Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

What are your reading plans for this month?

My list is too long for the month. I have tried to narrow it down, but some of the items from the long list may end up being read.

I want to finish Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart (1997)

After that I will probably read a few short stories:

"Four Meetings" by Henry James (1877)
"The Immortal" by Jorge Luis Borge
"Baby is Three" by Theodore Sturgeon (1952)
"Earth Eighteen" by Frederick Pohl (1966)

These are possibilities:

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859)
The Praise of Folly by Erasmus (1511)

Finally, I restarted Les Miserables so we will see how much I get read.

This is what I'm planning. I haven't been able to get anywhere near my plans for the last couple months, but here's trying:

Finish up from last month:
in progress 28% Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
✔ The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright ★★★★ (4.0)
in progress 92% Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (re-read)
in progress 57% The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe by Richard Rohr
in progress 36% The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart

Definitely:
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
in progress 37% The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau by Graeme Macrae Burnet

Probably:
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Possibly:
Apple and Knife by Intan Paramaditha
Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis
Witch King by Martha Wells

Unplanned:
✔ Translations from the Night: Selected Poems of Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo (African Writers Series ; 167) by Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo ★★★★★ (4.5)

July goals
I'm in the home stretch of my challenges. I've finished 13 challenges (and bingo), and I have about 12 books to go. Let's see how many I'll complete this month!

I also plan to start/continue some big fantasy/sci-fi series. Maybe I'll figure a way to include later books in the series into my challenges for 2025!

Challenge books to read/finish in July
✔️Whitman: Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition (1855)
✔️Longfellow: The Courtship Of Miles Standish (1858)
✔️Spofford: Circumstance (1860)
✔️Verne: Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863)
✔️Borges: The Immortal (1947)
✔️Jordan: The Eye of the World (1990)
✔️Updike: The Twelve Terrors of Christmas (1994)

Non-challenge books to read/finish in July
✔️Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595)
✔️Wodehouse: The Small Bachelor (1927)
✔️Tolkien: The Two Towers (1954)
✔️LeGuin: The Tombs of Atuan (1971)
✔️Pratchett: Lords and Ladies (1992)
✔️Novik: The Last Graduate (2021)
✔️Connor: Board to Death (2023)
✔️Cunningham: Day (2023)
✔️Saucedo: Where Wolf (2023)
✔️Everett: James (2024)
✔️Smith: Brat (2024)

Long reads
Plutarch: Roman Lives: A Selection of Eight Lives (100)
Herbert: Dune (1965)
Martin: A Game of Thrones (1996)
Haynes: Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths (2020)


Challenge completions this month
Challenge #6 - Group Reads and/or Buddy Reads Challenge - 7/16/24

My remaining challenges are
#3a (Decade) - 6 to go 2 to go
#3b (Century) - 1 to go
#6 (Group Reads) - 2 to go
#15 (A-Z Title) - 1 to go
#16 (A-Z Author) - 5 to go 2 to go

Lynn wrote: "I want to finish Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart..."

I've been reading a lot of Arthurian books this year and was thinking of trying Stewart's Arthurian Saga. Have you read any of these?

JP wrote: "Lynn wrote: "I want to finish Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart..."

I've been reading a lot of Arthurian books this year and was thinking of trying Stewart's Arthurian Saga. Have you read any of these?"

Yes, I read all that were published by 1986. I think that may be all or perhaps there is one I am missing. I really enjoyed them. I was in my 20s so I think I would still like them even today.

I actually read a few of Mary Stewart's light fiction works first, then discovered she was well known for the Arthur books. I picked up her light fiction at a $1 per book library sale. This book Rose Cottage is more in the style of that light fiction The Spell of Mary Stewart: The Ivy Tree/This Rough Magic/Wildfire at Midnight.

Here is another scorcher of a July that increases my inside time and therefore my reading time. Here's what I can say about July with some certainty.

Read.
1. Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance Read July 1st. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
2. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame July 2nd ⭐⭐⭐
3. Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty July 8th ⭐⭐⭐
4. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert July 11 ⭐⭐⭐
5. Miss Mole by E.H. Young July 14 ⭐⭐⭐
6. One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus July 15 ⭐⭐⭐.5
7. The Pearl by John Steinbeck July 17 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
8. The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World by Shelley Puhak July 21 ⭐⭐⭐
9. If Trees Could Talk: Life Lessons from the Wisdom of the Woods by Holly Worton July 24 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
10. From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne July 26 ⭐⭐⭐
11. Willow the White House Cat July 26 ⭐⭐⭐
12. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt July 27 ⭐⭐⭐
13. Small Spaces by Katherine Arden July 27 ⭐⭐⭐
14. George's Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl July 27 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Reading.
The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History by William K. Klingaman
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough

Wanted to Read
Backteria: & Other Improbable Tales by Richard Matheson
The Lost Gardens Of Heligan by Tim Smit
The Trees by Percival Everett

Readathon Possibilities
Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

Off to a great start with two finished, Cynda!!

Here's my plan:
To Finish
Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel (re-read)

Priorities
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, George Saunders
Miss Mole, E.H. Young
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
The Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald

Hopefully/In my dreams
New Grub Street, George Gissing
The Hollow Hills, Mary Stewart
Spiderweb, Penelope Lively
Crampton Hodnet, Barbara Pym
Sun Mother Wakes the World: An Australian Creation Story, Diane Wolkstein

This month means summer holiday, catching up with my challenges and reading some of the many books I've acquired at flea markets during the last year...

To finish:
Björnen (members choice challenge)
Devil Darling Spy
The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History (A-Z title challenge)
Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives In World War II (audio, sync)

To read:
The Eyes by Edith Wharton (group read challenge)
Nick and Charlie (fleamarket find)
Bossypants (ongoing birthyear challenge, fleamarket find)
Min uimodståelige mand: Vi er alle mandschauvinister (audio, nonfiction)
De Sataniske Vers (bingo challenge)
Pigen under gaden
Et beskidt job (fleamarket find)
Land i datid (fleamarket find)
I Kissed Shara Wheeler (fleamarket find)
Wonder (ongoing birthyear challenge, fleamarket find)
Eleanor & Park (ongoing birthyear challenge, fleamarket find)
De uadskillelige (audio, guilty feminist bookclub)
Tricky Twenty-Two
Folkets skønhed (de gyldne laurbær/golden laurels challenge)
Corelli’s Mandolin (bingo challenge) - started
Tied Up In Tinsel (series challenge)
Gallant (audio, goodreads challenge)
Aunt Bessie Considers (A-Z Author Challenge)
Shine your Icy Crown (audio)
Unlock Your Storybook Heart (audio)
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (old&new challenge)
Swanns verden 1 (classic philosophy)
Fourth Wing (audio, goodreads challenge)
The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls - started
Dial A for Aunties - started
The Boy in the Red Dress (audio) - started
Adams arv
The Body in the Library (group read challenge)
Entangled Threads

Kathleen the Sun Mother story looks good. Looking forward to your thoughts!

Julie, I have added the animation book to list of possibilities:) Love finding out how women did more than we knew/were told.

Everyone has some great ideas for book. I'm hoping to dust some of those novels that have sitting on the shelf for awhile that I bought and take them on this month. I was thinking of reading either The Mysteries of Udolpho or Man and Wife or Lorna Doone, all long reads that require some time. But there are other classics I want to tackle and some moderns as well.

Cynda wrote: "Julie, I have added the animation book to list of possibilities:) Love finding out how women did more than we knew/were told."

Me too !
I is a really great story of Disney history as well :)

Thanks, Lynn, for the recommendations. I see some of these going on my 2025 challenge lists.

My July "Core 6":

Washington Square James, Henry 1880 (author-more-dubious)
Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, The Hogg, James 1824 (group-read)
Doctor Zhivago Pasternak, Boris 1957 (really-don't-fancy) - first half...
Little Women Alcott, Louisa May 1868 (mega-classic)
Broken Sword, The Anderson, Poul 1954 (fantasy)
Last Evenings on Earth Bolaño, Roberto 1997 (short-stories)

I am a bit overwhelmed at work and falling behind on books I want to read this month.

First, I need to finish Rabbit is Rich by John Updike. (CUWTC Buddy Read)

Then, I also need to finish listening to On Agate Hill by Lee Smith. (On the Southern Literary Trail Group Read — OTSLT)

I should finish reading South Moon Under by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlins (OTSLT, group read from months ago)

I have to read The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez for my book club. I will listen to this.

I would like to read the following books:
Lambs of Men by Charles Dodd White. (OTSLT)
The Dollmaker by Harriette Simpson Arnow (OTSLT)
Miss Mole by E. H. Young (CUWTC Buddy read)

This is probably more than I can accomplish and some may push into August.

I am going to keep things simple this month by focusing on reading just a few pages of Les Miserables daily. Hopefully I will be able to read till Page 350 (if possible, 400) before this month ends.

End of month update :)

As I've been on holiday, july has been a REALLY good reading month for me. (The Dewey readathon this weekend also helped).
I think this will be a record month for me!

Julie wrote: "End of month update :)

As I've been on holiday, july has been a REALLY good reading month for me. (The Dewey readathon this weekend also helped).
I think this will be a record month for me!"

Yes Julie, that is quite a bit of reading. Congratulations on your Read-a-Thon.

I finished the novel I had begun last month

Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart (1997) 264 pages 5* July 16, 2024

The rest of my reading was short stories

The Midas Plague by Frederik Pohl (1954) July 6, 2024 4*
The Four Fists by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920) July 16, 2024 4*

Stories from Bliss & Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield (1920)
"Prelude"
"Je ne Parle Pas Francais"

Stories from Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (1941-1956)
"Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" July 24, 2024 3*
"The Secret Miracle" July 24, 2024 3*
"The Three Versions of Judas" July 24, 2024 3*
"The Sect of the Phoenix" July 24, 2024 3*
"The Immortal" July 24, 2024 3*

Stories from Dubliners by James Joyce (1914)
"The Sisters" July 30, 2024 3*
"Two Gallants" July 30, 2024 4*


Focusing on short stories let me finish the Short Story Challenge in our Buffet. I like short stories. I did "stretch" my comfort zone a bit by choosing Katherine Mansfield and James Joyce who aren't the easiest to read. I did really like the F. Scott Fitzgerald story.

I only got to 5 of my declared July "Core 6":

Washington Square James, Henry - 3.5 Stars
Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, The Hogg, James - 2
Doctor Zhivago Pasternak, Boris - nearly half way, going quite well...
Little Women Alcott, Louisa May - 2.5
The Broken Sword Anderson, Poul - 4

Last Evenings on Earth Bolaño, Roberto 1997 (short-stories) - didn't get to...
...mainly cos got engrossed in:
The Book of Dave Self, Will - half way, thoroughly enjoying...

I read three on my list, Rabbit is Rich, On Agate Hill and The Great Divide.

I started The Dollmaker, and I got distracted from goals and started An Afterlife for Rosemary Lamb. Both of these are moving into August.

South Moon Under is still on my Kindle, started but stuck, and Lambs of Men is there too, waiting.