Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

*munch* *munch*

Challenge #1 - New & Old TBR
Challenge #2 - Members Choice
Challenge #3 - New Authors
Challenge #4 - Short Story
Challenge #5 - Decade/Century (probably skipping)
Challenge #6 - Group Reads, Buddy Reads, Moderators Run Amok (not sure)
Challenge #7 - Series Books – Start, Continue, Complete
Challenge #8 - Travel the World One Book 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 - Genre Locked? Neglecting Your Favorite Author?
Challenge #15 - Award Winners
Challenge #16 - Terry's Book Chain
Challenge #17 - The Year You Were Born and 100 Years Earlier (probably skipping)
Challenge #18 - A-Z Author
Challenge #19 - A-Z Title
Challenge #20 - No Challenge Here. A Place to List Your 2026 Impulse Reads

Challenge #1 - New & Old TBR aka My Crusty Musty Dusty Clean-up Challenge

1914 and earlier
1. On the Origin of Species
2. Our Mutual Friend
3. The Republic of Plato

1915-2006/New School
4. Damned to Fame
5. More Pricks Than Kicks
6. Unnamable

Six Bookshelf Dust Collectors
7. Cat’s Cradle
8. Explosive Acts: Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Felix Feneon,
9. Galápagos
10. The Master and Margarita
11. Roadside Picnic
12. We

Alternates
A-1. Islands of Abandonment
A-2. Petrushka: The Russian Carnival Puppet Theatre
A-3 The Winter of the Witch

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

1. 18th Century or Older - The Republic of Plato
2. 19th Century - Our Mutual Friend
3. 20th Century - Cat’s Cradle or Galapagos
4. 21st Century - The Winter of the Witch
5. A book of interest from another diner's buffet -
 • Jacques the Fatalist (Darren #18/19 buffet)
6. Members Choice Genre -Science Fiction: We or Roadside Picnic
7. Members Choice Genre - History: Petrushka: The Russian Carnival Puppet Theatre
8. Members Choice Genre - Science: On the Origin of Species
9. Members Choice Genre - Biography: Damned to Fame

Challenge #3 - Expand Your Horizon with New Authors

Seek out at least four (4) authors that you have never previously read, from any genre or era you want.

1. Mark Z. Danielewski author of House of Leaves
2. László Krasznahorkai author of Satantango
3. Arkady Strugatsky author of Roadside Picnic
4. Yevgeny Zamyatin author of We

Challenge #4 - Short Story Challenge
Read 16 short stories.

From Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic:
Set 1
1. A Short Trip Home by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Brute by Joseph Conrad
3. Mr Sleepwalker by Ethel Wilson
4. A Self-Possessed Woman by Julian Barnes
5. Leon Rooke, The Woman Who Talked to Horses
6. William Goyen, The White Rooster
7. Tommaso Landolfi, The Labrenas
8. The Dead Fish by Boris Vian
9. Major Aranda's Hand by Alfonso Reyes
10. Giving Birth by Margaret Atwood
11. The Jewbird by Bernard Malamud
12. The Misanthrope by J. D. Beresford
13. Philip MacDonald, Private - Keep Out!
14. Dreams by Timothy Findley
15. Geoffrey Drayton, Mr Dombey, the Zombie
16. Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Why I Changed into a Nightingale

Set 2
1. The Troll by T. H. White
2. Two Words by Isabel Allende
3. Chen Xuanyou by Ch'ien-niang
4/ The Visiting Star by Robert Aickman
5. Ratanbabu and that Man by Satyajit Ray
6. How It Happened by Arthur Conan Doyle
(already read) Same Time, Same Place by Mervyn Peake
7. The Enigma of Arrival by V. S. Naipaul
8. Faithful Peter by Lion Feuchtwanger
9. Gabriel García Márquez, The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship
10. The House-Hunters by Peter Green
(already read) Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall Paper
11. Eckhardt at a Window by Eric McCormack
12. The Lefthanders by Günter Grass
13. Mr Arcularis by Conrad Aiken
14. The Times My Father Died by Yehuda Amichai
15. Luigi Pirandello, The Haunted House
16. The Finder by Elizabeth Spencer

Set 3
1. James Stephens, Desire
2. The Miraculous Revenge by George Bernard Shaw
3. Room of Blood by Brett Balon
4. The Shadow by Ben Hecht
5. The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke

Challenge #5 - Decade/Century Challenge

Probably skipping.

Challenge 6 - Group Reads, Buddy Reads, or Moderators Run Amok

Not sure.

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

The challenge is to read at least two books.

1. Read The Winter of the Witch to complete The Winternight Trilogy.
2. Read The Unnamable to complete "The Trilogy" Molloy / Malone Dies / The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett.
3. Continue the Dungeon Crawler Carl series with A Parade of Horribles.

Challenge #8 - Travel the World One Book at a Time
Select 5 books, by 5 different authors, from 5 different countries (not your own).

Book Title - Author/Country - Book Setting
1. More Pricks Than Kicks by Samuel Beckett set in Ireland.
2. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov set in Russia.
3. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens set in England
4. The Republic of Plato by Plato set in Greece.
5. Satantango by László Krasznahorkai set in Hungary.

Challenge #9 - Re-reading? - Some do, Some don't

Let us know the titles of five or more books you found worthy of rereading. This year’s challenge is, reread two of your selections.

Books I'd Love to Reread
1. Our Mutual Friend
2. Death, Dying, and the Afterlife: Lessons from World Cultures
3. The Big Questions of Philosophy
4. Exploring Metaphysics
5. Mrs. McGinty's Dead
6. The Mystery of the Blue Train

Read Again in 2026
1.
2.

Challenge #11 - Future Classics

These Five Were Great, I Believe They Will Stand the Test of Time
2002 - Stories of Your Life and Others, genre speculative fiction
2017 - The Bear and the Nightingale, genre historical fiction fantasy
2017 - The Girl in the Tower, genre historical fiction fantasy
2019 - Exhalation, genre speculative fiction
2022 - The Butcher's Masquerade, genre LitrPG
Note: The latter is book 5 of a 10+ part series with an ongoing (as of yet, unresolved) plot. The series, Dungeon Crawler Carl, is a notable example of this relatively new genre, the style of which when paired with the audiobook borders on a multimedia art form. The author was previously a horror fiction writer, so warning: his work is very graphic, emotionally disturbing, and often completely intermingled with unbridled, bawdy, hilarious, and dark humor. It's not for everyone, but it's uniquely creative and cutting edge.

The Future Classic Challenge - List 3 unread books published between 2000-2025 that you feel have the potential to become a classic, and read 1.

Let us know if you think it has a chance at greatness, or will it pass into oblivion.
1. 2000 - House of Leaves
2. 2015 - Solenoid
3. 2019 - The Winter of the Witch

Challenge #12– Fiction/Non-Fiction

Using the below categories or a selection of your own pick two subjects of interest and read a fiction book and a non-fiction book about that subject. Total number of books for this challenge is four.

Eco-Dystopia / Post-Human Landscape
Fiction: Cat’s Cradle
Non-Fiction: Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape

Evolution
Fiction: Galapagos
Non-Fiction: On the Origin of Species

Kafka
Fiction: a book by Kafka
Non-Fiction: essays by Benjamin or Borges (or Beckett?) on Kafka

Proust
Fiction: Swann's Way
Non-Fiction: Proust by Samuel Beckett

Russian Culture
Fiction: The Winter of the Witch
Non-Fiction: Petrushka: The Russian Carnival Puppet Theatre by Catriona Kelly

Samuel Beckett
Fiction: The Unnamable or More Pricks Than Kicks
Non-Fiction: Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett

Challenge #13 - Old and New Linked Categories

Using the below categories or choices of your own, pick two subjects of interest. Link the chosen subjects to an old book 1914 or earlier to a newer book 1915 -present. Total number of books for this challenge is four.

Romantic Historical Fiction
Old - Our Mutual Friend
New - The Winter of the Witch

Galapagos Islands
Old - On the Origin of Species
New - Galapagos

Challenge #14 - Break Your Reading Rut

Part A-Are you Genre Locked?
Part B-Are you Neglecting a Favorite Author?

Genre Selected - Book Chosen
1. Art History - Explosive Acts: Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Felix Feneon, and the Art & Anarchy of the Fin de Siecle
2. Biography - Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett

Neglected Author - Book Chosen
1. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. -Galapagos or Cat’s Cradle
2. Agatha Christie - Mrs. McGinty's Dead or The Mystery of the Blue Train
3. Thomas Bernhard - Wittgenstein’s Nephew or Correction
4. PEREC GEORGES - A Short Treatise Inviting the Reader to Discover the Subtle Art of Go
5. Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky - Autobiography of a Corpse

Challenge #15 - Award Winners
From the below book prize lists, or a prize from your country or local region, seek out and read two award winning books. Please let the group know what prize list or lists you use, as well as the book information.

1. Satantango from Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 2025 László Krasznahorkai.
2. The Unnamable from Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1969 Samuel Beckett.

Challenge #16 Terry's Book Chain

Not sure.

Challenge #17 - The Year You Were Born and 100 Years Earlier

Probably not.

Challenge #20? No, Just a Place to List Your 2026 Impulse Reads

Use this thread any way you wish.

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Wow, your New & Old TBR is so ambitious, and you already have more than 2 iterations of the Short Story challenge planned! I'm a fan of Ted Chiang too. Have fun with your planning. :)

Wobbley wrote: "Wow, your New & Old TBR is so ambitious, and you already have more than 2 iterations of the Short Story challenge planned! I'm a fan of Ted Chiang too. Have fun with your planning. :)"


Aw, you're so kind. Now if I read with as much effort as I plan, I'd be in better shape.

The first time I ever completed the New & Old TBR will be this year. It's really hard, but it was so helpful in getting me to actually commit to books collecting dust.

I'm reading short stories from Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic, and I'm halfway done but had to put on hold until 2026. So that's where that long short story list comes from.