Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Challenges Progress

Challenge #1 - New & Old TBR participating
Challenge #2 - Members Choice participating
✔️Challenge #3 - New Authors participating
Challenge #4 - Short Story participating
Challenge #5 - Decade participating
Challenge #5 - Century participating
Challenge #6 - Group Reads, Buddy Reads, Moderators Run Amok participating
Challenge #7 - Series Books – Start, Continue, Complete participating
Challenge #8 - Travel the World One Continent at a Time participating
Challenge #9 – Rereading Some do Some don't
Challenge #10 - Most Popular Goodreads Books Listed by Year participating
Challenge #11 - Future Classics participating
Challenge #12 - Fiction/Non-Fiction participating
Challenge #13 - Old and New Linked Categories not participating
Challenge #14 - Bestselling Novels in the United States not participating
✔️Challenge #15 - Award Winners participating
Challenge #16 - A-Z Author not participating
Challenge #17 - A-Z Title not participating

OLD AND NEW

Old School
1. Under the Greenwood Tree
2. Madame Bovary
✔️3. The Sign of Four read May 3 stars
New School
1. A Clockwork Orange (Modern Library)
✔️2. Breathing Lessons (Pulitzer) Read June 4 stars
✔️3. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Modern Library) Feb 5+ stars
Bookshelf Dust Collectors
✔️1. Chenneville read Aug 5 stars
2. The Unseen World
✔️3. The Push read May 3 stars
✔️4. Tom Lake read Jan 5 big stars
5. I Cheerfully Refuse
6.The Devil's Cave
Alternates
1. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
✔️2. American Pastoral (Pulitzer) read Aug 5 stars
3. Carolina Moonset

Challenge #2 - Members Choice Challenge
Choose one book per category/genre for a total of 9 books.

✔️1. 19th Century or Older - How Much Land Does a Man Need? read Jan 4 stars
✔️2. 20th Century - 1919 read May 5 stars
✔️3. 21st Century - Tom Lake Read Feb 5 stars
✔️4. Nonfiction - The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War read July 3 stars
✔️5. An Author never read before - His Family
6. Diversity, read a book from a religion, culture, country, or race different than yours - Chronicle of a Death Foretold,The Murmur of Bees or Deacon King Kong; Orhan's Inheritance; Stay with Me
✔️7. Members Choice Genre - Drama Our Town read Jan 5 stars
✔️8. Members Choice Genre - Memoir - These Precious Days: Essays read Jan 5 stars
✔️9. Members Choice Genre - Murder Mystery Close to Death read April 4 stars

✔️Challenge #3 - Expand Your Horizon with New Authors

Seek out at least six (6) authors that you have never previously read, from any genre or era you want.

✔️1. James A. Michener Tales of the South Pacific
✔️2. Lewis Padgett Mimsy Were The Borogoves
✔️3. Ernest PooleErnest Poole His Family
✔️4. Sebastian Barry Annie Dunne
✔️5. Laurie Halse Anderson Speak
✔️6. Ashley Audrain The Push
✔️7. Ariel Lawhon The Frozen River

Challenge #4 - Short Story Challenge
Read 18 short stories.

✔️1. How Much Land Does a Man Need? read Jan 4 stars
✔️2. The Angel at the Grave read Jan 3.5 stars
✔️3. Mimsy Were The Borogoves 4 stars
✔️4. The Machine Stops 4 stars
✔️5. The Coffee House of Surat 3 stars
✔️6. The South Pacific from Tales of the South Pacific 4 stars
✔️7. Coral Sea from Tales of the South Pacific 3 stars
✔️8. Mutiny Tales of the South Pacific 3 stars
✔️9. An Officer and a Gentleman Tales of the South Pacific 3 stars
✔️10 The Cave from Tales of the South Pacific 4 stars
✔️11 The Milk Run from Tales of the South Pacific 3 stars
✔️12 Alligator from Tales of the South Pacific 3 stars
✔️13 Our Heroine from Tales of the South Pacific 5 stars
✔️14 Dry Rot from Tales of the South Pacific 3 stars
✔️15 Fo' Dolla' from Tales of the South Pacific 4 stars
✔️16 Passion from Tales of the South Pacific 4 stars
✔️17 A Boar's Tooth from Tales of the South Pacific 2 stars
✔️18 Wine for the Mess at Segi from Tales of the South Pacific 3 stars

Challenge #5 - Decade/Century/Millennium Challenge
Only one of 3 types required


CENTURY owned titles

✔️1900-1909 - The Secret Agent read June 4 stars
✔️1910-1919 - His Family Read Jan 3.5 stars
1920-1929 - The Richest Man in Babylon A Passage to India modern library , Old New York
✔️1930-1939 - Light in August modern Library 5 stars, 1919Years of Grace, Honey in the Horn, The Late George Apley
✔️1940-1949 -Tales of the South Pacific The Heart of the Matter Modern Library,The Sheltering Sky Modern library, Dragon's Teeth Pulitzer, In This Our Life,
✔️1950-1959- A Fable read July 5 stars]
✔️1960-1969 - The House on the Strand|, Modern Library read Mar 4 stars
✔️1970-1979 - Augustus read Feb 5 stars,
✔️1980-1989 - Breathing Lessons, read June 4 stars The Tie That Binds
✔️1990-1999 - Speak American Pastoral

Shelf clearing owned Modern Decade + 6
✔️2025 Strangers in Time read May 3 stars ,Twist
2024 The God of the Woods, I Cheerfully Refuse, The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
✔️2023 [book:Tom Lake 5 stars
✔️2022 The Twist of a Knife read Jan 4 stars , Carolina Moonset , The House of Doors,Trust Pulitzer, The Maid,
✔️2021 The Push Read May 3 stars
2020 What You Are Looking For Is in the Library The Cold Millions or The Thursday Murder Club, The Searcher

2019 Apeirogon, This Is Happiness,Crescendo: The Story of a Musical Genius Who Forever Changed a Southern Town
2018 Love and Ruin, The Map of Salt and Stars, The Nickel Boys
2017 The Keeper of Lost Things, The Refugees
2016 The Unseen World
2015 Epitaph or The Murmur of Bees, Petty: The Biography
2014 Far as the Eye Can See, A Strangeness in My Mind, Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation
2013 TransAtlantic This is the Story of a Happy Marriageor One Summer: America, 1927
2012 The Devil's Cave, The Light Between Oceans or Illuminations
2011 Salvage the Bones, On Canaan's Side or What It is Like to Go to War
2010 Corrag, Mink River, Great House
Optional 2nd decade owned
Optional 2nd modern decade owned

2009 South of Broad pr Let the Great World Spin, Cutting for Stone,
2008 The Forgotten Garden (physical) So Brave, Young, and Handsome audio
2007 The Street of a Thousand Blossoms physical, Bridge of Sighs (physical), The Road Home physical
2006 Zoli, Winter's Bone (kindle)
2005 A Long Long Way The City of Falling Angels (physical) or A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 (kindle)
2004 Hannah Coulter (Kindle)
2003 Dancer, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
✔️2002 Annie Dunne read May 4 stars
2001 The Siege (physical)
2000 Dressing Up for the CarnivalJayber Crow

New School Classics Decade
✔️1999 Speak read May 4 starsAntarctica, Music & Silence
1998 The Smiling Country This Side of Brightness
1997 American Pastoral ,book:Midwives|5166],"Sweat"
1996 Father and Son,Into the Wild
1995 Songdogs, Blindness,Come and Go, Molly Snow: A Novel
1994 The Memory Police
1993 Montana 1948
1992 The English Patient
1991 Joe
1990 Where You Once Belonged, The Things They Carried

Challenge 6 - Group Reads, Buddy Reads, or Moderators Run Amok read 12 .

✔️1. The Angel at the Grave read Jan 3.5 stars
✔️2. Augustus 5 stars
✔️3.Mimsy Were The Borogoves 4 stars
✔️4. The Machine Stops 4 stars
✔️5. A Fable 5 stars
✔️6. Sweet Thursday 5 stars
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12.

Challenge #7- Series Books – Start, Continue, Complete

Series Books – Start, Continue, Complete

Start: U.S.A. Trilogy Complete 1 or 2 this year
✔️1. The 42nd Parallel read July 2024 5 stars
✔️2.1919 read April 5 stars
3. The Big Money optional

Start: Hawthorne & Horowitz by Anthony Horowtiz 5 books complete 2 or 3

✔️1. The Word is Murder read March 2024 4 stars
✔️2. The Sentence is Death April 2024 3 stars
✔️3. A Line to Kill read Nov 4 stars
✔️ 4. The Twist of a Knife read feb 4 stars
✔️ 5. Close to Death read Apr 5 stars


Continue: Bruno Chief of Police 1- 17 + 5 add between shorts
Completed 1-3 + 5.5 Read between 1 and 3 in 2024
✔️1. #4 The Crowded Grave read Dec 2024 5 stars
2. #5 The Devil's Cave
3. #6The Resistance Man optional

Complete: Rabbit Angstrom Quartet complete # 1-3
✔️1. Rabbit Redux Jan 5 stars
✔️2. Rabbit Is Rich completed June 4 stars
✔️3. Rabbit at Rest completed 5 stars

Start: The Dunne Family - 3 books
✔️1. Annie Dunne 4 stars read May 2025

Series I want to get to 2025 & 2026
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (read 1 of 4)
The Border Trilogy by Cormac Mccarthy (read 1 of 3)
George Smiley by John Le Carre ( read 3 of 9)

Challenge #8 - Travel the World One Continent at a Time

Select a book or an author from each of the seven world continents, *Antarctica is optional, and can be substituted for a country specific book. I understand that most around the world challenges are much longer in both time and number of books required. Our challenges run from January 1-December 31. So, this seems more doable.

Africa
Asia A Pale View of Hills
Australia True History of the Kelly Gang
Europe The Heart of the Matter or The Wreath
North America
South America Things We Lost in the Fire
*Antarctica, or a Country

*Read a book set in the country you'd most like to visit

Challenge #9 - Rereading - Some do Some don't

This year’s challenge is, reread two of your reread selections.

Books I'd Love to Reread
1. Their Eyes Were Watching God
2. East of Eden
3. Mrs. Dalloway
4.
5.

Read Again in 2025
1.
2.

reply | flag

Challenge #10 – Most Popular Goodreads Books Listed by Year
Locate and list 10 books that most interest you from the year of your choice. The challenge is to read 3 books from that list.

1932
✔️1. Light in August ( Modern Library & grp catch-up) read Jan 5 stars
2. Save Me the Waltz
3. The Pastures of Heaven
✔️4. 1919 (U.S.A Trilogy #2 - Modern library) , 5 stars
5. The Store - Pulitzer - hard to get
6. Laughter in the Dark
7. Vipers' Tangle

1940
1. For Whom the Bell Tolls
✔️2. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Modern Library) 5 stars
3. Native Son (Modern Library)
4. The Power and the Glory
5. Farewell, My Lovely
✔️6. The Circular Ruins read May 4 stars

Challenge #11 - Future Classics
I chose books from authors who I feel have staying power because I've read at least one other book from the author that I also loved.
1. A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles
2. The Gift of Rain Tan Twan Eng
3. All the Light We Cannot See
4. A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini
5. The Color of Lightning Paulette Jiles
Possible unread future classics
1. I Cheerfully Refuse I loved his Peace Like a River so I have high hopes even though this one is sci-fi
2. The Unseen World or The God of the Woods Read her Heft many years ago and was surprised by how deep it was
3. The Devil's Cave this is the 4th in the series for me and these mysteries have everything, French countryside, European history and politics, cooking, wine, with a sprinkle of romance and of course a murder. I think they will stand the test of time and hope they are made into a streaming series

Challenge #12 Fiction/nonfiction

Ann Patchett
✔️ Fiction - Tom Lake 5 stars
✔️ Non fiction These Precious Days: Essays read Jan 5 stars

American civil war
✔️Fiction: Chenneville read Aug 5 stars
✔️Nonfiction: The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War read July 3 stars

Art
Fiction: The Last Painting of Sara de Vos or Bluebeard
✔️ Nonfiction: The Art Thief read Aug 3.5 stars

Romantic Generation
Fiction: The Armor of Light, The Fossil Hunter
Nonfiction: The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
WWII
Fiction: The Street of a Thousand Blossoms A Pale View of Hills
Nonfiction: The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War
Vietnam War
Fiction: The Things They Carried, The World Played Chess
Nonfiction: The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War
Isolation
Fiction: My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Nonfiction: Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation
Spiritual
Fiction The Heart of the Matter
Nonfiction: The Four Loves
WWII Unsung Heroes
FictionThe Only Woman in the Room
Nonfiction:Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain's Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War
Cold and World War II
Fiction: The Siege (physical)
Nonficition: Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II (physical)
1920's America
Fiction Save Me the Waltz (Kindle)
Nonfiction One Summer: America, 1927 (physical)

14. Challenge #14 - Publishers Weekly lists of Bestselling Novels in the United States

The below link provides a list of bestsellers from 1895-2023. Pick 10 years of interest. List the bestseller for each year selected. If you have read it, list the 2nd bestseller and so on. Ideas for picking years: birth years for family and friends, memorable events graduations, anniversaries, etc. or historic events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish....

NOTE: click on the link above then Look for the blueish info bar, just under it you will find a list of decades from 1890-2020. Click the decade needed and search individual years.

15. Award Winners - Read 2

✔️1. His Family, Pulitzer 3 stars
✔️ 2. Tales of the South Pacific Pulitzer3 stars

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Challenge #1 - New & Old TBR
Challenge #2 - Members Choice
Challenge #3 - New Authors
Challenge #4 - Short Story
Challenge #5 - Decade/Century/Millennium
Challenge #6 - Group Reads, Buddy Reads, Moderators Run Amok
Challenge #7 - Series Books – Start, Continue, Complete
Challenge #8 - Travel the World One Continent at a Time
Challenge #9 – Rereading Some do Some don't
Challenge #10 - Most Popular Goodreads Books Listed by Year
Challenge #11 - Future Classics
Challenge #12 - Fiction/Non-Fiction
Challenge #13 - Old and New Linked Categories
Challenge #14 - Bestselling Novels in the United States
Challenge #15 - Award Winners
Challenge #16 - A-Z Author
Challenge #17 - A-Z Title

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Have fun planning!

Thank you Matt and Wobbley! Sorry for the late response. Not on top of my Goodreads.

I love your planning, Sue! Such intriguing Fiction/Non-fiction picks. It's been several years since I read The Siege and I still think about it.

Madame Bovary is always a good choice, Sue. All the best.

Thank you, Kathleen! I have to do it or I wouldn't read nearly has much. It keeps me motivated.

Thank you Illa! I can't believe haven't read Madame Bovary yet!

I'm on the board with two short stories:

The Angel at the Grave was used for two spots here (short stories and group reads).
I enjoyed this story and gave it 3.5 stars. I thought it was both sweet and sad.
How Much Land Does a Man Need? was used for one spot here and another on the BINGO category of short stories from the group book shelf. I missed this one with the group. I gave it 4 stars. It's a nice cautionary tale about temptation and greed.

Great start! I hadn't yet decided whether to read this one (Angel at the Grave), but you're inspiring me to give it a try.

Wobbley wrote: "Great start! I hadn't yet decided whether to read this one (Angel at the Grave), but you're inspiring me to give it a try."

It's getting mixed reviews, Wobbley. I think it's worth a try. It's about a grandaughter who tries to preserve her famous grandfather's memory when no one else in the family seems to care, but she gives up a lot to do it.

Sue wrote: "I'm on the board with two short stories:

The Angel at the Grave was used for two spots here (short stories and group reads).
I enjoyed this story and gave it 3.5 stars. I thought i..."

Two good stories and a great start for the year.