Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

I've been doing these challenges for several years now. I really enjoy the variety it brings to my reading life.
I'm lucky that I read a lot of books each year (this year will be around 275 books), so even though I predetermine some of my reading, I still have the option for "moodreading" which I also do a lot of each year.

I'm setting up this thread for the challenges I plan to do this year - will fill in books another day :)

#1 New & Old Challenge

Been doing this since 2016 - it's one of the challenges I really enjoy planning for a lot of variety.

1914 and earlier
1. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. Riis (1890)
2. Mordet i Vestermarie by Palle Rosenkrantz (1902)
3. Miss or Mrs.? by Wilkie Collins (1872)

1915-2005/New School
4. Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown (1973)
5. A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey (1936)
6. Black As He's Painted by Ngaio Marsh (1974)

Wildcards
7. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi (2003)
8. Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake (2016)
9. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (2020)
10. Erindring om kærligheden by Kirsten Thorup (2016)
11. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (2005)
12. Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers (1935)

Alternates
A-1. The Call by Peadar Ó Guilín (2016)
A-2. Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez (2009)
A-3. Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood (2016)

DONE 2025/11/16

#6 Group reads Challenge
Participating in this challenge is what keeps me "on top of" the group bookshelf ;)

1. Augustus by John Williams
2. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
3. Bristede forhåbninger by Honoré de Balzac
4. The Seagull by Anton Chekhov
5. The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin
6. The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster
7. Mimsy Were The Borogoves by Lewis Padgett
8. Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson
9. Døden i Venedig by Thomas Mann
10. The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier
11. Rødt og sort by Stendhal
12. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

DONE 2025/07/16

#7 Series Challenge X4

Continuing Agatha Christie/Hercule Poirot series
29. Taken at the Flood
30. Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
31. The Under Dog and Other Stories
32. Mrs. McGinty's Dead
33. After the Funeral
DONE

Finishing Josephine Tey/Alan Grant series
2. A Shilling for Candles
3. The Franchise Affair
4. To Love and Be Wise
5. The Daughter of Time
6. The Singing Sands
DONE

Continuing Agatha Christie/Miss Marple series
3. The Moving Finger
4. A Murder Is Announced
5. Allready read
6. A Pocket Full of Rye
7. 4:50 from Paddington
8. The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
DONE

Finishing Ngaio Marsh/Roderick Alleyn series
28. Black As He's Painted
29. Last Ditch
30. A Grave Mistake
31. Photo Finish
32. Light Thickens
DONE

#15 Award Winners Challenge
For years I've been working on several personal challenges centered around award winning authors and books.

This year I will be doing three personal challenges that fit into this:

#15A Pulitzer Prize Challenge (10 books)
1. The Way West by A.B. Guthrie Jr. (1950)
2. Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (1960)
3. The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (1967)
4. The Mambo King Plays Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos (1990)
5. A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler (1993)
6. The Known World by Edward P. Jones (2004)
7. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (2008)
8. The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (2021)
9. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2023)
10. Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips (2024)

Current status 94/99 DONE

#15B NL/WPF Challenge (11 books)
1. A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore (WPF 1996)
2. En kat i en tom lejlighed by Wislawa Szymborska (NL 1996)
3. Property by Valerie Martin (WPF 2003)
4. The Road Home by Rose Tremain (WPF 2008)
5. How to be Both by Ali Smith (WPF 2015)
6. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (WPF 2019)
7. Averno by Louise Glück (NL 2020)
8. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (WPF 2020)
9. Jeg er stadig i mørket by Annie Ernaux (NL 2022)
10. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (WPF 2023)
11. Andvake by Jon Fosse (NL 2023)

Current status:
NL - Nobel Laureate - 122/122 ALL DONE
WPF - Women's Prize for Fiction - 16/30 DONE

The goal for this year is to FINISH my personal Nobel Laureate challenge, of reading all the Nobel Laureate Winners. I'm just 4 books away!

#15C De Gyldne Laurbær (The Golden Laurels) Challenge (10 books)
1. Rytteren by H.C. Branner (1950)
2. Døden må have en årsag by Willy-August Linnemann (1959)
3. Operaelskeren (Ny dansk litteratur) by Klaus Rifbjerg (1966)
4. Det by Inger Christensen (1969)
5. Egoisterne by Anna Ladegaard (1973)
6. Fæ og frænde: Syv en halv nats fortællinger om vejene til Rom og Danmark by Ebbe Kløvedal Reich (1977)
7. Himmel og helvede by Kirsten Thorup (1982)
8. De måske egnede by Peter Høeg (1993)
9. Mærkedage by Jens Smærup Sørensen (2007)
10. Dette burde skrives i nutid by Helle Helle (2011)

Danish award
Current status 42/76 DONE

#16 A-Z Author Challenge

Been doing this since 2016!

A - Margaret Atwood
B - Leigh Bardugo
C - Inger Christensen
D - Joanna Rubin Dranger
E - Jonas M. Eriksson
F - Stephanie Foo
G - Lamar Giles
H - Colleen Houck
I - Kazuo Ishiguro
J - Dennis Jürgensen
K - Piper Kerman
L - Anja Leighton
M - Freida McFadden
N - Garth Nix
O - Tommy Orange
P - Anette Price
*Q
R - Anne-Cathrine Riebnitzsky
S - Jens Smærup Sørensen
T - Karen Tang
U - Maren Uthaug
V - Nghi Vo
W - John Williams
*X
*Y - E.H. Young
*Z - Eli Zuzovsky

Danish letters
*Æ
*Ø
*Å

#17 A-Z Title Challenge

Been doing this since 2016!

# - 88%
A - Af stumper og skår
B - Bristede forhåbninger
C - Call Me Joe
D - Det
E - Edderkoppekvindens kys (danish version of Kiss of the Spider Woman)
F - The Familiar
G - The Getaway
H - Hag-Seed
I - It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health
J - Jeg er stadig i mørket
K - En kat i en tom lejlighed
L - The Lantern's Ember
M - Mærkedage
N - Never Let Me Go
O - Orange Is the New Black
P - Pow pow pow
*Q - The Queer Feet: A Father Brown Mystery
R - Rubyfruit Jungle
S - Søvngængeren
T - Tempel
U - The Under Dog and Other Stories
V - Lost Girls - vildfarne piger
W - The Way West
*X
*Y
*Z

Danish letters
*Æ
*Ø - Ørn
*Å

Wow, I can't believe how much reading you do in a year! Enjoy your planning. :)

Wobbley wrote: "Wow, I can't believe how much reading you do in a year! Enjoy your planning. :)"

Thank you :-)

I can't believe how my TBR keeps being >200 books ;)
That is an extra goal for 2025 - to get below that number...

Updated the posts with my pre-chosen books :)

Some excellent choices, Julie! I want to give a shout-out to A Spell of Winter, which I thought was a really unique read. Hope you enjoy them all!

Ooh, thank you for putting Miss or Mrs on my radar. I'm a Wilkie Collins fan and hadn't heard of that one -- it looks really good!

You are the definition of "voracious reader". Enjoy!

Sara wrote: "You are the definition of "voracious reader". Enjoy!"

Thank you Sara :)

Wobbley wrote: "Ooh, thank you for putting Miss or Mrs on my radar. I'm a Wilkie Collins fan and hadn't heard of that one -- it looks really good!"

Yes, I'm looking forward to it too - pretty sure I added to my TBR because someone in this group had read it/planned to read it ;)

Nike, I found The Way West to be a really fascinating book and probably quite different from the others you list. Enjoy!

Terry wrote: "Nike, I found The Way West to be a really fascinating book and probably quite different from the others you list. Enjoy!"

Thank you - the Pulitzer winners are really a varied bunch ;)

Off to a good start with the alphabet challenges - they are so satisfying to do at this time of the year ;-)

Finally made some progress on the group reads challenge :)

You've already done some amazing reading this year!

Wow, you're already finished 5 in new & Old TBR, and it's only February!

Sara wrote: "You've already done some amazing reading this year!"

I agree, I think I've started of with more great reads than I usually would have. Just finished Never Let Me Go that's a 5 star read for me (same as The Remains of the Day which I read some years ago - really a sign that I should be reading more Kazuo Ishiguro).

Wobbley wrote: "Wow, you're already finished 5 in new & Old TBR, and it's only February!"

Well, I read a lot each month and I've been planning Old&New for some months before the start of the year, so I've really been looking forward to those books.

Almost halfway through the year, and all of these are going really well. It's my second year doing the "series challenge" and I really enjoy that it helps me focus on my ongoing challenge with the classic crime fiction :)

Amazing progress Julie! I can't believe how far through Challenge 1 you are -- that one is so hard!

Wobbley wrote: "Amazing progress Julie! I can't believe how far through Challenge 1 you are -- that one is so hard!"

I usually make sure that challenge #1 is made up of books I was planning to read anyway - makes it easier to get through :)
Sometimes I use it to catch up on some of our group reads as well.

Only one book to go - and I will have finished all my challenges!

Wow, you take on some very challenging challenges. Congratulations!

Bravo Julie! I hope you have really enjoyed your reading this year. :)

Wow, Julie, good for you!

Nice job! Wow over 200 books in a year is amazing. I hope to complete more books next year. This year has been below par. I doubt I'll reach your number though!

Great going, Julie! My usual average is only 60 per year.

Thank you all :-)

Finished the last book (Miss or Mrs.? turned out to be a novella, and quite enjoyable).

Time to start planning for 2026

Goodness, you've done so much reading this year! You even did the alternates for Old & New. I was also quite interested to see your progress in the Award Winner's challenge -- well done completing the Novel Prize winners!