only a text version - no audio. I was surprised! The Stream of Consciousness worked so much better for me on audio. People really speak in that manner. On paper I just expect a more formal and polished sentence structure and linear thinking. But I do really like the book so far.

Short stories I read:
A Horseman in the Sky by Ambrose Bierce 5*
Chickamauga by Ambrose Bierce 2*
The Fiddler by Herman Melville 4*
The Beggar by Anton Chekhov 3*
The Altar of the Dead by Henry James 5*
"Detected By the Camera" by L.M. Montgomery 4*

There were also 3 children's books:
Umbrella by Taro Yashima and Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola which were both award winning.

One post 2000 children's book that was very good was Nora's Ark by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock

I was able to finish the Short Story Challenge this month, which was my goal. I really like that this group focuses on short stories as well as full-length books.

Wow Cozy-Pug you certainly were productive! You read both a large number and such high quality books.

Lynn wrote: "Wow Cozy-Pug you certainly were productive! You read both a large number and such high quality books."

Lol May made up for my sluggish April! It was a great month of reading for me - I enjoyed my books so much.